Outback Views

How's Work?

2009-03-23T08:35:00.002+11:00

The common question I get asked by most people I spend any time talking with is about work. How's work going? As a general rule, it seems we look to use work to define/understand someone as we get to know them - or perhaps it is more simple than that, that we are just looking for common ground. Same as asking a child how school is going. But I could imagine the question becoming a major issue for someone who was long-term unemployed, and that they would be tempted to become reclusive and avoid conversation as a result.

But apart from that, my friends and family know that work is very important to me, and that "going well" in my job is something I strive for. Add to that - the move to Queensland has all been about change on so many levels, including my job, and therefore asking me about work is important to understanding how I am actually handling the transition.

But dealing with the issue of my job in an environment like this is quite tricky. This job I do clearly affects a lot of people. I am contemplating a decision at the moment that will directly affect three or four hundred families - but the issue is confidential at this point. When you are blogging, there is a temptation to think you are keeping a private diary. I get little feedback at all from readers of my blog, so I have no particular idea if there are five or fifty people who read it. Then another layer - mostly I write for friends and family back in Melbourne to keep them updated on what is happening. So - maybe no-one in Queensland actually reads it - I know of few people in this state who even know I have a blog. Yet, while I keep this blog on the web, it is readily available to anyone who wants to read it, and I cannot control who takes advantage of it. So - I can hardly "open up". And even in person, I rarely say what is happening in my job - too easy for people to accidentally pass on things I didn't really want to be public knowledge.

Therefore, I generally say "good", "going well", or the recent favourite - "busy". We like to say to each other that we are busy in our jobs because (a) most of us are, and anyway (b) we are probably supposed to be busy, so we better keep with the program, and (c) it creates a better impression of us than saying we are bored or at a loose end. I occasionally hear people say "work's busy" and think they have no real idea of what a busy job might be - where you probably will never get to the bottom of the in-tray let alone tackle the miriad of issues you could take on if only there was time, and where everyone you meet seems to think it would be good if you could spend some time doing something they think is important (and that no-one else has actually heard of). I think I can justifiably claim to be busy at work. There is a lot going on, and a lot to get my head around. Mum would probably cut in there and say "you wouldn't be happy if you weren't busy" - which is true. But it would be nice to have more time for creative projects rather than being overwhelmed by the reactive things that need to be addressed. But one of the truths in life is that you are generally paid to do things that people need you to do, not what you want to do. Unless they happen to co-incide...

But apart from the usual generic labels, how's work?

It is tough. There are a lot of decisions that need to be made around here that are not easy, and in many cases it would have been better to make them some time ago, but they have not been made. I'm willing to make them, but interestingly you soon find out why they weren't made earlier - every decision you make has consequences and you aren't necessarily going to enjoy them. Despite this, with a few tough decisions already taken and plenty to come, to date I am feeling quite empowered. Like a newly elected politician claiming a mandate for change, I think I came into the role saying I would have fresh eyes and a desire to improve things, and people are largely giving me a go at that. But not on all issues. On some, I have already taken them back and forth a few times to the people I need to convince in an attempt to get commitment to change, and have been knocked back. Changing the world and keeping the right people happy in the process is tough. No other word for it.

The most significant thing about the job that is different is the amount of financial responsibility I have. To be honest, I look back to my job in Victoria and think I underplayed the role Jon played on the finance side of things. Now I have many of those responsibilities, I am finding it challenging. Money is one of those things that polarises people. Money people love the figures. Non-money people don't want to know. Mostly I am working with non-money people, and trying to encourage them to take notice of the money. The money world is black and white. You can only spend each cent once, and once it is gone, you cannot spend it elsewhere. Every decision to spend is also therefore a decision not to spend elsewhere - sometimes several "elsewheres". I am encountering opposition to the idea that people take notice of this. The general thought is "that's your job". I am sometimes stern in reminding people that we are all responsible for staying in budget and spending money wisely. I am finding this a challenge. And financially we face some genuine problems. Not enough people have taken enough care for long enough to avoid falling into problems. There are tough issues to face up to right now to sort those issues out.

Yet - in case that sounds a little negative - I must say that there is a great harvest in the offering here. There are some significant problems to work through, but beyond them, there are great opportunities. I can see them, and I look forward to them. I hope to keep the energy going for the first couple of years to address the big points that get in the way at present so we can move on to the positive world beyond.

How's work? Complicated. Interesting. Amazing. Annoying. Challenging. Stimulating. Frustrating. Exciting. Probably easier just to say "great"!

Back to the Mountains

2009-03-09T10:02:00.002+11:00

W ehave continued with our policy of getting out and doing something on Saturdays as a family, as we become more familiar with our new environment here in Queensland. We have had some wonderful days together already, and strangely every time we do one, we seem to think of a couple of others to follow up with.

Last Saturday, we went back to the mountains where this all began - or at least - to a nearby mountain. Binna Burra Lodge is similarly located on the top of one of the ranges that peel off to the north from the Border Range, just like O'Reilley's. There is a really amazing walk that goes from one to the other - around 7 hours it takes. I'd like to do that walk sometime! In a straight line the two plcations are around 7 km apart, but by road it is close to 80 km. You head off down a parallel valley, eventually climbing your way up to the plateau on the top and then along to the lonely peak. Despite being similar in terms of location, they are visually quite different - with O'Reilley's much more deep in the rainforest whereas Binna Burra is on the peak of a hill and features some magnificent views. We set off to do a slightly longer walk on Saturday, and soon found that once you got away from the lodge and approaching road, you were back in the heart of deep rainforest, and it was absolutely magnificent. We chose to do the Caves Circuit Walk, which spent almost four kilometres in the forest. Despite all the advice to the contrary, we started at the top and walked down - starting in deep and thick rainforest, and gradually emerging into more open woodland. On the way down, our track zig-zagged down a steep hillside, following a tiny stream as it flowed over waterfalls and into a ferny gully. Then, we turned away from the creek and found our way through a series of shallow caves, carved out of the softer rock layers. Once we reached the bottom, we had our lunch at the information centre, and Nathan and I walked back up the road to collect our car. A lovely walk!

This was the first time we really went back to the same kind of place, although most places we have been have suggested other visits nearby would be just as good. Some of the other places we have visited are;

- A trip on the ferry into the heart of Brisbane, under the Storey Bridge, and stopping off at Southbank to have a swim at the beach and playgrounds.

- A visit to Mapleton, to the Baptist Union's campsite there, which has a lovely canoe lake and fantastic swimming pools. On the way home, we kept up a long-held family tradition, and dropped into the Big Pineapple for an ice-cream.

- A day at the Queensland Museum and Gallery of Modern Art. We also went on the big ferris wheel on that day, while we were out getting some lunch.

- An exploratory drive to Wyvenhoe and Mount Glorious on the way to a friend's place for a House Warming and dinner. Although we didn't stop off and do a lot on this trip, it certainly inspired us to return to a number of picnic spots that look great.

- A fabulous morning spent exploring the Mount Coot-tha Botanical Gardens on foot, before heading up the hill to find a quiet and beautiful picnic spot.

Our family times together are proving to be very positive and informative as well as entertaining. We are loving the times we have together, and loving getting to know more about our new state as we do.

Home Sweet Home Part 2

2009-02-27T18:05:00.002+11:00

When we arrived to live in Queensland, I guess we thought it would be pretty simple to get the house thing sorted out. We had the land, we had picked the house. We just had some little issues to sort through.

But during the 18 hours or so of driving to get to Brisbane, we fell to talking, and we thought about some issues. We didn't like the master bedroom being downstairs while the other bedrooms were upstairs. We thought the kids' rooms were simply too large, and would encourage "anti-family" behaviour. We actually didn't like the design of our room all that much. There was probably just a bit too much house on our block of land. And did we really need a two spare bedrooms AND a separate study? We decided that before we actually signed up, we would at least have a look at some alternative designs.

Well, we kind of did look, but in reality we didn't stray too far away. Mainly this was becuase there were so many features of the house that we did like, and we hardly wanted to start again. The same basic design from Jennings that we wanted to build came in about five or six varieties - all with slight variations in floor plans. And as we looked through it all, we suddenly realised that the 415 was actually nearly perfect - addressing all the issues we had with the 470, and retaining nearly all the good features.

So, we ended up not looking anywhere else, but going back to Jennings and asking them to resubmit their plans to us based on the 415 instead. Then we got down to the practicalities, and realised that our fridge and freezer would not fit side by side in the kitchen, so we had better put a power point in the laundry for the freezer. Then again, did we really want to make the decision, after finally getting a decent sized laundry for the first time in our marriage to put a freezer in it? What if... and pretty soon we found ourselves wanting to redesign the entire kitchen. Our consultant warned us that this would get very expensive - but we suddenly realised we had seen the kitchen of our dreams in another house in the same display centre. What if we picked up the kitchen from one place and simply superimposed it into our house? Then all we had to do was simply extend the fridge area (where there was now space), change the stove for a wall oven and cooktop, and... yes, you're right. It wasn't actually all that simple... but pretty soon we had a design we liked.

So now we were close, but I found myself getting into pedantic detail about downpipes, powerpoints, gas and power and water for our outdoor areas, move a door here, remove a wall there, and so on and so on, until the entire thing was whirring around in my head at night and starting to seem silly. But finally, it did all come together, and we were ready to sign. On Monday night, we leafed our way through the pages of the contract and plans, carefully signing each. And by the time we got through it all, we were absolutely blown away by how wonderful it was all looking. Yes - it had been a fair bit of mucking around but in the end we were wrapped with the results. We signed the last page and then cheered! It was done! We were on the way!

What happens now? Well, the first few days have seen only a couple of things happen. Our plans have been lodged with council, and with the Stocklands Covenants Department. I am not sure which is scarier! There are plenty of council requirements, but they look in reasonable shape. The Covenants thing is even more complicated. Building in Augustine Heights means you have to ensure your house complies with their rules - and there is a not-insubstantial book that explains them all. Some of the rules are very simple - for example; roofs must be made of tiles or colourbond. Some are more complicated - such as the area of windows that you must have facing the street. Others are more controversial. When Shell's sister heard about the fact that we could not leave our house as exposed brick - she declared the entire process rediculous! There are covenants about landscaping, fencing, car storage, sheds, water tank locations, retaining wall design, driveway surfacing and so on - the list goes on. In all, the covenants have probably required us to add on at least $20,000 worth of stuff to our house we may not have thought about doing. This would be upsetting for some people, but it actually does not worry us terribly much. The result of the covenants being applied to the whole estate is that the housing is uniformly excellent in standard. The rules do not limit creativity in design, so there is still a great variety of interesting places, but it does mean that every place has been carefully thought about and designed. When you drive into the suburb, you are struck by how nice it all looks. So - we were happy enough to comply - but now our designs need to be certified by them. In reality it ought to present few problems. Jennings have done a lot of houses in the suburb, and they surely know what they are up to. I guess we'll find out in the next few weeks!

Ahead of us stretches the months of building, but we are excited to be on the way.

Home Sweet Home

2009-02-23T08:34:00.002+11:00

So many aspects of our move to Queensland have gone remarkably smoothly and well, that it has got to the point that anything that didn't just drop into place sort of seemed - out of place - if you know what I mean? In reality, one of the few things that hasn't gone to plan is issue of purchasing a house. Which - as you could imagine - is not a trivial thing.

Our plan on day 1 was ambitious (I can see that in retrospect). We were going to come up to Queensland for a week in early November, and among other things dedicate a few days to looking around to find our dream house, which we would secure on the basis of an early January settlement. We'd then come home, sell our Melbourne home at auction on 29th November, with a month settlement, and so we would have the money in time to settle on the Queensland place. Well - what could go wrong with that? The obvious danger was the mismatch of settlement periods, so I had a talk with the bank about obtaining bridging finance secured against our Melbourne house. They more than happily agreed to this, and so we found ourselves pre-approved for briding finance which would enable us to put in an offer on properties in Brisbane without worrying too much about the sale down in Melbourne.

Well the trip to Brisbane went ahead, and had been preceeded by a good deal of internet research so we had a series of favourite properties, and appointments with various agents to have a look. Our region of interest was defined by distance from the school we intended to send the kids to, and the road with the reputation as the worst peak hour traffic problem in Australia - the Ipswich Motorway. My view was that we needed to be on the same side of the Motorway as the school was - which meant we were looking in suburbs to the south. Redbank Plains, Bellbird Park, and Camira were therefore all under consideration. Other suburbs like Collingwood Park carried dire warnings from our Queensland family - and although I suspected they were being a little mellodramatic, we decided to stay away. And then there was the outer ring of suburbs slightly further away but still in the scope - Springfield, Springfield Lakes, Augustine Heights and Brookwater. Curiously, after looking at literally hundreds of houses on line, all our favourites turned out to be in the same suburb - Springfield Lakes. So compelling had these places looked, that we drove up the Newell Highway at the start of November almost convinced that we would be moving to Springfield Lakes.

Unfortunately, within 24 hours, that ideal seemed in tatters. We drove into Springfield Lakes for the first time on Sunday afternoon get get the lie of the land, and we were stunned by the tiny blocks, narrow streets, and congested lifestyle of the place. We drove about and found our preferred houses, all squished into the back-blocks of the area, and felt genuine concern about the lack of space. Although - to be fair - there were a few exceptions here and there - places with a bit more room, and our pre-trip absolute favourite house turned out to be one of them. So - maybe it was not a total loss. On the way back home, we drove into Augustine Heights, another suburb on our list. And surprisingly, it was a different world. Lots of space and plenty of land - a completely different feel. We immediately fell in love with Augustine Heights, which had the effect of being yet another nail in the coffin of Springfield Lakes, even before we had looked at a single house. In Augustine Heights was a display village, and we decided to have a look at one. The Jennings house we looked at was really lovely and we thought looked great. Next door was another ex-display house now for sale, and turned out to be handled by the same agent who was selling our favourite house in Springfield Lakes - so we could talk with her about this in the morning as well. Anyway, we headed back to Shell's sister's place amazed at how our entire thought processes had been turned around in 3 hours.

It gradually turned into a frustrating week. We never got to the point of loving Springfield Lakes, and the houses we had loved on the Internet were not quite as good in person. The various agents we talked with all had properties in Augustine Heights as well, and so we spent a lot of time shuffling between the suburbs and getting ideas. Soon, all our favourite houses were in Augustine Heights, and we even took the step of taking Shell's two sisters to our two favourites to see that they thought about picking between them. We were loving the area, and loving the houses, but just could not quite make one work for us. They were also a step more expensive than in Springfield Lakes, and that took us beyond our pre-approved limits. We dithered on.

Then came an absolute surprise. An agent we had written off, who had given us very little to consider when we had dedicated some time to him earlier in the week, rang me back and told me he had found "our house". Remarkably, it was back in Springfield Lakes. Reluctantly at first, we went and looked, but once there we could see no reason to do anything but love the place. It needed almost nothing done to it to make it ideal for us. And it was affordable. In the end we simply had to try to buy it. We made a good offer - which turned out to be quite a complicated thing to do - and then waited. We had planned to head back to Melbourne on Saturday afternoon, but as we got closer to lunch time, we still had not heard an answer. We range the agent to find out what was happening. First it seemed the owner was angling for more money. We could offer some more, but we did not want to offer as much as they were seeming to demand. Still the agent worked on. And in the end - the truth. The couple were not united about selling. One wanted to, the other did not. It is not a dispute where there is middle ground. In the end, after hours of debate, they took the house off the market and we lost our only hope.

It was a dark time - because it seemed like the week had been wasted. And yet, it seemed to me that we had been driving around the answer all week, but not acknowledging it. The first display house we looked at in Augustine Heights was beautiful - we had seen nothing better. Of course, we had disregarded it because we were looking for something established, not to build. But wouldn't it be worth a look? We drove back into Augustine Heights and again looked at the house. Yes - it was wonderful. Then we visited the land sales office. The lady was lovely, and happily gave us some information about the development. She then marked up a map and mentioned that certain blocks were on special this weekend. A builder had bought them on spec, failed to deliver, and had returned them. The developers wanted them gone! If she could sell them this weekend, there was a $50,000 discount on offer. Now - that sounded like a con! But, as we looked around, it did indeed seem like almost all land in the suburb was around $50k more than we were being offered this block for. Anyway, she said to us, just drive around and have a look and see if you fall in love with a particular block. Of course, that seemed rediculous as well! Land was land, and it seemed pretty vanilla in the development areas, even in Augustine Heights.

So we drove off, and to our great shock, came face to face with a block of land that we literally fell in love with. It was up on a hill, across the road from a beautiful park, and in a lovely section of the suburb. Beautiful.

We again delayed our departure, and spent Sunday trying to work out whether our dream land and our dream house would go together. Surprisingly, for quite some time it looked like they may not. It was surprising because we had become totally used to the idea that God was leading us through all this, and had closed all sorts of doors to bring us to this point. So - why would there now be a problem? It was this day that we got to know David, who would end up being very important in the entire process. His response was that the land was too steep and too small to hold such a big house. He had a point, I confess, and so I allowed him to talk us into considering an alternative block. But we didn't love that one, and in a sudden moment, I realised how we could do this and convince David to go along with our original plan.

By the end of the day, we had purchased the land, received our $50,000 discount, and asked David to get on with designing our house to go on it. We headed back to Melbourne early the next morning thinking we knew the answer. But there was still plenty to go on this journey...

Coming home

2009-02-16T22:08:00.002+11:00

So we've moved to Queensland and settled ourselves in. Quite seriously, it is hard to believe how much has happened in the 48 days since we drove into the state. We've got a house to live in - in which we feel pretty comfortable, I am pretty involved with things at work, the kids have started school and are getting on well, we've found a church and are enjoying our time there, we've re-established the connections with Queensland family on a new footing, we're driving about in a new car, we've started to become familiar with and enjoy our new surroundings, and we are nearly ready to sign the contract on the construction of our "real" home. Could it really only be 7 weeks ago that we were still in Victoria and all these hurdles remained to be jumped?

But - having said that - something interesting and strange and unexpected occurred a few days ago. I was at work and needed to head out to the bank to do some things. Once the business of the outing was done, I intended to come straight back to work but found my carpark only allowed me to turn the other way - sending me off around a block I had not explored before. Never one to be overwhelmed by such things, I drove on and turned down another street and decided to genuinely seek out a different way back rather than U-turn at the quickest opportunity and get back onto safe ground. Sure enough, within a kilometre or so, I suspected I knew where my road would take me and not too much later it indeed delivered me to where I was expecting. I turned left and headed back towards the office from the opposite direction to which I usually approach, but with rapidly increasing familiarity found my way back to the end of our street.

And then it happened. I turned into the street - could see the office complex in the distance, and just like that, for the first time, I felt like I was coming home. I studied the emotion I was feeling with some alarm - could it be that after so many years of being a Victorian, I was suddenly a Queenslander? Well - not completely I suppose, but there was no doubt that I was suddenly sensing that this was my home - that this was where I was, and that this place in some sense now defined me...

What a strange thing. What a surprise. It was particularly a surprise for me because I had lived interstate before - for almost 7 years I had a Sydney address. And there was an aspect to which I had never quite felt at home in Sydney. A part of the issue - I supposed - was that for the vast majority of my time in Sydney, I retained regular trips back to Melbourne for work and family purposes. These trips - generally more frequently than monthly - were usually of 6 days duration or thereabouts, and in retrospect probably meant I retained a Victorian connection despite living the majority of my time in another state. It also meant I had a Melbourne address for certain correspondence. And indeed, some organisations did continue to contact me via my Melbourne address for the entire time I was in Sydney. It would seem like a part of me did not ever make the move. But this Queensland move seems so much more definite than that.

Indeed - 48 days in another state without a visit back - had I done that before? Without detailed records, it was hard to believe that there was not at least once in those 7 years that I did not stay out of Victoria for 48 days or more. But it could be that it didn't happen. Even if I had stayed out of Victoria for longer than that - it was a job of constant movement and travel, so it would have been impossible one suspects that I would have stayed in Sydney for that many days consecutively. Of course, in thinking about it, our 1974 trip around Australia involved being out of Victoria for 64 consecutive days, but that might be regarded as different because we were most definitely on holidays, and indeed hardly ever spent two days in the same place. So - could it be that this was the greatest number of consecutive days I have ever stayed in a place outside of Victoria? Really - it could be. Already!

It's subtle, it's hard to grapple with - but suddenly I am feeling like I am home here. It's a funny feeling...

No other story

2009-02-10T08:14:00.002+11:00

There can be no other story than to say how terrible the news from my home state of Victoria is in the face of the worst natural disaster in Australian history - the February bush fires.

I had seen the weather report for Saturday that Melbourne was expecting another day in the mid-40's (an extraordinary temperature, but a mark already a couple of times this summer). We proceeded with our plans without giving it a lot of thought - having a lovely day at Mapleton, and ending up with a McCallum family tradition of having an ice-cream at the Big Pineapple. Our first hint of trouble was on the news coming home, that both the Princes and South Gippsland Hwys were cut by fire. Two thoughts immediately struck - firstly that this means the areas of Sale and Lakes Entrance were completely cut off, and secondly that it would have to be a pretty big fire to cut both these roads which are 50 km or so apart. Upon getting home and finishing tea, we decided to ring my parents to see how they were getting on. And they had more news. It had got to 46.2 - an all time record in Melbourne, and that there were a lot of fires. Mum sent so far as saying that she had clear memories of Victoria's two worst fire days in 1939 and 1983 and throught these were worse than both. How devestatingly correct she turned out to be.

Then came our time of frustration. There was hardly a mention of Victorian fires on the 60 second news breaks of Saturday night on Queensland television. If they had time for natural disaster stories, they parochially covered the Queensland floods. So - come Sunday morning, it came as a huge shock when our pastor announced he would be praying for the families of the 35 victims killed in the flames. He did that - but no more. At home, we struggled for news. The TV stations pushed on with golf and surf life saving and cricket, with only the cricket having anything to say about the fires. Our best source of information was the news service on the mobile phone, through which we first heard about Marysville and Kinglake and the ever-rising toll. Finally - at around 4:30pm, Channel 7 changed programming and crossed to a news service focussing on the fires. Other stations caught on. By 6:00, there was no other story.

As of now, the disaster continues to unfold. The death toll rises regularly - they now say 173 but expect it to get worse. They've been saying "expect it to get worse" for days now. The fires are still burning. Fires this well established can barely be controlled, let alone extinguished, but anything other than heavy rain. And it has not rained heavily in Victoria this year so far. The story grows more terrible by the moment - there is no way to simply describe it. But - there are plenty of news services out there doing their best - I won't compete with them.

Personally the story hits hard, although we have not heard of any direct connections we have with people who have suffered major losses or death. To that extent - we know many have suffered far more. But for us... Marysville is a town I have enjoyed since being a boy, and had many weekends there. it was one place I introduced to Shelley where she immediately fell in love with it as much as I had. We have had a couple of lovely romantic weekends at guest houses in the town and loved our time there. It's... gone. Kinglake is an area I knew little about until I worked at BUV and was responsible for the property at Gum Creek. The property was a camp site - both formal and informal - for people over the years. Almost 400 hectares of natural bush and a few buildings scattered through. But it was run down and would cost too much to fix up. Ultimately I sold the property to a young guy keen to establish a wildlife sanctuary. Today, I know nothing of the fate of the property or the guy, but I suspect it is burnt out and the young bloke's dream at least is shattered. I rationalise this - imagine if I had allowed it to be converted back to a campsite and had a couple of hundred people tucked away in the bush around the property...

I am also desperately concerned about the churches and people all over Victoria that I had so much to do with up until two months ago. And to date I am not aware of major losses. One report said two Baptist churches had been burned, but I have not had that substantiated yet. Last time I spoke with the Insurance Manager he was not aware of any. All over the state, our churches are staging posts and places of refuge for the bushfire effort. We can only pray and hope this continues to go well.

And the bottom line? The fires are still burning. It's not over yet. We pray for relief. We pray for an end to it.

My former colleagues are busy making preparation to assist. They are running an appeal - see details on www.buv.com.au if you can help. May there be some light in this the darkest hour.

School's In

2009-02-03T08:43:00.002+11:00

Probably the most significant day yet of our time in Queensland occurred yesterday, when all three kids started school. For Ben it was the first day ever - but if he had any nerves or misgivings, they were not on show for us to spot! Nathan too seemed to be full steam ahead - bring it on. Stephanie was probably the most nervous, but even she was looking forward to getting back into the environment where she had other girls to play with and mental stimulation as well.

That leaves Mum and Dad. I think Shelley in particular was taken by how big of a day this was - that after nearly 10 years since Nathan was born, she was for the first time going to have all the children off her hands for hours at a time on a daily basis. I decided to take some time off work and go along with the family to make sure it all went well.

At home - each of the kids got themselves dressed up in their smart new uniforms, then presented themselves to me to get my adoring encouragement. They did look great! Camera out, it was photos of each child individually, just the boys, turn this way, turn that way, stop screwing your face up, and in the end a few nice photos of our first day. Then it was photos of them picking up their lunch, walking out the front, putting their bags in the car, ready to go off... ok, I was a little taken by the whole thing!

Off we drove. It's a strange trip to school - because there are four distinctive ways you could drive there and it was extremely difficult to predict which one might be the fastest or the best. I chose the longest of the routes which also was mostly on the motorway network so going at higher speeds. It worked reasonably well - but it will be weeks, I suspect, before we know which one is really the best.

Scenes on the road outside the school were chaotic. And even inside the gate there were parents with cameras clinging to tiny children everywhere and no-one seems really convinced of where they were supposed to be or what happened next. We had decided I would take Nathan and Stephanie to settle them in their classes, and Shelley would look after Ben. Fortunately, the class rooms for the two bigger ones were only a few rooms apart. After some thought, I decided to take Nathan to his class first, and after he had met his teacher and given me a quick kiss, he was off to sit in his seat, meet his guide for the day, and basically start to settle in. Stephie was really good right up until the point we got to the door of her class room and suddenly she felt a little hesitant. Most of the kids were already there, sitting on the floor, and looking very at home. She clung hard to my hand for a few moments, but then her teacher noticed her arrival, came over, and with a few words encouraged her along. After a few moments, I was confident to leave her as well and the two of them were done.

It then took me quite a while to find where Shelley and Ben had got to. The school has a bit of a maze-like quality, and with certain doors closed and locked (why I don't really know) it was more complicated than usual. But, after a few minutes, I found them - Ben off playing and exploring his new world, and Mummy still talking with the teacher and going through details of the preparations made to deal with Ben's allergies. After several more photos, we were done. We finally made it away and back to the car. It was amazing how the school yard had taken on a more peaceful quality in the 30 minutes we had been there! We found the car and explored another of the possible routes to school as an alternative route home.

Over dinner that night, the stories came flooding out of the children about their first day. Everything positive, everything exciting. It's only the start, but it could hardly have been much better. And that makes all sorts of things easier for us all...

Weather with attitude

2009-01-27T08:30:00.003+11:00

Moving from Melbourne to Brisbane evokes more comments about weather than any other subject. Everyone in Melbourne seems to be convinced that Brisbane weather is disgustingly hot and humid. Everyone in Brisbane seems to be convinced that Melbourne's weather is appallingly cold and wet. Rumours of both - I must report - are greatly exaggerated. One friend who has experienced plenty of both explained it to me that there are a couple of months of hot stuff in summer in Brisbane and a couple of months of cold stuff in Melbourne in winter, but other than that both climates are quite livable.

Presumably January is one of those hot months in Brisbane, and having experienced it first hand for the first time - I was beginning to think I had it licked. It really hadn't been that bad. The temperature wandered up to the 28-32 range every day, and dropped to around 20 every night. We have slept with a sheet and the fan running almost every night, and the windows on our house are almost constantly open. We are both fortunate and unfortunate with our house. The fortunate bit is that it catches the breeze - as it is on a bit of a hill, and has good windows on both the north and south ends - and through comes a cooling wind. Which is just as well, because the bad news is that our air conditioning unit has not worked since we moved in, and still today is broken.

The a/c unit is our major (tempting to say only) problem with the house. Shelley and I between us have made perhaps two dozen calls to the agent asking when it was going to be fixed. We finally got an electrician to the house to fix the wiring, which had been destroyed by an animal of some sort (let's assume a dog... anything else is just too nasty to picture from the previous tenants). But then we find that electricals aside - the unit does not work. Again we wait and wait. Finally, we secure an appointment from an air conditioning man for Saturday. We could hardly wait.

When Saturday dawned, it turned out to be the worst day we had experienced since moving up. It was so hot and humid that moving caused you to sweat. I had got up early and done some tidying up in the yard with my new edge trimmer, then collapsed inside for a couple of hours, drinking copious amounts water in an attempt to recover. Shelley was doing some vacuuming - the sweat literally dripping off her. By lunch time we were grumpy and irrational and struggling. Of course - the delays were inteminably, but eventually the A/C man showed up around 3:30, and after about an hour of playing - declared the unit totally dead and needing to be replaced. When that would happen depended on the owner. My anger at this situation boiled over - the house had sat empty for weeks before we had rented it and they could have easily noticed the A/C wasn't working and replaced it - but instead it had to wait for us - and then for the 29th day or our rental agreement, before it was even declared that the unit needed replacing.

There was nothing to do but battle on. Tucked away we had a little wading pool given to the kids by Josh some years earlier. We pulled it out and set it up, and indeed it changed their mood considerably. Shelley and I had another shower, another change of clothes, and battled on. Sunday morning, we left 45 minutes early for church and drove around to look at the area - after all - the car was air conditioned! Then we decided to head up to Toowoomba to see Shell's parents for Sunday afternoon. Toowoomba sits atop the Great Dividing Range and invariably has less humidity than Brisbane, even if it is just as hot.

Mind you - as we were leaving, things changed. The humidity suddenly "broke", and stormy rain lashed out. If I hadn't been dressed ready to go to my in-laws, I could have been tempted to go out and stand in the rain for 10 minutes to get some relief. At that moment I remembered the words of so many residents of Darwin and the far north as they talked about the build up and the breaking of the wet season. My first experience of a mini-build-up had been a bit hard, and I had struggled. But we'd made it through, even without air conditioning, and maybe next time I would be more ready for it.

The curious thing, I realised later, is that from Melbourne, you might have missed the significance of this weather event. The temperature was only one or two degrees higher than usual, and there were few other signs on the reports. At last the expression "it's not the heat, it's the humidity" started to make sense. A colleague told how they flew one day from Adelaide to Townsville. In Adelaide it was 39 degrees and dry - in Townsville it was 33 degrees but close to 100% humidity. In Adelaide it was warm, but in Townsville, he nearly died.

But one bad day does not a summer ruin. Other than this - I have been enjoying the stable, warm conditions. And I am sure I will enjoy it come winter time! But for that day - it was weather with attitude, no doubt!

Outback Where?

2009-01-23T18:13:00.002+11:00

With all the recent focus on the family's move to Queensland - longer term readers might be wondering what has happened about my ORIGINAL purpose of this blog - to talk outback issues.

Sorry - I have been off topic, and I will get back there from time to time, but right at the moment I am definitely in a different world. Just how different is brought home almost every moment when I am out and about. One of the notable features of life since moving to Brisbane has been the almost constant view of...forest. When we finally get into our new home - we will have forest views off the balcony. For the moment we don't - our views are limited to the backs of other houses, but that's only temporary. The drive to work - 35 km across the suburbs includes a section through the Greenbank Military Reserve - thick with forest. A little further on, as you cross the Brisbane River there is again forest all around. Not much later, the road passes through the Brisbane Forest Park - which is well named. When I finally arrive at work, I find I am responsible for a fairly large section of land with some lovely trees out the front, and out the back is a bush reserve. In reality, I don't think I have ever been more confronted by forest on a daily basis, and while these are for the most part not extensive areas of land, they are certainly beautifully untouched. In the cases of our little bush reserve at work and the forest around the River, they are quite luxuriant; bordering on sub-tropical. The other day, I explored an alternative route home across the back of Mount Cootha - a little further but less traffic. It was not any faster, mind you, because I had swapped freeway for a hilly track... but you should have seen the forest that route took me through! Amazing.

So - while I have swapped one suburban experience for another, there is no doubt that this is quite different to Melbourne in respect of the vegetation you see. Literally every tree I saw on the drive from work to the office in Melbourne was selected and cultivated - and very few represented species from the natural bush that once covered the area. Particularly around home, even when there were some sections of natural bush preserved, it was typically tea-tree, coastal banksias and other scrubby species. Not what you would call forest! My own yard in Melbourne had a disproportionate number of trees for its size - but virtually none of them were native to Victoria. Here, I seem to be near constantly surrounded by extensive patches of natural, impressive green forest.

All of which means - the outback is far away. Of course, if you drive off to the west, you start to find yourself in some pretty remote country before a whole long time, but it is really hard to make the mental leap from here. When I stop and think about it, I miss it. Mostly I have been too busy to stop and think, but right now, I do.

Of course, the outback will wait for me - it always does. One of the things I love is that when you go back to the outback, its still there. Just like before. Pretty much like it was 200 years ago, or 2,000 years ago. So - I'll get there. But I suspect I have a few things to do first. There is a fair section of Queensland that can justifiably be called outback. One thing that has surprised me a bit is how few Baptist Churches there are in that section of the state. Like the vast majority of the people, the churches cling in great numbers to the coastal strip. So - maybe there will not be quite as much outback involved with this job as I might have thought there would be. Still - there will be opportunities...

Weekend Retreat

2009-01-19T08:19:00.002+11:00

New state - new sights to see. I have a love of "knowing my way around" and I've got a lot to learn in Queensland. Add to that - we have deliberately decided not to get so involved with all the church responsibilities we had in Melbourne, so we do have more free time on weekends. Consequently, we have adopted a policy that we will do a family outing together each Saturday, and explore the areas around Brisbane together.

Our first outing was to somewhere I had been before, although briefly, and only with Josh and Ness. I therefore knew enough to know Shelley would love it. We headed up to O'Reilley's in Lamingon National Park atop the magnificent Green Mountains. Barely 90 minutes drive from home, and that including a very leisurely climb into the mountains, there is a veritable oasis of wonder. Sitting just north of the NSW/Qld border and atop a plateau in the Macpherson Range (the watershed of which is the border line), O'Reilley's Guest House is surrounded by dense and complex rain forest. A wonderful place for a picnic or cafe meal, not to mention to stay if you had more time, it is surrounded by a network of sensational walking tracks taking you deep into the rainforest proper.

Getting there is at least half the fun. The road leaves the little village of Canungra, winds along a pretty valley between steep sided hills, then crosses the river and starts to climb in earnest. After six or seven kilometres, you reach the top of the ridge, and are presented wtih dramatic views of the valley you have just left as well as the next one across. The road then follows this ridge to the south, ever increasing in height, and the views in either direction continue to broaden. Finally, the steepest part of the climb is over and you arrive on the plateau - which is in itself sloped with the highest part on the southern edge. Almost immediately, the woodlands give way to rainforest, and the road disappears into a tunnel of dense foliage - for much of the route, only enough has been cleared for a single lane of traffic, and even this weaves between the biggest of the trees. For much of the rest of the trip to O'Reilley's the rainforest gets denser and deeper and despite the bright sunny day it is like driving into the dusk. Headlights on, you pick your way ahead, generally at little more than the signposted 40 km/h limit. Oncoming cars are tricky, but after a while you find yourself happy to pull into one of the passing bays provided and let them go as it gives you a few more moments to appreciate the forest that surrounds you.

By the time we arrived at O'Reilley's, to our disbelief, it had become cool - almost cold. Our warm summer outfits were suddenly quite inadequate. The air was moist with condensation - we were literally in the cloud, although it was only light. The balcony at the cafe at O'Reilley's gives a bit of a view of the valley far below, but for the most part this is not a lookout so much as a rainforst experience. We headed off along the boardwalk through the forst to see more - and a few minutes later found ourselves at the famous tree top walk. There are a few of these in Australia now, but this is the original one and perhaps the most remarkable. It is also free, although you are asked to make a donation and most were happy to reach into their pockets by the end of the walk. The semi-circle walk is strung between trees up to 30 metres above the floor of the forst and it swings and bumps about in the breeze and as you walk. At the highest point, you find yourself mid-way up an immense rainforest tree - and in case you really want to experience the true drama of the tree tops, a ladder rises steeply in a cage to a tiny platform another 10 metres up, and then yet another takes you to a perch that can best be described as awe-inspiring, virtually sitting in the crown of one of the largest trees in the forest.

The family loved it - I loved it! There are lots of other walks in the area, and there is also a second point at which you can connect with the national park at Binna Burra Lodge. We might head for that one next time we come this way. This could become our new "blue mountains" - the bush retreat we take our visitors to and show off the best of our new state.

A great day out, and a great introduction to the new policy of Family Days on Saturdays.

A Tribute to Italian Culture

2009-01-16T07:52:00.003+11:00

Indeed - we appear to have moved into a suburb that is a tribute to Italian culture. Oh really you say? So Springfield Lakes is dotted with Tuscan villas? Pehraps dominated by a cathedral to rival Florence? No wait - the hint is in the name - with all the lakes around the place you can navigate from place to place on a Venetian gondola? Er... not really.

No, what I am referring to is that that a road map of the suburb really resembles an aerial view of a bowl of spaghetti. The twist and tangle of streets is really quite amazing. This is probably best illustrated by describing how to find our house - turn left at the entry roundabout, then right at the lake roundabout and right at the supermarket roundabout. Up the hill, swing left then turn right and follow the road to the right around the park. Go around to the left then turn right at the hilltop roundabout. then right at the second entrance of our street. That description makes light of the various traffic furniture that complicates the route. Of course, you don't need to go that way - you can go straight on at the supermarket, past the school then turn right, and then left. That gets you back onto the hilltop road, so swing right, back to the left, and then turn right at the hilltop roundabout and right into our street. Or any number of other ways - the options are open at that point.

What there are not options about is how to get out of the suburb back into "normal Brisbane". There is only one way in and one way out of the actual suburb, which is to drive past the Delfin office nestled beside the lake at the north west tip of the suburb. There is a second entrance to the suburb under construction, although I use the term with a wistful smile. To be realistic, I have seen little effort being put into developing this road, and it looks exactly like it did when we first drove into the area last November. This road would help us a lot - it would dramatically shorten and simplify the route to Orion Shopping Centre - in theory less than a kilometre from our place but in practice several times more than that away. It would also enable us to describe a route into the our house that involves only 4 turns instead of the current 6 or 7 (depends how you count). If we happen to see the road built before we move out, I would be very surprised.

Suffice to say, Springfield Lakes is sufficiently spaghetti-like that so far none of our visitors have managed to make it in without getting lost. That is despite the fact that they always bring a map and think they know what they are doing before they get there. One of our visitors spent 30 minutes trying to find the place!

Once I realised how bad it was, I became quite concerned about how our furniture truck was going to make it into the district. It was a very large semi-trailer able to hold 120 cubit metres of goods. In fact they did extremely well! They drove in the day before in another vehicle, getting lost in the process, and planned their assault carefully. On the day, they arrived early, took a circuitous route through the suburb to avoid needing to turn right at any of the tight roundabouts - closed down the road to other traffic for a few minutes while they negotiated on particularly tight corner, and then when they reached our street, they drove past the corner and reversed the big semi around the corner in a surprisingly elegant 9-point turn, and then down the hill to our place so they could get out again afterwards. It made surprisingly good theatre!

But this does have a serious side. Significant concern is now being raised about whether the fire brigade and ambulance would be able to find their way into a particular location in a hurry in the case of an emergency. GPS helps, but there are certain points where vehicles larger than the average car struggle to get around, and these are not shown as problems on most maps or GPS units. The tabloids scream - "will someone die thanks to these streets?" While a little dramatic - we are left to wonder how serious the problem is and hope we never find out.

Oh, ok. Seeing I am blogging and it is meant to be a personal diary containing confessions and the like - I guess I should add - despite all of the above, I kind of like the idea of knowing my way around such a complex suburb, and personally it is kind of fun! And I've always liked spaghetti anyway! And it is also kind of fun hearing the stories come out about how various visitors have toured half of south-east Queensland trying to find us...

A Spiritual Home

2009-01-12T18:20:00.004+11:00

I hate the term "Church Shopping" and hate the practice of it as well. I am much more comfortable with the wise words of a former pastor of ours - "if you find the perfect church, whatever you do don't join it and mess it up!" (Er... at the time I think he was applying this statement to anyone, but maybe not - might have just been personal advice to me...)

We went to a church on the Sunday we visited Queensland in October, and there were some things we liked and some we didn't. Anyway, yesterday was our first free Sunday since we moved up here, and so we went back again to that same church to see if the good things were still good and the less good things had been addressed. Overall, I reckon it went pretty well, and I certainly would hope to continue attending.

The biggest issue we faced in October was that we were nearly ignored for the entire time we were there - virtually no-one bothered to talk with us or find out who we were. At one point about 20 minutes after the service, as we finished the cup of coffee that we had made for ourselves at the servery window, we wondered if we were actually going to leave without anyone speaking to us at all. Then, one lady came up and introduced herself - and as we got into the conversation, she did decide to get a couple of others, including the pastor, to meet us. To be fair, there was an excuse. It was a day on which 5 people were being baptised, and all five had brought along their special groups of friends and relatives. The place was veritably crawling with strangers, and most people had simply assumed we were associated with one or the other of the baptismal candidates, and therefore we were not normal visitors.

So - what would happen when we went back? Well, on the positive side, three people introduced themselves and said hello before got to our seats. One of these was the church secretary, although she didn't say so. We found ourselves sitting down and the service began, and when the pastor jumped up, he made a general welcome to visitors, but didn't even particularly look our way, and certainly he didn't say anything specifically about us. Which really highlights my point about church shopping. Here we were checking the church out to see if it was suitable for us, and so we hardly wanted any fuss made about our being there in case we decided we didn't like it. That would be really awkward, especially seeing I am the Secretary of the Union of churches and therefore a visitor of some "significance" (I continue to feel a bit funny about this sort of label, but...), and was going to be working with the pastor on one of the committees at work over the coming years. But then again, if we did like it, then how to we signal that and make it clear that it is now ok for poeple to welcome you to their church family? So - while these confusing thoughts were swirling through my head, we sat there kind of hoping that nothing special would be said or done.

But then the pastor says “I’ve like the welcome some very special people along today...” and I think oh no. You see - he did meet us back in October, and he also would have received the general email from my boss saying I had started in my job durign the week, so he could easily have known that we were now in town to stay. So I kind of grit my teeth, and then he says “...Graeme and Joanne...” and I heave a huge sigh of relief “...Semple, former beloved pastor here!” And I think – you must be kidding! Because I know Graeme quite well - he is now pastoring a church in Victoria and I had quite a bit to do with that church and him in my former job. Perhaps a coincidence on names? Well, Graeme is welcomed up the front, and sure enough it is him, and he is about 5 metres from the pastor, sees me sitting there, stops, waves, then turns to the pastor and says “we’re not the only Victorians you have joining you today!” And its Oh No all over again. Anyway, to the pastor's credit, he acknowledged that he knew who I was and that I had just begun working at the QB, so he handled the moment smoothly and kept the focus on Graeme as it should have been.

But I did feel a bit spied upon... how come you can travel almost 2,000 km, rock up in a church totally unannounced, and they have a special guest on that day who happens to be someone with whom you have worked quite closely? Is this part of how God works? To my mind - yes. That's a part of how He works. It is often a lot more subtle than that, but on this occasion, it wasn't all that subtle. God uses all sorts of circumstances to control outcomes and we had been praying about finding the right church. So - I am happy about saying that this is a part of the revelation to us of where we are going and what we are to do.

Still - the church shopping thing remained awkward. A lady came up to Shelley after the service and said hello, and after introducing herself and confirmed we had just moved up from Melbourne, asked whether this was the church we had decided to attend. Shelley gave a half-hearted answer (she didn't want to commit to things without us discussing it a little more) and suddenly the poor lady didn't know where to turn or what to say. I'm not sure if I would be either.

In fact, thanks to the Graeme comment, the time after the service was pretty full-on. Several people were keen to introduce themselves. One couple with 4 young kids invited us home to their place for lunch. We accepted (despite having several other things to do during the day), and found ourselves well and truly engaged with them. In all the bustle of things, we didn't get a chance to talk with the pastor again, but overall our impression was muhc better than the first time we attended.

Shelley and I have still not talked about the outcome of all this - perhaps we will tonight! But I feel like we might have found a spiritual home.

Settling

2009-01-09T18:15:00.002+11:00

Ok, now I have been a Queenslander for all of around 9 days, I can tell you there is nothing as settling as going off to work. Seriously, I think you could relocate to the moon, but if you still had to commute to the office and sit in front of a computer screen, you'd feel like nothing had changed. I have just completed my first week at work and frankly I feel like an old hand. It's been busy, it's been confusing, it's been challenging - at times. But come the end of my first week, it feels pretty comfortable.

Commuting turns out to be one of the more interesting things. According to Google Earth, the straight line from home to the office is 29.52 km. Of course the road is not quite straight, so the total door to door distance is 35 km. Despite this being almost double my old commute in Melbourne - so far my travel to and from has been a fairly consistent 35 minutes - which is pretty similar to my former travel times (except when I worked back until 10:00pm). Of course things might get worse when school traffic starts coming back into it, but hopefully it won't affect me immensely because I am leaving home ahead of 6:30 in the morning. The more intreguing thing is the route to work. For most of the distance, I sit on the one road even though it changes names a couple of times. However, with various sections of road works, and some parts being upgraded to motorway standard while other parts are backroute quality, the speed limit changes 16 times in this section. Then, you turn left and enter the second shorter section of the trip which is entirely at the same speed limit, but contains a mass of twists, turns, dips, corners, roundabouts and traffic furniture. Honestly it is hard to assess which section is the most complicated. Anyway, one thing it does mean is that the trip is never boring!

The other big challenge for the week was the arrival of our furniture. This happened Tuesday morning, and of course we are still a long way from unpacked. As mentioned, our little house is struggling to fit all the furniture we had in the old place, and bear in mind we had quite a few items stored in the shed out the back there as well. So now - we have half a garage of stored stuff, although one of my weekend projects will be to try to make enough space in that half to fit the trailer - presently sitting on our front lawn. The family room at the back of the house was the most significant logistic issue. At first glance it was quite a large area, but it is the only shared space in the house and therefore needs to perform the functions of the kitchen, dining room, family room and lounge room. We kind of achieved it by sividing the room into nice little sections, but on all four we have had to compromise. At one stage I was sure we were going to have to compromise a lot more, but suddenly it all came together, and we have a nice little informal area around the TV, a more formal sitting area, a quite spacious dining area and the kitchen is actually going pretty well. The boys are still sharing a bedroom because we needed the fourth room for general storage, mostly of all the boxes of books and street directories and everything that we won't unpack until we get to our real house. All in all, it worked out ok.

So - we have a house, we have a vehicle, I have an office, and life has that kind of busy routine about it. Of course there are a few major issues still to address. We will head along to church on Sunday and begin the process of settling into a new spiritual community, and the other really big issue is that we still have to build a house. That will not be without its issues, I have to say.

But - we are settling.

Arrival

2009-01-04T22:26:00.002+11:00

In a remarkable week, we have managed to find ourselves in a new house in a new city in a new state. It's approaching 10:00 in the evening. Every window in the house is open and a gentle breeze is keeping the place pleasantly cool. We have no house furniture, but we happen to have a pretty good collection of camping furniture which meant we were able to enjoy a very pleasant meal this evening sitting in our dining area and will retire happily to our bedrooms tonight. We're at our new home.

It's been a fascinating and at times complicated journey, but so far basically everything has gone really well. That started last Monday, with an almost trouble free collection of our furniture. The crew that arrived were fantastic, and they managed to complete the loading process while keeping everyone happy - including the ever-inquisitive Ben who has a habit of lining most visitors to our home up against the wall with a barrage of questions of ever increasing complexity unless we somehow intervene. The only reason I say "almost trouble free" is that they did drop one little surprise on me. They announced that the bed and other large items of furniture needed to be dismantled by me before they could load them into the truck. My problem was that I had already carefully packed all my tools into boxes, and then hidden those boxes among a collection of around 200 others that looked exactly the same on the outside... never mind. We found the tools (with the exception of some allon keys) and managed to get on with the dismantling, and didn't hold up the process at all.

In the end we didn't leave on the same day as our furniture, but stayed one more night in our former home. This was good, because my eldest son Josh is going to be living in the house for the next few months until settlement is finalised, and therefore we could help him get his furniture set up in the gaps just created by our stuff leaving. We could also do a little cleaning - which looked very successful to me but apparently was not good enough to satisfy Shelley. It was a day of goodbyes to those who mean the most to us - my son, his fiancee and my parents. No doubt this is the hardest aspect of the move. We always knew it would be, but when it came to it, that fact didn't make it any easier. Miss you guys!

So it was on the road the next morning and driving north. We are extremely familiar with the Newell Highway, having done trips to and from Queensland at at the rate of two per year for the last 20 years (or thereabouts). So, it is kind of interesting that we chose this trip to try a different route. Since the opening of the Albury Bypass, it seems there is now a hypothetically better route to Queensland, going up the Hume and Olympic Way to Wagga, then cutting through Temora to West Wyalong and joining the Newell at this point. I was a skeptic, to be honest, but now I have driven it I am quite impressed. For a start, the total distance is almost identical, but you get more freeway and overall more higher speed limits than the old route. Also, you bypass Albury completely and Wagga almost completely, whereas you inevitably had to drive through a fair slice of Shepparton and got slowed up a lot on the border crossing. So - its thumbs up for the new route, although I did mess up. I expected to buy petrol in Wagga, but the highway skims the edge of town and there was actually no petrol stations on the main road at all. I decided to drive on to the next town - Junee, but discovered this was actually 8 km off the road we were taking, and the little village of Old Junee that was on our road didn't have petrol either. It was too far to go on to Temora, so we bit the bullet and did the 8 km detour to get the fuel. Other than that - no problem. Further north we did our usual detour from Dubbo to Coonabarabran, and nearing the end of this we decided enough was enough and we would call a stop to the day at Coona. We arrived for lunch at Shelley's parent's place at Toowoomba by around 12:50 the next day, thanks to the Daylight Savings adjustment.

Our arrival in Queensland was actually really relaxed. We had a day and a half of nothing, then a day without the kids to drive down to Brisbane, pick up the keys to our new house and my new work car, and then another day and a half of nothing. Considering our mad program for the last four months - this seemed like utter luxury. Then, after lunch today, we packed up our remaining stuff into the boot of the new car, and headed down to Springfield Lakes to our new house. The kids have been absolutely wrapped with the house! This is impressive, because we were actually quite taken aback when we first saw it, because it is tiny. Not literally tiny, of course, but it has to be the smallest 4 bedroom house I have ever seen. I have spent a fair bit of time over the past few days adjusting and readjusting the furniture on a little diagram to work out what we can fit in where. This evening, the joke of what we were doing has been proven - we are sitting around our camp table, camp chairs, and are about to go to bed on camp stretchers, and we have heaps of space and two completely empty rooms! More than once, the thought crossed my mind that we ought to cancel the truck and live like this for the next 9 months! Oh ok, we would like a fridge, and we would like a more comfortable bed, and it might get a bit boring without a TV... but we ought to avoid the temptation to unpack too many things.

Ah well. We've arrived. It's all worked well. Nearly time for bed. Tomorrow, I go to the new work for the first time. I wonder how that will go! And then Tuesday, the hassle of the truck arriving and we have to put everything somewhere - even if we don't unpack it. But let's face it. We're well on the way.

Relocation

2008-12-27T06:11:00.002+11:00

The next time someone says to me "oh... we just decided it was time to relocate..." I'm going to run a series of checks to assess their sanity. As the sun rises this morning, I am looking around my home for the last 13 years and wondering whether it was such a good idea to decide to relocate. There is mess everywhere. We have been packing for weeks in a sort of casual manner, and then intensely for days. And - there's a lot of stuff left unpacked. The rediculous collection of boxes we put together got used up and the results of our cry for more are also nearly gone. I don't think we've packed any clothes yet, and there is the shed to do and records and toys and... sigh.

What lies ahead for us is (in theory at least) quite an adventure. We are leaving Melbourne and heading north to Brisbane. After years of living in my home state, we are moving to Shelley's home state. A couple of times recently, I have felt really dubious about this, but I also cannot escape the fact that, back in 1989 when we met, Shell and I agreed that we would probably both have to live in each other's state at some time in our lives if we were actually going to have a life together. Ok, so it is my turn...

Which makes me sound kind of negative about it. Which is not true, I just get a bit down about it sometimes. Indeed, this is one of the more exciting things in my life so far - so long as the logistics don't kill me! It's the opportunity for a new job, new extended family (not really new, but you know...), new house, new church, new car. In fact - apart from the wife and kids, there is not much staying the same really! And if that was not enough of its own accord, we've decided that this might be a good moment to buy land and actually build our own house. So - we move into our rental place, and then spend the next 9 months building, then be ready to move again. This has complicated everything. Certain furniture items we know we would not take into the new house are required for the rental place. Or, in other cases - we think they are required but we don't know because we have not seen the rental place at all - we rented it off the Internet. And some boxes of stuff we can happily live without for the next 9 months, so we mark them with red X's, but many more we really don't know and therefore do we mark them off or not? And then there are the things that won't fit into the rental house but are required for the new house - like the spare double bed. I don't know...

And yet, I am convinced that the timing is right, that the opportunity is right, that it is indeed time to move north. I've known that for the last four months since I went for a job interview and received such a positive affirmation. Since then, I have been serving out my notice at the old job - a minimum of three months required but for a smoother transition we elected to extend this to almost four - and have gradually been moving towards relocation. As I am a planner by nature, when I look at this in terms of a "project", it contains a bunch of separate but inter-related things, including;

Selling the house in Melbourne
Buying a house in Brisbane (but it turned out to be land)
Building a new house
Finishing the old job
The actual relocation
Starting the new job

Each of them to date has proven to be more complex and time consuming than I kind of expected. I have decided to use this blog to try to capture some of this - particularly I suppose the building of the new house and starting the new job, as these are the big tasks that stretch ahead. Partially this is for friends back home who want to hear how things are going. Partially it is for people who might be thinking about similar things and after some tips on what to do or not to do to smooth the way. Partially I want a record of this for myself to reflect on. Partially it is a practical example of how God can communicate with people and let them know that He wants them to take on a different thing. And, partially its because I just like telling stories...

The furniture truck arrives in 49 hours. I'd better stop typing and start packing!

More to come!

YOTO4 Begins

2008-09-18T15:19:00.004+10:00

So we officially set off Saturday morning on our outback trip - YOTO4.

Silly name really, but there's no changing them now! YOTO is "Year Of The Outback", which was officially held in Australia in 2002. That was the year we first did a trip to the outback combining sight seeing with meeting up with people from local churches in joint activities. None of the current committee can claim any credit for the original idea - it was a pastor from WA who drempt it up. But we had such a good time we thought it would be good to replicate it in subsequent years, and so a second tour in 2004, and a third in 2006, and now this fourth one, were developed. Personally I never liked YOTO2, but that's what everyone called it and it has gone on from there.

For YOTO4, the group will be a similar size to the three former tours - 11 vehicles in all, and will again head into the Australian desert. The people involved don't all know each other - we have several coming on this trip that we have not met at all thus far. The original YOTO went to North-western WA, YOTO2 to the Flinders Ranges, and YOTO3 to Alice Springs. This time we track north from Broken Hill to White Cliffs, Sturt National Park and "Corner Country" - the surprisingly remote and desolate quarter of Australia's most populous state. Apart from going to the likes of Kennedy Ranges and Mount Augustus on first one, this will probably be the remotest country we have driven through, and I have previously posted a bit about Mount Wood in particular.

But YOTO tours are about far more than testing out our four wheel drives. We firstly seek to develop a strong sense of Christian community among the travellers. We pray at the start of every day, and we have times of fellowship around the campfire at the end of the day. We also seek to give opportunities to travellers to do things outside of the comfort zone - not only physically but spiritually. Then, as we travel we seek to connect with local Christians serving in some of Australia's most complex environments. The four tours have thus connected us with 19 churches across five states. Some of these we are still in regular contact with, while others have become more of a faint memory. Most - I suspect and hope - would welcome any of the group back warmly should we visit again, and look back fondly on the things we have done together.

The three communities with whom we will join during YOTO4 - Southern Mallee Cooperative Parish, Broken Hill Baptist and Wangaratta Baptist - were selected almost 18 months ago, so it is interesting that each of these now finds itself at an interesting turning point in their journey. We seek to approach these opportunities with a listening ear - not claiming to have all the answers. No rocket science there - we don't have all the answers! However, time and time again, we have been amazed how God has opened opportunities for us while we travel, and we pray this trip will also be a blessing for all involved; the travellers and those we visit.

See you in a few weeks! With some stories, I hope!

Mount Wood?

2008-08-20T21:19:00.003+10:00

Now, here is a name that I didn't know much about - that is until about a month ago. In fact, if I had noticed it on the map at all, I moved on extremely fast and I never really contemplated spending any time there. Things have changed!

What is Mount Wood? Well, of course, it is firstly a mountain. We are talking Australian outback here, so "mountain" would be a joke in Switzerland - its peak is around 120 metres above the surrounding countryside. It was named in 1842 by Charles Sturt - the first European to see it. It is definately a prominent, despite not being big, hill in the north-west corner of New South Wales. Some forty years later the hill and around 500,000 acres of the surrounding landscape became known as Mount Wood Station, and it was 1890 when the first buildings of the Mount Wood Homestead were constructed. Now a private property of this sort of size is soemthing to stop the Swiss from laughing - but it was never particularly large by Australian standards, even after the owners bought out the next door neighbours - Horton Park.

They apparently bought the property on an 85-year pastoral lease rather than freehold, because the next really significant date in its history is 1972 when the lease expired and the property reverted to state government ownership. They made the decision to not re-lease it, but purchase up three other nearby neighbours and form Sturt National Park - a remarkable 340,000 hectares of remote desert - almost 180 km from east to west and 40 km from north to south. Switzerland please take note! Mount Wood became "historic" - and was converted to a museum and accommodation - none of which really made it any closer to civilisation, but that turns out to be a part of the appeal.

In a month's time, I am taking a group of 30 people in 11 vehicles to stay in the shearers quarters at historic Mount Wood Homestead for three nights, to give us an opportunity to explore this massive national park in our four-wheel drives. Getting there sounds easy - go to Broken Hill, turn north and drive for 360 km. It is a massive, empty, and largely unknown corner of Australia's most populous state, and I am challenged, but looking forward to, discovering more about it.

What's there, you might ask? Answer - not much! I am intregued by the name Mount Wood. It apparently had reasonable stands of scrubby timber when Charles Sturt arrived, but 85 years of pastoral history ensured the clearing and grazing of most of it. 35 years of reserving since has not fixed it - yet.

The internet seems strangely quiet on this corner of Australia - it is apparently outback enough to not get much attention, but not remote or "evocative" enough for those who discover it to make up for the absence of noise. All shall be revealed in a few weeks time!

One word - Broome

2008-07-26T14:49:00.002+10:00

Broome is perhaps one of the most evocative of outback towns - which is a significant thing to say because "evocative" is somewhat overused in outback Australia. But there is no question - I love Broome. My love affair began as a child when my parents and I drove into the town after weeks in the hot sandy desert, and immediately felt that here was something different. My love for it has faded little, even though I have only been back twice.

On one occasion, the family and I joined a local town tour to get the local gossip on what goes on in the town. I was somewhat disappointed with the bloke who took us around, but he did portray one really important message to the people on the rattly old bus. If you want to understand Broome, he said, you need to know about three things. Pearls, cyclones, and tides. Indeed, the town was made by pearling. It had a significant natural industry and then has become the centre of a significant cultured pearl industry. Culturing pearls is not like making fake jewellery - it is an artform in itself and the distinction between a natural and cultured pearl is not easy to make. Pearls caused Broome to be founded, and still drives the town along to a significant extent. Cyclones have almost the opposite effect. Cyclones are more previlent and stronger on the west coast of Australia than the east, but the much lower population means they rarely get as much attention. Still, Broome is kind of sticking out into the sea on a little point that seems to get whacked more often than not. Broome's history is full of disasters based on cyclones. And you don't need to be in town for too long to realise that the tide is a critical issue. Having your sea rise 10 metres up and down twice a day is enough to significantly impact on all sorts of lifestyle issues. Most tourist operations - visiting various points on the coast, swimming and even getting around the local shopping centre, are impacted on by the state of the tide, so you need to know it. The range is spectacular, aided by the flat bottom of Roebuck Bay, which drains out for kilometres as the tide recedes, then races back faster than you can run across the flats.

But neither tides nor cyclones or even pearls were the original reason for me to feel drawn to the place. It can be summed up in another word - "colour".
It is fair to say that Broome is one of the most colourful towns in northern Australia, in all senses of the word. Even just taken literally, the colours of the water and rock and sand are such as to stun and amaze. I only have to close my eyes for a moment to remember it all there again...

So it is interesting that Broome features for me in a couple of ways this week.

Mum and Dad got on a plane yesterday and flew to Broome. Since that time we arrived there together 34 years ago, they have been back a lot more than I have. I have lost count, but it would be at least half a dozen times that they have returned. This time, they are flying in, joining a tour bus, and spending a few days in town before heading east to Derby and the rest of the Kimberleys. They are doing some of the things I have loved most while there. But it is a bit funny to think they can get on a plane and arrive there 6 hours later when it has sometimes represented 4-6 weeks of tough driving.

And secondly, I have been reading about the colour of Broome this week in another book on the Bradley Murdoch trial and conviction for the murder of Peter Falconio in Central Australia in 2001. It is a case I have followed closely over the years and I find myself still quite uneasy about the outcome. This book, written by journalist Paul Toohey, threw many amazing insights into the case, and gave remarkable details about the life of Bradley Murdoch prior to the event, when he was living and drug-running in Broome. In some respects, it was more colour than I wanted about one of my favourite towns, proving that anywhere can have a dark side.

If all goes to plan, I hope to be arriving in Broome again myself around this time next year. There's still a fair bit of water to pass under the bridge before then, but I am looking forward to it immensely.

On your bike!

2008-07-13T19:47:00.002+10:00

My eldest son and I seem to lapse into playing a game of imagination every so often - if you were allowed to go to any five sporting events anywhere in the world, what would they be? Over time the answers have changed, but the Monaco Grand Prix is consistently there, an opening ceremony of the Olympics, and perhaps the Wimbledon final or a last day at Augusta National. Or our own grand final, which stacks up pretty well.

One event that typically is not on the list, despite increasingly being one of my most enjoyed sporting events, is the Tour de France. The reason it is not on the list is because of the complexity of seeing it on the ground - with the event often stretched out over 200 kilometres on any given day, and you just never know where the decisive moment on the day is going to be. The rich and famous that do go to the race are generally entertained by a helecopter pilot, who picks them up in Paris, flies them to the starting town for the day, and after watching the riders set out, it is a bunny hopping process of flying over the top of the race, landing and watching them go past as some significant point,and then flying on again. Some hours later, the participants are landed at the end town and watch the riders cross the line, before being wisked back to Paris to their hotels. It is significant that probably only 100 or so people in fact get to enjoy this priviledged look at the race each day. But typically more than 1,000,000 more people simply choose to select a spot by the roadside, perhaps watch the riders on their battery powered TV's as they approach, and then rush outside for a 5 to 10 minute brush with the elite as they rush by. The savvy ones choose a hillside location to watch, because the riders both slow down and spread out as they agonise up the mountains. In places like this - it is not merely a brush with the elite, but often a lot more than that! The spectators crowd along the road and press in from both sides, sometimes leaving little more than a passageway through which the riders must press. Many will reach out and touch their heroes as they pass - always yelling and encouraging them to new heights. It is testament to the attitude of the public to these riders that there has never been a deliberate attempt to hurt one of the participants in this pressure-cooker situation, despite the fact that it would be virtually impossible to fully police.

I am not sure why exactly my love affair with le Tour has become so complete. It is a fantastic event for television, but with four hours coverage each night starting at 10:00pm over a period of three weeks, it is not easy to become genuinely involved with watching it AND continue to live a normal functioning life! But, increasingly I have to find ways, because the race itself is totally addictive.

Tonight the race heads for the high mountains for the first time. Most tours do a "lap of France", and they all end in Paris. Other than that, the route changes every year. It will start and end in 20 different towns throughout France and even into the neighbouring countries over the three week period, and every night you learn a little more about the fascinating geography of this country. But every year, le Tour eventually spends a few days in the Alps, and a few days in the Pyranees. The two mountain ranges are distinctly different, but both are remarkably spectacular, and both feature a plethora of tiny mountain roads that wind up and over some mountain passes of dizzying heights.

Which brings in another aspect of the race that is hard to comprehend - anyone that has ridden a bike up a hill is left to wonder. For example - in 10 days time, the riders will undertake a ride of 210 km, during which time they will cross three of the highest mountain peaks in western Europe. The total climb for the day is 4,300 metres. That's more than twice the height of Australia's highest mountain. Almost as amazing as the climbs, and much more frightening, are the descents down the other side - where these riders will clock up to speeds of 80 or 90 km/h, again on tiny narrow winding mountain roads. On such a descent, the support cars simply cannot keep up - they have to let them go and hope to see them at the bottom. Occasionally there are spectacular crashes, but mostly they somehow make it and live to climb the next mountain...

2008's race has the added attraction of an Austalian who has done everything right so far. 8 days in, Cadel Evans is in second position, only 6 seconds behind the leader. That is 6 seconds in over 30 hours of racing to date. He is brilliant, both as a rider and a strategist. An Australian has never won this race, but Cadel finished second last year and looks every bit like he could find the opportunity to go one place better this year. Still - it all exists on a knife's edge, and a little error costs you a heap on some of these mountain passes.

I have forced myself to bed early a couple of times, but watched most stages through to the finish line so far this year. And this is likely to continue for the remaining two weeks. This year - as an added attraction, I can log into Google Earth and watch the road they are riding on as they ride on it! Add to this the on-line updates on gaps and positions of all riders on the official leTour site, and the computer adds a remarkabe additional aspect to the race!

Ah well, go Cadel, go Le Tour! And see you in a couple of weeks time when I get back into normal sleeping patterns!

Jatbula Trail

2008-07-01T12:36:00.002+10:00

A work colleague of mine, native of England but out here in Australia now for around five years, announced the other day that she was about to head off to walk the Jatbula Trail. Wow! I salivated at the thought!

It is funny the way that our visitors from overseas occasionally get on board with doing walks such as these in the outback of Australia when so many locally born people don't even know where they are! This is a prime example - not too many people know anything about this cross-country walk which is one of the outback's finest! I did recognise the name, and had even read the details in a recent article in Australian Geographic, which I was able to pass on - but admittedly I have not set foot myself on the walking trail...

From its web site - the Jatbula Trail is a seasonal walk from Nitmiluk to Leliyn (Edith Falls). The trail (approx 60 km) is best enjoyed over 5 days (4 nights), however it can be completed in shorter time. The country you walk through is Jawoyn country and it changes from savannah grasslands to rocky escarpment outcrops and rainforest pockets. It is a challenging trail with beautiful swimming holes at every campsite, and amazing Jawoyn Rock Art which can be viewed at the Amphitheatre.

The Katherine Escarpment is less famous than the Kakadu Escarpment further to the north, but in effect it is a part of the same landform. Running approximately north south for a distance of over 300 kilometres, the escarpment is an almost continuous line of cliffs separating the higher plateau to the east from the lower plain of the west. The significant summer rainfall on the highlands forms a succession of significant rivers that either plunge over majestic waterfalls or cut deep gorges into the escarpment. Most of the Kakadu section is inaccessible apart from a couple of spots, but the Katherine section of the escarpment has a walking trail that opens the entire area up. You start underneath the escarpment for some 20 kilometres before climbing up it and then following the rim along for a further 20 kilometres or so, finally coming back down and following the Edith River back to civilisation.

To my disbelief, only around 200 people per annum walk this track, but then again - I've never been able to do it myself. I wished my friend all the best for the walk, and felt a good deal of envy at seeing her set out on her way. I hope she comes back with lots of photos and stories!

Is Yulara Farer?

2008-06-07T20:26:00.002+10:00

My wife's birthday a month or so ago was the perfect excuse to buy her the thing she has needed for years - a GPS based navigator. We installed it in the 4WD because in the normal course of events that's the car she drives, and therefore my previously mentioned "dumb" GPS was without a home. But not for long. A little interior redesign and my beloved GPS with personally collected weigh points from all over Australia was up and running in my Commodore.

And a few days ago, in a sure sign I was thinking more about the outback than the city, I tuned it in to see how far it was to Yulara. It is a curious fact that Yulara, Kings Canyon and Alice Springs are all almost exactly the same distance from Melbourne - each between 1900 and 1950 kilometres. As you drive around the suburbs, the three of them do this little dance - and occasionally change orders in terms of how far away they are. Indeed, when you drive out to the south of Geelong, suddenly Alice Springs turns out to be slightly further away than Yulara. But for almost all the metropolitan area, it is indeed Yulara that is farer.

It is tantalising. You can be sitting in traffic along Warragul Road and the little unit on the dash can tell you that one of the greatest places in the Outback is a mere 1,939 kilometres away, slightly wester than north-west. At a stretch, I reckon I could get there in two days... not that I ever have. The best I have ever done is leaving Yulara at 9:30 in the morning and arriving home in Melbourne at 3:00pm two days later. Still, I reckon it could be done in two days... imagine that...

Most of the time, I snap out of it again pretty quickly and get on with things. Sometimes such a thought will linger for a while and start to take root. No question, the GPS has the ability to transport me when I am feeling a bit bogged down...

Cry for Burma

2008-05-26T13:29:00.003+10:00

I wish there was something more to be done for the people of Burma in the midst of their troubles. I wish we were allowed to do what little we can actually do...

There is a not-insignificant population of refugees from Burma resettled around Melbourne, pincipally from the Karen, Chin and Prokaren groups. The Baptist Union of Victoria includes 9 groups in various locations formed from these people. The following is an extract of some thoughts from some of these groups, as they reflect on the devestation in their homeland after Cyclone Nargis struck...

"Cry Tears for Burma"

Once, this was Thabyekyaing village, a quiet coastal village in Labutta township,
Ayeyawaddy Division.

Once, the laughter of children filled the air as they played football or toke-si-do in the fields and yards.

Once, men went out on fishing boats or worked in the fields. Women planted rice, fetched water and firewood and kitchen fires burnt brightly.

Once, on Sunday mornings, the church bell would ring and people would gather to
sing, praise and worship god and listen to the pastor, Rev.Maung Bay's or his son,
Pastor Klo Htoo's sermons.

Once, on Lenten days the monastery gong would sound and the Buddhists would
go to hear the Sayadaw's sermons while observing a fast.

Once, the village was shady with fruit trees, the gardens with vegetables and the
fields green with rice plants or yellow during harvest time.

Now, there is an eerie silence over what once was Thabye Gyaung. The sound of laughter, song and raucous shouting is stilled. The trees, the fields, the houses, school, church, monastery, clinic are no more.

Now, what remains is death and destruction, bloated bodies, shattered lives.

Cry for bleeding, suffering Burma – she is so small, her people struggling so long for survival. It seems as if not only political forces but God herself/himself is determined to teach us some sensible lessons. Sermons nowadays sound like platitudes. Our land and our people are being put through the wringer, squeezed dry till there is no more life juice left.

Cry with us, cry for us in solidarity in our despair.

Mission accomplished

2008-05-04T20:33:00.002+10:00

I have written before about how the pleasure I get out of driving has led to me tracking the longest of days on a special list - TKD's, or Thousand Kilometre Days. The first TKD happened kind of unexpectedly. At lunch time on Christmas Day in 1987 I realised I didn't really want to just hang about at home, and so without not too much thinking, I set out to visit my sister who was living in Sydney. That day, I drove 1,070 km, which was by far the longest I had ever driven in a day, and it immediately struck me as a pretty cool thing to have driven over a thousand kilometres. It was fun. It would be fun to do it again!

The time I had the opportunity to drive 1,000 km in a day was on the way home, three days later, but unfortunately I had car trouble and ended up taking two days over the trip. So, I had to wait. It was July 1988 before I got to do it again. This time, I was heading off on holidays for the Whitsundays, and managed to drive 1,000 km in a day twice in a row, and four times in all during the course of the two weeks I was away.

Sometime during that holiday, I got to wondering how many TKD's I might achieve in my lifetime. I came to the conclusion that a good effort would be to achieve 100 such days, and set this as a bit of an ambition. And so it happened that the days got driven, and throughout, I kept detailed records of every time it happened.

Last Saturday, 26th April, not very far from "The Dish" - Parkes Radio Telescope, it finally happened. For the 100th time, my odometer clicked up past 1,000 kilometres in a day. It was almost sunset and it was beautiful. There was minimal celebration - I was alone and fairly tired, to be honest. 24 km later I pulled into a caravan park in Parkes and stopped for the night. And the enormity of what had happened started to dawn - a long held ambition had been accomplished. It was done.

The next morning, I drove off needing to do around 800 kilometres or so to get to my destination - Lakes Entrance - where I would be starting work the next morning. As I drove, I realised it was different now. I no longer had any need to think about 1,000 kms as an important line in the sand. Would the fact I had achieved 100 TKD's actually change everything? For a start, I was very relaxed about the fact that I was going to drive most of the day but NOT do a TKD. I was more inclined to stop and have a look at things along the way. And so on. But then - I got tricked. Weather closed the road I was going to be driving on, and I was forced to drive around. By the time I reached my intended destination, I had driven 1,019 kilometres - TKD number 101 was in the book!

Despite this curious accident, I am still left wondering whether the achievement of my goal will mean to my attitude to driving. I admit I did not think I would achieve it in 21 years - I thought I would be lucky to achieve it at all. Bus seeing I had, what next? Would I continue to rack them up? In many respects, with better roads and using better and more comfortable motor vehicles, driving a thousand kilometres is easier now than it ever has been. So - will I drive more? Probably, I expect. But will I deliberately go out to try to get a TKD the way I often have before? Hard to say. I guess time will tell.

For the moment, I simply find myself triumphing in having accomplished the mission.

On a mountain somewhere

2008-04-28T19:58:00.003+10:00

The call of the outback is strong for me sometimes. It gets to the stage where I simply need to find some fine orange grit and plant my feet in it. The big sky, the quiet, the colours...

Such a time arrived a month or two back and I have been itching to find a way ever since to scratch it. Last weekend it happened. My requirements were simple - drive out of Melbourne, get to the desert, find a hilltop somewhere and set up the tent for the night. It proved to be a little more complex than I thought, but in the end I was satisfied.

Dolo Hills cross the Barrier Hwy (or maybe its the other way around) about 130 kms east of Broken Hill. They are not significant mountains. The most prominent point is probably less than 200 metres above the surrounding plain, but considering the nature of the surrounding plain, that's quite a bit. This is a really flat part of the country - after you break out of the Barrier Range (another unimpressive range in height, but actually quite significant in length), you head over 100 km across almost completely featureless landscape. For the last half of this, you become aware of the Dolo Hills - at first well to the right of the road, but gradually reaching out to cross the horizon. The peaks are no more steep than they are high. Formed out of loose rock, any attempts at greatness has long since crumbled. The highway barely misses a beat to get through them. A climb over the western ridge, a little dog leg left and right as it negotiates down to a pretty tree lined (but quite dry) creek bed, then up and over the main ridge with a couple more twists and bends. In a car you can do it in top gear at the speed limit, but some of the immense interstate transports that use the route struggle a little more.

Naturally the road does not cross at the highest points, but slips between two peaks in a little pass. I pulled up here and found I could set up camp on a little side road that got me far enough off the highway not to be noticed once it became dark. I set up the tent and the stove, and cooked some tea. Although I had carried all the makings for a camp fire, I decided against building one - it was not cold and it would only attract unwanted attention. I had good enough torches to enable me to do any moving about I needed between sunset and sunrise - it would be fine.

Sunset was nice but not as good as I might have wished. The contact point for sunset, just to the north of due west considering the time of year, was behind a low hill on which my tent sat. Still the sky did some good colourful things, and then it quickly became dark. It was a long time since I had simply sat and watched the stars come out to play. In the complete dark, this is really something. The brightest ones we know from the suburbs are quickly surrounded and then almost overwhelmed by clouds of others painting the sky with their light. If you look for a while you start to marvel at how bright they are - like you could read to the light of these stars! But of course, you quickly change your mind when you look at the inky surroundings on the ground! Not just spectacular, there is movement and interest! Shooting stars! I counted 8 in about 30 minutes. And countless pieces of space junk trundling across the sky... you lose count because some are so fleeting and others are... imaginary really... your eyes start to play tricks on what is moving and what is not. I watched one in particlar for about 5 minutes, marvelling at how it crawled across the sky and remained lit. Then it blinked at me... aha! It was a jet, flying overhead, so high you could hear nothing, full of people going somewhere and who genuinely believed they were flying over nothing... idiots!

In theory, the desert comes alive with wildlife at night time. In practice, I have rarely encountered anything much in an environment like this. You sometimes hear something moving a way off. I quickly realised by listening to the occasional truck on the highway below me that you can hear them coming for 15 minutes in the stillness of the night, so these animals could readily be quite some distance away. Early on, I would suddenly switch on my torch and shine it in the direction of a noise, hoping to catch a glimpse of a kangaroo or other native - or even a goat would be interesting! After several failures, and realising it takes about 5 minutes for your eyes to readjust to the darkness after such futility, I gave up and let whatever was out there have its way.

I eventually crawled into the tent and fell asleep easily. I awoke with the faintest whisper of light from the east, and quickly realised I was going to be in for a really special sunrise. Wanting to make the most of it, as soon as there was enough light to see the way, I grabbed my camera and climbed up the nearest high point to get a better view of the horizon. No sooner had a arrived than I realised this was not actually the nearest highest peak - the next hill was quite a bit higher. Another scramble down and across and up again - probably a couple of kilometres from my camp now, but at last with almost a complete 360 degree view of the horizon. Like the arrival of the king - there is much prelude and pomp to the sunrise. Layer upon layer of cloud ranges through the spectrum, seeking to outdo each other in their brilliance in shape and hue. Distant peaks catch a glimpse of what is to come and seem to suddenly explode in light, one by one, then in a line. And finally, the leading edge of the burning disc cuts the horizon and hits you with light. For a short while it is almost a disappointment as its luminence drowns out the subtlety you have been enjoying for the last few minutes. But then it simply introduces entire new aspects - the delicate play of light across the high and low points, the angular beams cutting through valleys and casting huge shadows on the surrounding plain, which then shrink as fast as you can watch. Cloudscapes 180 degrees away take on delicate hues as the light finds them at last.

Reluctantly, I draw myself away and decide to head back to the camp. It is partially habit - too often the arrival of the sun in the desert has meant an onslaught of temperature and therefore you need to get any physical exertion over quickly. Not this time, in actual fact - the warming of the sun just makes it pleasant. But it does also signify the onslaught of the flies - who seem to have just discovered me and decided this might be their best opportunity for the day. Indeed, I would not expect there to be any other person passing by today. Or most days actually. While a place like this is not remote enough to make you think you are a pioneer, you can readily believe that a person walking out here is only an occasional event. Why - there isn't even any litter!

For a curious moment, I fell to wondering which of the little hills around me was the one hiding my tent. It would not be all that funny to get lost out here, and my only accessories were a small water bottle and a camera. How long would you survive like that... no no. Don't start that line of thought. Trust your instincts - its just over here. And of course it was. My instincts on such things are pretty reasonable.

I packed up and set about driving off. By 8:30, the Dolo Hills were falling into my rear vision mirror as I set out across the even broader plain to the east - where somewhere out here the utterly lazy Darling River passed by. It was a long way home, and even further to my destination seeing I was hoping to be in Lakes Entrance for Monday morning for work. For a long time, I sat in the car, cruise control on, highway effortlessly gliding beneath the wheels, and simply smiled.

Outback calling...

2008-01-25T17:16:00.000+11:00

I'd nearly forgotten that the name of my blog was Outback Views, and yet I hadn't really told an outback story for quite some time. In fact, over 12 months considering the various gaps in writing...

But the outback is rarely far from my mind. I have a few projects on the go at the moment that relate to the outback. For a start there is the outback tour we are planning for next September - YOTO4. Then there is the book I am attempting to get finalised about the YOTO1 (or just YOTO as it was called then!). But the more interesting ones are the two outback trips I am working on in the back of my mind. One is an 8-week tour of the west coast of Australia which might be on the cards for a couple of years time, while the other is a much shorter, much quicker trip through to Alice Springs.

This shorter quicker trip is presently a real frustration. The main aim of the trip is to drive around the Mereenie Loop. This road departs from Alice Springs and heads west, out along the line of the MacDonnell Ranges, and eventually loops back around to Kings Canyon. The route is not significantly shorter than driving down the highway to the Uluru road, along there and back up north to Kings Canyon. But it does go through a significantly different area and makes a fabulous round trip. Using this route would go a long way to addressing the key problem of this area for tourists - you have to keep driving in and out along the same road to get places.

But there is a trade-off. The Mereenie Loop is not sealed road. As its condition is often poor, and that there is virtually no facilities along it, you virtually need to fully kit up your 4WD to take it on. Through a combination of factors, I have never done this.

However, in the news for the last few years has been that the NT government recognise the tourism potential of the road, and have decided to seal it. I made the decision a year or so ago to hold off my next visit to Alice Springs until the Mereenie Loop was sealed, and then incorporate it into my travel plans.

Unfortunately, this is where it gets strange, because it seems that no amount of digging will show up for me the details I need to know about how they are going with sealing this road. NT seems to lack the comprehensive roads web site that other states have, and even the general government pages will only tell me how much money they have spent on it and not what they have done and when it will be finished.

I rang the tourism people in Alice Springs a couple of weeks ago to see if they could help me. This is not the first time I have tried this tactic, but after being passed around through various hands and/or placed on hold for long minutes while racking up STD charges, I have generally given up. This time, I don't know if I fared better or worse. The lady I spoke with was fantastic, and very helpful. She offered to call me back when she had some updated information, but when she did call it fell a bit flat, because she told me work had not commenced.

How, I wondered, could you have spent the tens of millions of dollars that has been spent, but so far not actually built any road? Or was someone telling me fibs? If so, who?

It remains a mystery, and I remain frustrated, and have a little trip north sitting on hold waiting for a resolution. I'd welcome input if anyone knows anything!

If you only ask...

2008-01-17T16:05:00.000+11:00

In a curiously good week, I have been blessed with three special gifts I was not expecting, simply because I asked for them. You know the sort of thing where you think to yourself - "I'd be great if this happened" but you don't take it any further because you don't want to be a nuisance? Well - I guess the moral of the story is that (so long as you remain polite) it does not hurt to ask...

We have a week at a timeshare resort at Mulwala on the Murray River each year. The resort management decided to adopt a different interpretation of when my usual week at the resort ought to fall in 2008. I only found out by accident, but it meant we were booked to go away in a week that was really inconvient. For a while I felt very upset about this - but then I realised an interesting point - the week I thought I was going away was even worse for me than the one I was booked for. A closer look at the diary showed that the following week would be better than both of them. Now it came down to purely a favour - would they please exchange my weeks around at this late stage even though it had been set months ago? They were perfectly within their rights to say no, and I expected this outcome. But they rang around, found someone else who had a change of plans, and asked if they would mind swapping with me. This other person agreed, and yesterday they rang me back and told me the happy news. Wow!

Have I mentioned I collect maps? It has got a little out of hand - I actually have a room for my map collection now. I heard through some friends that Shell (the fuel supplier) used to have a mapping service, which closed down in the 1970's. In the decades up to then, they provided all sorts of maps, strip maps, road condition updates and so on. It crossed my mind - there must have been a lot of documentation behind that service once - I wonder if they kept any of it? I decided to call them up. Soon I was chatting to their archivist, and yes, they have lots of historical stuff, and he reckons he can get me access to it in a few months time when they move it to a better facility. Again, the benefits of asking! As I was about to hang up, he asked me if I had a map collection myself? When I said he did, he asked for my address because he had a few old books he was about to throw out. They arrived on Tuesday, and they are beautiful!

I have certainly mentioned my interest in Lake Eildon in this blog before. I do a weekly statistical report at lakeeildon.com, on the current lake levels and what it is doing compared with the lake's history. To produce these stats, I have a spreadsheet with weekly observations of the lake for the last 25 years. It has often occurred to me it would be good to have the same stats right back to when the lake was built in 1955. But who would have such a thing? In the middle of another conversation late last week, I suddenly realised who would have the stats. As soon as I thought of them, I realised they would not want to help me, so it probably wasn't worth asking. But - why not - I went ahead and asked anyway, in my most polite of styles. And back came an excel spreadsheet with weekly lake observations from 1955 until 1986, then daily observations from 1987 onwards - 9,000 observations in all. It was statistical heaven!

I've come to the conclusion it's always worth asking. If they can, people by and large are happy to help.

It's just not cricket

2008-01-08T12:39:00.000+11:00

Hah - Sunday was a big day in the world of cricket in Australia. In one of the more extraordinary overs of test cricket, Australia's part time bowler Michael Clarke took three wickets to close the Indian innings with only one over of play available, and the team recorded its record-equalling 16th consecutive test victory. Or at least - that ought to have been the headline story. Instead, we got something quite different. The match was marred by ongoing perceived errors in the umpiring, a key Indian bowler was accused of racist remarks and dragged before a hearing and banned for three matches, claims and counter-claims of poor sportsmanship, and within 24 hours, the threat of the cancellation of the rest of the Indian tour of Australia. All of which left me, an "average" cricket lover, quite puzzled.

For some reason, we seem to be thinking that its all "not cricket" - a expression meant to imply that fair play is at least as important as winning. In every respect of the phrase - I agree, it isn't. But why does that surprise anyone? Cricket's total support of tradition no matter what was smashed in the 1970's by Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket if indeed it had not been rendered shaky forty years earlier by the Bodyline tactics of a visiting English side. Does anyone still think that international cricket is a gentleman's sport? It's serious business and there are big dollars associated with winning. Australia's had its time in the 1980's at the bottom of the sport and it is not a nice place and no-one involved with it wants be back there. From the late 1980's onwards, Australian cricket got its act together, and for almost 20 years, we have come to dominate the global game. It's not luck and its not through being devious either - it's been a lot of very hard work. Congratulations to all involved - it is brilliant to see how the transformation has taken place.

By a curious twist, I will forever be able to say I was at the MCG to see Michael Clarke bowl that last over. Now - the savvy ones amoung my readership might be saying "but the match was at the Sydney Cricket Ground, not Melbourne." Quite right. I was at the MCG to see an interstate 20-20 game between Victoria and New South Wales, but the first 20 minutes of the game was hardly seen by the spectators thanks to the television coverage of the last rites of the test match in Sydney being broadcast around the ground. The overwhelming impression I got was that the cricket fans willing to put up their cash and go to a game were more than impressed with the Australian effort to win a game that had just about eluded them - myself included. Sure they play hard - that's part of the reason Australia is the top team. Sure - they reacted out of sheer joy and perhaps could have been better sports - but please! It was an incredible win. Sure the opposition needs to earn their respect, but good players are respected - including the bloke who has been charged with racism.

That said - there are rules for fair play, and a code of conduct that ought to be complied with. I support their existence in cricket. If someone (anyone) steps over the line of these rules, then take action against them. If the umpires are biased - take it to the ICC and let them chuck them out! If the Aussie players appealed frivilously, bring the charge to the match referee and have it heard. If they used bad language or intimidated the opposition inappropriately, take action and have them face the consequences. But if someone does it to the Australians, don't be surprised if the same rules are applied in reverse. You cannot get away with being inappopriate to a player just because they are better than you - it's not a defence. And for goodness sake, don't go crying through the media that you are being bullied - use the process that is there.

My disappointment at the response of the Indians leads me to wonder where the poor sportsmanship applies. My disappointment spills over to the media. The claim is that 11 bad decisions were made in the match. 3 favoured the Australians and 8 favoured the Indians. Of those 8, 3 of them do not have clear evidence of being wrong, they were simply questionable. You could look at this and say that 5 bad mistakes in 5 days of cricket is not all that bad, or you could say that 3 back the other way sort of makes up for them. I'd rather have no mistakes, and I would favour the use of technology to clear up some issues. The current system recognises there are imperfections of the umpiring, but hopefully not bias. The players make a lot more mistakes than the umpires do - and we have to accept that everyone is trying to do the best they can.

I hope we can all get over it, and get back to playing cricket. This carry on is disappointing and sad. And most of all I feel disappointed that a great achievement by a truly remarkable team is being ignored in favour of the controversy.

Welcome Back

2008-01-04T15:09:00.000+11:00

"Due to circumstances beyond our control, transmission has been interrupted, please stay tuned..."

Yeah, ok, true. The circumstances weren't weren't out of my control at all. But transmission was interrupted. Sorry about that. I am going to get back into this business...

The main reason I have not been blogging is that I have been writing. I actually finished a fairly significant piece of work, around 160,000 words, to a level where I was willing to let other people read it. At the moment, it still has only seen a limited audience, because it is autobiographical and does make mention of a number of other people - some in a good degree of detail. So I wanted them to at least have the opportunity to tell me what they think before it goes out into the world more generally.

But then! What do I do with it next? Surely publishing is expensive! I have no idea. A friend of mine recently published a book on-line. Maybe I should do that! I might follow that up, it seems like a better idea, although it would mean that I won't ever see any money from it. Yes, you're right... I wasn't going to see money anyway, was I?

Ok, so I have a bit of a plan for the next couple of months then. Get the ok from my friends, and then publish the book online. Wow, sounds a bit frightening, but it might be good...

Which raises one more little issue. What if one of my friends says they don't like what I have written? Ought I change it? I've already made it quite clear its only my opinion... But then again, I really don't want to upset people who I do have genuine respect for. So where does that leave me? Oh well, I will talk to them and see...

A record

2007-03-06T18:01:00.000+11:00

Wow - for a start I was beginning to wonder if I was ever going to be able to post this particular message, because I was being forced to upgrade to the new blogger version, and it was not going well. Still - we are here now.

The news of the day is pretty sad. Last Thursday, the weekly report on Lake Eildon indicated that the level had reached a level lower than it ever had in its 51 year history. A mere 8.45% of its total capacity is now contained behind the massive wall in North-eastern Victoria.

The severity of this situation is hard to communicate without launching into a full history of the lake - but its pretty bad. For a start, the authorities have virtually stopped delivering any water from the lake for irrigation purposes, so there is enough to meet the critical water supply needs the lake supplies. Secondly, Eildon is now being asked to further provide for the needs of towns who's own supply has dried up. For example Lake Eppalock can no longer supply Bendigo, so a project is on the way to supply it with water from Eildon. Thirdly, unless there is serious rain over winter, there is no guarantee of water for next year; Eildon normally sends off around 30% of its capacity each summer/autumn to meet the core needs of the district. It is going to be optimistic to think it might do that next year. Fourth, the last two boat ramps to provide recreational access to the lake are now closed - out of reach of the water. Some people will continue to launch off the bank with their 4wd's, no doubt, but there is now no official way to access the water with a boat. Fifth, more than 75% of the traditional shoreline of the lake is now so high and dry you can't even see the lake. Thus - huge tracts of tourism facilities and private investment properties are now virtually useless, and if this remains the state of affairs for long - soon they will be worthless as well.

This is a very sad news record, and the lake is continuing to drop each day - probably until mid-May. Unless... it rains. Heavily and for long periods. There is a lot of catching up to do.

The Best Laid Plans...

2007-01-31T17:29:00.000+11:00

It is amazing how even the best laid plans can come unstuck. But - I really thought I had this one covered!

A mate and I were planning to head up to Darwin for a conference in July. Actually, not Darwin, but Batchelor - around 100 kms south, near the entrance to Litchfield National Park. The conference itself was going to scratch my "outback itch" considerably, as it would involve people from all over the top end of Australia - in fact a Melbourne person like me was going to be a bit of a ring-in. But, better still, I worked out we were going to be able to drive up there via Central Australia. Even though we'd be in a bit of a hurry, there would be the opportunity to spend some time at Katherine Gorge and Lake Argyle before heading back home. Great! Better still, it was work related, and therefore I would actually be able to do it for minimal personal cost and with only a week's annual leave. It was a great plan.

But then it all unravelled. My travelling companion made other arrangements, and so I was going to have to go alone. Then the time closely conflicted with a family wedding in Queensland, meaning I was going to have to do two pretty significant trips almost back-to-back. Then, it became apparent that the work connection to the conference was more limited than we had hoped, and my boss got cold feet. And late last week, after a long discussion, I pulled the pin on going to the conference altogether, and therefore abandoned any thought of making the trip and getting to the places I had hoped to visit.

The strength of my reaction to all this took me by surprise. While I joined in the decision making process in a rational and considered manner, I found myself deeply disappointed afterwards as I came to grips with the consequences. A part of me (a fairly big part) wanted to scream out - BUT I HAD A PLAN! It was disappointment, but it was also anger. And really, it has taken several days to be calm about it. Now I am a bit calmer, I got to being curious about why it upset me as much as it did, and how I recovered. Without going into the long version, the key upsetters were;
- I really believe in the aims of the conference (much more than my employer, it seems)
- It had taken a lot of effort to organise the invitation, as it is not open to the public.
- It only takes place every 3 years and so it was our only chance to go until late 2010.
- I was really wanting to drive across country, and add to my tally of TKD's. I even thought about doing 3 in a row, which would be new.
- It was the third time in 10 years I had organised to go back to Lake Argyle and the opportunity had been taken from me. It'll have to wait AGAIN.

And the key issues to help me come to grips with it all and get back on track;
- From a work perspective, it is probably true that it was not appropriate to go. Despite my personal feelings about it, I needed to see it from a business perspective.
- There would be other opportunities to do the things I wanted to do.
- It opened the door for not one but two significant things to fit into my year that otherwise wouldn't have, both of which will be really good. One in particular, I have jumped into organising (as a kind of compensation - I suspect).

One door closes, another opens. It is foolish & even dangerous to go on pounding on the closed door instead of moving over and walking through the open one.

Mind you - I still feel a bit sad. But move on.

No pun in ten did...

2007-01-16T08:20:00.000+11:00

...yes, a pun. My favourite humour type - they can be so clever. "I submitted ten puns to the "pun of the year" comptetion, thinking one of them would get up. Unfortunately..."

I bunch of puns arrived the other day by email. Nice! I don't know what the collective noun for puns might be, but I know the thing they come in is called a punnet. I like really smart puns that put a different spin on a completely ordinary statement. I'm not sure why bars feature so much in jokes... a barman looked up one time to see an Englishman, and Irishman and a Scotsman coming through the door. He said; "is this some sort of joke?"

Anyway, here are some of the better ones...

A jump-lead walks into a bar.
The barman says "I'll serve you, but don't start anything."

A sandwich walks into a bar.
The barman says, "Sorry we don't serve food in here."

A man walks into a bar with a slab of asphalt under his arm and says:
"A beer please, and one for the road."

Two aerials meet on a roof, fall in love get married.
The ceremony wasn't much but the reception was brilliant.

Two cows standing next to each other in a field,
Daisy says to Dolly "I was artificially inseminated this morning."
"I don't believe you," said Dolly.
"It's true, no bull!"

I went to buy some camouflage trousers the other day but I couldn't find any.

My friend drowned in a bowl of muesli. He was pulled in by a strong currant.

A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

The last one reminds me of one of my favourite jokes... a dyslexic, agnostic insomniac was laying awake at night wondering if there really was a dog.

Karijini Magic

2007-01-08T18:25:00.000+11:00

As I have mentioned, I get into questions about my favourite places in Australia from time to time, and always enjoy the discussion. One place that would regularly feature in such discussions was almost unknown to me until a few years back - Karijini National Park in the north-west of WA. Only a few years back the national park was called "Hammersley Ranges" instead of Karijini, and I reckon the new name somehow captures the magic of the place better.

Karijini is famous for its gorges. It also contains the highest two peaks in WA, but its gorges are really special. There are plenty of gorges around Australia - you can almost get gorged out when you are travelling, but don't miss these. They are particularly deep and particularly narrow.
They contain flowing water year round, through beautiful pools and cascades. But this is all much more dramatic due the contrast between the tropical feel in the bottom of the gorges and the arid dryness of the plains outside the gorge. The two images here are both of the same section of Dales Gorge. Down at the bottom, the gorge is a wonderful playground. Dales is wider than Hancock of Weano Gorges by some measure, so there is some space for this wider pools and gentle waterfalls. The trees are large - well watered and healthy. But, just 100 metres away on the tops of the gorge, the rocky ground and lack of water enables only stunted occasional growth to survive. This is typical of the surrounding district, and leaves you all the more amazed at the environment inside the gorges.

Karijini is no picnic. The road in is tough, the camping facilities are basic, and exploring the gorges is at times pretty demanding. But the rewards are fantastic. At least a part of its appeal is that sense of isolation, I suppose. Although it is 200 km from the coastal highway, I won't drive past again.

Merry Christmas Revised!

2007-01-02T11:51:00.000+11:00

I'm bold enough to admit it! I was wrong!

Instead of our usual Newell trip to Queensland, we this time drove out through Gippsland, up to Canberra, around Sydney and up the New England Highway. We took 3 days to do the trip (2,021 km) and spent most of our spare time having a look at the National Capital. I have flown home, but will return on 19th to pick up the family and bring them home. It started as a casual little conversation with my wife on Christmas Eve, and soon we had an entirely different plan on how we would get up there. It was really good!

Some friends of mine are genuine road geeks - and formed an e-group to discuss such things. I have to hurry to point out that I myself am not a road geek - I just know some. The fact that I am a member of this group and some of them talk to me is purely co-incidental. Anyway, several questions/comments occurred to me to ask my road geek freinds, as we were driving along. They were...

1. The unofficial Alt-M1 around Lakes Entrance (via B500 Bairnsdale to Bruthen and C620 Bruthen to Nowa Nowa) is getting a lot of work done to it – especially the C620 section. While there is probably very little thought of rerouting M1 (Princes Hwy), still there is good signposting of this alternative, and the road quality is being dramatically improved.

2. The section of NH23 (Federal Hwy) that brushes by Lake George no longer does. For our younger readers, Lake George is the pretty lake that USED to cover several thousand hectares in southern NSW. The nice people at RTA even built roadside stops so you can enjoy the lake. Unfortunately the lake had other ideas, and has left the building…

3. There has been a history of fatal road accidents at the junction of NH31 (Hume Hwy) and NH23 (Federal Hwy) near Goulburn. I’ve puzzled about why – it’s not a difficult intersection. But I noticed that as you approach from the west on NH31, the sign to Canberra indicates you need to do a U-turn. Indeed, a few hundred metres east of the intersection, a dedicated U-turn facility is provided for this purpose. But the indicator sign is located back before the junction. I wonder if people get to the junction, and try to turn back onto the northbound carriageway of NH23, into the oncoming traffic? Perhaps the sign and the U-turn facility need to be moved another kilometre east to avoid this confusion?

4. There is a really curious “phantom interchange” on the F3 (Pacific Hwy north of Sydney) near Gosford - a big cutting that leads off to... nowhere. But perhaps something is happening... I was surprised to see a lot of construction equipment sitting in there.

5. It was the first time I had driven my old friend NH15 (New England Hwy) for some time. Some minor improvements here and there were terrific, and I particularly like the new alignment of the Devil’s Pinch between Armadale and Guyra.

6. But – what is the story in the lower section of the Hunter? The NH15 from the end of the F3 through to Singleton is just a shemozzle. Speed limits up and down, so many little towns, slow roundabouts, traffic lights… is there any plan to do anything about this?

7. Around 10 km north of Guyra while NH15 continues along the spine of the Great Divide, the road level is sign posted at 1,410 metres. This would have to be the highest point on our National Highway system, I would think. The most remarkable thing about it is that this is not the top of some rugged range – it looks more like a fairly average undulating rural community.

8. Crossing the border from New South Wales to Queensland north of Tenterfield is a puzzle. How is the line defined? It is not a straight line as most of our state boundaries are, but nor does it follow a river like the Macintyre at Goondawindi or the Murray. Does anyone know how it is defined in the legislation?

9. A15 coming down Cunningham’s Gap is one of my favourite little sections on Australia’s National Highway network. The road drops around 600 metres in 10 km or so, but the hills either side of the Gap are quite a bit higher, making it seem like you have come down a lot more than that.

10. After a couple of days of driving around Brisbane, I come away shaking my head… why do the freeways have such complicated interchanges? Why is this so much more noticeable in Brisbane than Sydney or Melbourne? Some of the interchanges are simply… amazing…

No doubt there will be discussions about some of these issues for weeks to come!

Merry Christmas

2006-12-22T12:23:00.000+11:00

I'd like to wish all my readers a Merry Christmas! As far as I know, that might be as many as three people... but still.

I am here in Melbourne with my family for Christmas Day, and my wife has convinced me that a quiet one on Boxing Day would be appropriate. On 27th, we head north - probably up the Newell Hwy again - to catch up with her family in Queensland. We always go on the Newell, but I have been threatening to drive the Hume/New England Highways as an alternative one of these times, if only for old times sake. When we lived in Sydney, we regularly did both these routes to see family, but it is a long time since we have driven the New England Hwy in particular.

The rest of the family are going to have a few weeks in Queensland, but I will be back here in Melbourne on 1st January and back in the office on 2nd January.

By rights - I should get into a thing now about the "real meaning of Christmas". But the reality is I am struggling to get my head around it all this year - it has been too busy for too long and I have not had enough time to find my way yet. Maybe I will in the next couple of days. And having a son who was born on 20th December often means you don't think about Christmas much until it is almost on you.

Anyway - Merry Christmas. I'll look forward to next year's fun!

My dumb GPS

2006-12-12T19:27:00.000+11:00

I've had a GPS in my car now for around 6 years. Quite honestly they are no great oddity any more, but 6 years ago they were. Most people who I show the unit to these days puzzle - why doesn't it talk to you? Ok, fair enough - in-car navigation systems these days will happily tell you where to go, but apart from the fact that I would find that really annoying most of the time, my GPS is too old for that. It's dumb (in the literal sense of the word). It also doesn't contain any mapping software. I am limited to a mono LCD screen which will tell you the latitude and longitude, as well as the distance and direction to any number of way-points you choose to program in there.

The value of this unit when you drive off-road cannot be overstated. I first encountered this in the Hattah National Park in northern Victoria back in 2001, when I marked the northern gate into the GPS, then followed the Murray River south for around and hour until I found a track leading me to the Robinvale Road. Then I turned right, and re-entered the national park down at the main entry near the lakes. Out past the camping grounds around Lake Hattah, I turned off into the bush and explored my way back across country following one set of wheel tracks after another, through very same looking country, guided by the GPS. Even when the unit said I was only 500 metres from the gate, I still didn't recognise it in the slightest. Then I drove over a sandhill, and there was the original track and the gate just along a couple of bends. Wow!

On-road, it is of lesser value, because it constantly tells you things like "Adelaide is 15 degrees to the left of your current direction, 120 kms away", but you are hardly going to hop off the road to take that advice. Mind you, I still find it very valuable, in that it provides an independent countdown of the distance to any point you want to go, and it also helps keep you oriented in the world if you ever happen to arrive at an unsignposted corner.

Another unexpected benefit of the unit is that I regard my way-points collected sort of like trophies! If I am struggling with city traffic or just feeling a bit restricted, it is fun to set the GPS tracking to Mount Augustus, or Uluru, or Noosa, or Katherine Gorge. It always brings a bit of a smile - no matter how sick of where I am now I may have become, it is good to know that just 2,651 kms away on a bearing of 304 degrees is one of the most beautiful spots I know. And it will be waiting for me when I am ready to go back...

On the recent outback tour I led, I registered all the stopping points for the trip into the GPS before I left. All you need to do this is get its coordinates from a good map or web site. Then, as we drove, I could report to the other vehicles the straight line distance to each of the places we were heading for. One of the other vehicles in the convoy had a speaking GPS, as distinct from my dumb one. His name was Ken. Interesting what having a voice does for you - mind doesn't have a name. Periodically, we would have a discussion on the radio about whether my GPS and Ken agreed or disagreed with where we were going. We could also use the two GPS's to determine how far apart we were at any given time, by comparing coordinates. If we had ever got ourselves in strife, a few vehicles with GPS units and radio to communicate would be a very powerful tool to find a lost track... but we didn't get to use them for anything like that.

So, maybe its dumb, but it's certainly not stupid.

The Super Serious Secretary

2006-12-08T16:39:00.000+11:00

The Super-Serious Secretary. This was a nick-name coined for me by my little sister. I thought it was crazy when she first told me about it, but it turns out to be a reminder to me that you don't always realise what the image is you create of yourself.

First point of clarification, she isn't actually my little sister. That's a nick-name too. Her real name is Christine. She's a friend of the family's. Up until a few years ago, I had more to do with her husband than her, and similarly she had more to do with my wife. But then Christine and her husband joined me on an outback trip and ended up spending hundreds of hours together! We discovered we got on really well, and I soon started referring to her as "my little sister". Soon after, she confessed to having previously called me the "super-serious secretary". Not sure if she had called me this to many people or if it was a private thing, but in any case - by the time she got to telling me about it, the irony of the name had become obvious and it sort of stuck as a kind of in-house joke.

In person, few people would ever make the mistake of calling me super-serious. I love a laugh, and am particularly fond of puns. These kind of creep into conversation, and I find myself sort of needing to be careful not to overdo it, in case people regard me as flippant! But get with friends some time when the pressure is off, and jokes slowly get more frequent and sillier. Once Christine was entrapped in a vehicle with me for a few hours, she soon realised that super-serious was not a good description of me at all. She was shocked she'd got it so wrong!

One time, she took the time to try to explain. Up until we had set off on the long trip, the most she ever saw of me was in my role as Secretary of the local church. Here, in members meetings and occasionally in church services, I got to talk about all sorts of issues, most of which were not that humourous. When you are making a proposal to build a new building, appoint a pastor, remove people from the membership role, or adjust the constitution, it is my view that most people are wanting you to keep to the facts and keep moving - not spin yarns! Hence, I adopt a business like and efficient presentation style, and generally keep jokes to a minimum, and aim not to distract people from what I want them to decide. Christine had seen me so much in this sort of role, and so little in any other role, that she believed I was actually a no-fuss, no-fun sort of person.

Later again, I realised that the reality might be closer to Christine's original image of me than I would really like. While I like to tell jokes and be fun, I sometimes look back and think I am trying too hard to be something that I am not. The other day, I travelled to Bendigo and back with two colleagues - neither of which had spent much time alone with me before. The trip up was full of jokes and laughs and stuff - really great. But, after going to a meeting for a few hours, we travelled back together and the conversation took an intensely serious tone just a few minutes into the trip and stayed there until we got home. Reviewing the trip, I reflected that I had liked the fun part, but had really thrived in the more serious, deep and meaningful portion of conversation. While I would not say I had to force the laughs, I felt much more at home being serious.

And I am left wondering about the persona we try to project, and how it varies from our real nature. I might have to catch up with a psychologist!

The Real Mars

2006-11-30T07:56:00.000+11:00

I've just finished reading one of my favourite science fiction series again - the "Mars" trilogy. Red Mars, Green Mars, Blue Mars are each pretty thick novels by Kim Stanley Robinson that track the establishment and early history of the permanent settlement of Mars. Written very much as "future history", by the time you have read through the 3,000 pages or so, you do reach a point where it is almost a surprise to discover that in the "real" world, no-one has actually been there. The books are a great journey. With the limited free time I have these days, it took me almost three months to read through them, but upon reflection this is probably the fastest I have ever read through the three. Previously, I have completed one book and don't get back to the second for a year or so... reading them back to back like this has revealed all sorts of sub-plots and subtleties I would have otherwise missed, and the series comes out of that sort of review looking all the better.

I like science fiction - particularly at the science end of the spectrum, as distinct from fantasy. Few things annoy me more in a novel than when the chips are down and everyone is desparate and the hero discovers a passage that magically relocates them to a far safer place on the other side of the world. Especially when their enemies don't, or can't, follow them, and they all live happily ever after. What rubbish. I regard such plot lines as weaknesses on the part of the author, who obviously created a world in their novel that they couldn't themselves control, so they broke their own rules.

Clearly I like a world that has physical constraints. Reason and order are very important - I need to be able to understand what I am dealing with in life. Which might make you wonder why I have any interest in religion - but that assumes religion lacks reason. To me, blind faith is almost as bad as no faith. My annoyance frequently bubbles over at the car sticker that says "God said it, I believe it, that settles it". I worry that this is the panacea some prescribe whenever anyone asks them anything remotely challenging about God. My God is beyond imagination, but not beyond contemplation. It is richly rewarding on all levels to wrestle with the "why's" of faith. My personal experience with Him - like a good science fiction novel - is complex and remarkable but not irrational.

Forecast: dry and disastrous

2006-11-17T18:33:00.000+11:00

It's been a strange week because it has been quite wet and cold in Melbourne, and yet several of my colleagues and I have been involved in ramping up to launch a drought appeal. But, when it came to putting up my usual weekly statistics on Lake Eildon yesterday, the figures were a stark reminder. The little bit of rain that has fallen this week has made virtually no difference. The forecast for the time ahead is still dry - and disastrous. The numbers are bad enough - Lake Eildon will certainly drop below its all time record low some time early in 2007, and could even get to the point of running out of deliverable water by Autumn. At this point, it's just stats, but this is people's lives - and there are people losing everything financially, and wondering what the point of continuing on the land really is, and in some cases wondering what the point of continuing at all is. It's serious stuff.

As a part of my "day job", I have got involved with the organisation of a fund raising appeal to assist those farmers and others who are suffering as a result of the drought in Victoria. The fund is being organised by the organisation I work for - Baptist Union of Victoria and its community ministries arm - Baptcare. Donations to the fund are both tax deductible and being matched dollar for dollar by Baptcare for the first $55,000. Funds will be distributed via the 20 Baptist churches in country Victoria on a needs basis (but recipients do not need to be a part of the churches). Initial grants of $30,000 have been made to the appeal, and I am also making representations to various corporate and not-for-profit organisations to also chip in. We hope to raise $300,000 in the next few weeks for distribution early in the new year.

If you would like to know more about the appeal, please have a look at www.buv.com.au and follow the links. Donations can be made to Baptcare via cheque, credit card, over the phone or online through their web site - www.baptcare.org.au. Full details are available online. We would hope it is a small thing that would just recognise that we care about those who are suffering both financially and mentally as a consequence of the drought. Thanks!

The Longest Day

2006-11-06T17:40:00.000+11:00

As mentioned last month (see “The Driver”), a TKD – or Thousand Kilometre Day – is my ultimate statistic in terms of driving the car. To date, 93 times I have driven at least 1,000 kilometres in a day. Almost always I have been the sole driver for these, although more than half the time I have had at least one passenger – generally my wife and/or kids. Similarly, most of these long days are contained within a fairly normal day, admittedly with an early start (pre-sunrise) and/or driving on into the night at the other end. But the longest drive of all broke most of these rules.

Without going into the complexities of how I found myself doing so, four friends joined me in Melbourne to undertake a drive up the west coast of Australia and home via the Centre in August/September 2002. The five of us had never travelled together before, so there was an element of social experiment about it as well as holiday! My Jackaroo 4WD was our chosen vehicle and we towed a large trailer full of camping gear.

We left the southern suburbs of Melbourne as soon as we could get out of our work commitments, around 4:15pm, and headed west. I drove us as far as Ararat, where we changed drivers, and went on to Bordertown. Another driver change, and on again to Tailem Bend in South Australia. I took over again here as I was keen to pilot us across the Lofty Ranges and Adelaide, and we crossed the suburban area in 35 minutes from 12:05am to 12:40am, encountering very little traffic. Another driver change at Port Wakefield and we headed on to Port Augusta where we were supposed to have a shower, breakfast and refresh ourselves for the day ahead.

Surprisingly, we arrived there almost 2 hours ahead of schedule at around 4:30am. We refuelled, took a break for a bit, but then decided to head on and have breakfast somewhere further along. We eventually did stop at Wudinna – far out on the Eyre Peninsula, with the sun rising in the sky. By the time we got to Ceduna at 10:30am, everyone had driven at least one leg, although we were driving shorter stints each and stopping more regularly at this stage. No matter – we were still well ahead of schedule.

We continued across the Nullarbor, pulling in at most of the cliff-top lookouts as we headed west. Finally, we crossed the border into Western Australia, passing through the quarantine check, and arrived at Eucla at around 4:00pm. We had done enough! We checked in, freshened up and then drove down to the old Telegraph Station, now inundated by the shifting sands of the ocean beach, and watched the sunset. We had driven 2,008 km for the “day”, and we celebrated the longest driving day any of us had ever been involved with.

Have a little faith!

2006-10-31T19:04:00.000+11:00

When discussion turns to the origin of the universe, it seems to be one of those points where the Christians start getting nervous. Science seems so sure of itself these days and we Christians seem still to be relying on some very old and tatty texts. So - it's the Big Bang and Evolution, and to think otherwise is to betray yourself as stupid, irrational, and ignorant of the facts. After all, when put on the spot, it seems creation can only be explained in terms of faith, not science.

But I remain unconvinced that science offers a better alternative. For example...

Genesis' version of the creation of man is that God took some dust and shaped it into a person, breathed in life and - shezaam! Adam! Admittedly, it seems far fetched. Fortunately we have scientific investigation to correct the record and give us something we can hold on to. Our body is formed not from dust but atoms. These atoms are wonderful things. To date our technology is struggling to create atoms, although we have now been able to blow them apart for 60 years or so. Clever! Atoms can be categorised, and we have identified over 100 different ones. Mostly our bodies are made up of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and all sorts of others.

So - where did these atoms come from? Well, we would be fairly sure they cannot be created out of nothing, and most of the ones that are in our body now were part of the earth not that long ago. Almost like dust...(sorry - ignore that). Mostly, they come to our body through the food we eat and the air we breath, and some pretty clever celular programming has evolved that does the rest and makes our bodies from them.

So - how did the atoms get there in the first place? Science seems to agree that atoms of a greater weight than hydrogen (which is all the rest of them) were not around at the big bang time. They have been created since. So, it is a fortunate situation that the right atoms have been manufactured and are here on this planet at this time to enable life to happen. It is - of course - a self-fulfilling argument. If the right atoms weren't here, no life would be created. We are the fortunate spot it happened, there would be plenty of others where it didn't. I have no argument with that.

So - where were they actually created? About this, there is apparently very little argument. Heavy atoms (including even oxygen and carbon) can only be created in the heart of a star where immense pressure and heat can do what has never been achieved in our labs. The nearest star is 150,000,000 million kilometres away, so I guess the bits of me I hold so dear must have somehow found their way across that space and fortunately coalesced here on earth.

But, here lies a problem. The heavy elements thus created in our star (the Sun) are in fact too heavy to escape its immense gravitation pull. It seems very few if any of the heavy atoms on Earth came from our Sun. The only way to liberate such atoms from a star is when it explodes - goes Nova! That being the case, we have to assume that the atoms on Earth came from another star somewhere else that exploded, and came into our region about the time that the solar system was forming, and found themselves in a band around 150,000,000 kilometres from the central point of this new swirling mass, and therefore began to become attracted to the newly forming planet we would one day call Earth.

It kind of seems a bit far fetched. But - as my scientific friends would remind me - its only a theory at the moment and its the best they can come up with so far. Have a little faith!

What was the one about the dust again?

Bridging the gap

2006-10-23T08:10:00.000+10:00

I love the engineering of bridges. Mum tells me that in my earliest days, I would carry a small collection of toy cars with me when we went on holidays, and the moment we were settled somewhere, I would be outside playing on the ground - creating a road system for them. Whether I ever got to just drive the cars about on the roads is unclear, but I do know I used to love the opportunity to put in a bridge or two, supposing there were suitable building materials around the place.

The great bridges of the world are some of the most extraordinary man-made things on the planet.

My personal favourite is the Milleau Viaduct in France. It is slightly undervalued because it is "just a freeway bridge over a valley" - but what a thing. Not only does it look amazing, but the method of construction was fascinating. The entire bridge deck was constructed on the hillside and pushed out onto supports between pylons and eventually all the way to the other hillside, almost 3 kms away. Clever, I thought. And very good OH&S compared with trying to do things out in mid-air.

Australia lacks super-bridges. I think this comes down to a simple lack of traffic volume compared with the USA or Europe or even Japan, who all have some amazing bridges. Or for that matter China - an emerging force in bridge building. Ever since they have taken control of Hong Kong, they appear to have wondered - how do we upsize everything here to the rest of the country? Incredible.

So - a question. What is the longest bridge in Australia? This is in fact more a debate than a question, because as soon as you ask, you have to start qualifying what you define as a bridge. But, I will keep it simple by saying I think there are two major methods of measuring... first - what is the longest distance covered in a single span? And second - what is the longest distance over which the supported roadway has no contact with the ground? On a world picture, Japan has a suspension bridge almost 2 km between spans to win the first of these, while the cross-lake viaducts outside New Orleans win the second at a length of almost 40 kilometres - for now. So, what are Australia's longest?

Sunset at the Breakaways

2006-10-19T15:33:00.000+10:00

I took this photo around ten minutes after sunset on Tuesday June 20th of this year. It was a bit of a special moment!

Leading a convoy of 12 vehicles over 6,000 km to Central Australia and back was bound to have moments of disaster, and in retrospect I think we all got back to Melbourne relatively unscathed. The exception was one couple who's caravan decided to part company with a wheel, some 20 km short of Coober Pedy. The van was severely damaged. Although the rest of the group continued into Coober Pedy and started to settle into our camp for the night, I ended up with 1 vehicle disabled, 2 staying back to help, 2 wanting to cook a community meal for everyone, and me trying to reorganise everyone's accommodation to cover for the loss of the van. The rest of the group were a bit depressed about developments, and almost decided not to follow the program and head out to the Breakaways - 25 kms north-east of the town. Although running a bit late, 3 vehicles suddenly decided they still wanted to do it, and off they went. Obviously I couldn't go because I had plenty of coordination still to do in town. But, 15 minutes later I got radio contact with the people at the breakdown site who announced they were able to get moving, and the cooks said they were under control with dinner, and our hosts had found the extra room I needed for my homeless family. I was free to go. Although running late, I set out in hot persuit to catch the others and watch the sunset.

On such a trip, UHF radios are invaluable. As I left town, I made radio contact with the three others to discover that they were lost - their road had deteriorated beyond expectation and they didn't know where they had gone wrong. They were coming back, unless I could tell them how to get out there. I stopped and studied the maps and soon worked out what had happened - they had left town on the wrong route. By the time I had talked them through the change, they showed up and announced they would be perfectly happy (thank you very much) simply to follow me to get out there. We left on the Oodnadatta Road until we reached the dog fence, and then turned left. This is when it got really interesting, because this road headed back to the west parallel with the dog fence straight into the setting sun. A badly corrugated, twisting road is very difficult when you can't see anything, and I was not only driving it but trying to give radio warnings to the three vehicles behind me as to the worst of the hazards we faced. Fair enough too - because they had the added complication of huge amounts of my dust to deal with. Try travelling into the sun whilst in a dust cloud some time!

Somewhat fortunately, we arrived unharmed at the lookout about 5 minutes after the designated sunset time, and indeed a couple of vehicles were already leaving. But to us, it was thoroughly worth the effort. The colours are incredible, as well as the contrast between this broken escarpment and the dead flat horizon in all directions beyond. We stood and enjoyed it for almost 2o minutes, by which time it was completely dark. I took a couple of dozen photos, including quite a few that didn't really work out in the fading light. But I was very glad to have made the journey out there and enjoyed the moment. Next time - I am going to leave town a bit earlier!

A Gorge-ous Experience

2006-10-13T17:18:00.000+10:00

So, they say, thinking they are offering you a chance to sum up your life experiences - what is your favourite place in Australia?

In fact I have dozens of favourite places in Australia, or almost as many as Marcia Hince has favourite songs (based on her comments when "judging" in Aussie Idol). Sorry, I know how that implies I don't know what "favourite" means, but it varies depending on so many criteria, and so it is very hard to tie one place down. Still, if I could be transported to any place in the country for a day, and then had to come home again, there is one place I would pick more often than any other - and so that is probably not a bad way to assess favouritism.

Nitmiluk doesn't quite roll off the tongue that way that Uluru does, but in similar style - it is the indigenous name of a National Park in Northern Territory that features a remarkable geographic formation. In this case, it is more widely known as Katherine Gorge. I first encountered it when it was simply the gorge outside the township of Katherine, 300 kms south of Darwin on the Stuart Hwy. Despite being more than 3,0oo kms from home, I have been back five times, and Nitmiluk continues to inspire me. My next visit there is planned for Friday, 20th July 2007; which might seem a bit silly if you don't know me well, but it does tend to illustrate that I like to plan things... I can hardly wait to be there again.

The gorge is 30 km from the town of Katherine, and a nice camping ground has been established at the downstream end of it. To see the gorge you must walk or get in a boat. A few hundred metres upstream of the camp ground is the jetty where various cruises go from. Once on your boat and heading upstream further, the rocky walls rapidly close in beside you until you are confined between sheer cliffs of around 50 metres in height and less than 100 metres apart. After 1,500 metres or so, the deep water is unexpectedly interrupted by rock falls that create a series of small waterfalls in the river. The cruise boats have to stop, you get out and walk along, before getting into another cruise boat and on you go - now in the second stage. This process can be repeated over and over, as Nitmiluk consists of 13 such stages. The general fare on offer via cruise boats includes the rush-job 2 stage look, a half-day 3 stage cruise, or an all day 5 stage cruise. I've done them all, and heartily recommend... none of them.

The way to truly appreciate the gorge is not by cruise boat, but canoe. Even if you aren't the athlete - let me tell you; this is worth the effort. A two-person canoe can be hired for well under $50 for a day, and is a very stable and easy craft to pilot. As you go upstream first, it is always easier to get home than go out, so you are not at high risk. The advantages over the cruise boats are huge. First - it is quiet. The wildlife loves you. Second - you go at your own pace. Third - you can explore from side to side and poke into the caves and... whatever you want. Fourth - you have the perfect platform for photography, just juggle your angles and pick the spot. Fifth - you can stop on beaches and rocky outcrops, have little rests, and really get to know the gorge. Sixth - admittedly you do have to drag the canoe through the rocky outcrops between stages, but unlike the nearly 1 km you walk between stages 1 and 2 in the cruise boats, it is 2 or 3 little gaps of 20 metres each you traverse, as the canoe needs far less water than a tourist boat. And finally - at the end of the day, you can feel like you have really DONE something special! It is fantastic!

If you have reasonable fitness, you will have no problem getting up and back through 3 stages in a day. Stop and swim whenever you like - have a great time. When you get back, go and treat yourself to some barramundi and chips at one of the little local cafes in Katherine and toast to what I would have to call "one of the great experiences of the outback".

What is that thing in New York?

2006-10-10T15:01:00.000+10:00

OK, confession time. While I have travelled a lot within Australia, when it comes to going overseas, I have not been there that often. In fact, to my great surprise, I realised I have never even once dipped into my own pocket and purchased a ticket to fly out of Australia. My parents took me to India, Malaysia and Thailand in my early teens. A few years later I flew to New Zealand for a month to stay with my sister - again a present from my parents. For my honeymoon, I used frequent flyer points to fly to Norfolk Island... then I have done work trips to New Zealand on a few occasions. So - I've done a few trips, but they still haven't cost me anything.

I certainly would like to spend some time in my life touring in the United States. And if there is one city in the world I would want to explore, it is New York. It's sort of built up to be the "ultimate city", and as such, I'd just like to see it. For now I am limited to reading about it, or having a look at one of the hundreds of movies shot in and around the city. I love the idea of Central Park - great concept to have such a big tract of land set aside to green space in the middle of a city. Anyway, I was looking at it on Google Earth the other day, and saw "something" in the reservoir in Central Park. Have a look at this...

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=central+park&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=40.782564,-73.962386&spn=0.002449,0.005375&t=k&om=1

What is that line in the water running off to the north from the boatshed (or whatever)? I started looking it up on web sites and viewing photos, reading text and trying to sort it out. In reality, I could find no reference to it at all. Then, it turns out an acquaintenace of mine happens to be in New York, so I asked them to investigate. He tells me that you can't see anything from the surface at all. Maybe it is an underground pipe track or something? He pointed out that the huge ornamental pond in front of the Ballagio Hotel in Las Vagas also looks like it has "something" in the water, but it is in fact well under the surface. Have a look;

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=bellagio+las+vegas&ie=UTF8&z=18&ll=36.112769,-115.173347&spn=0.002613,0.003626&t=k&om=1

Well, I don't know. It's still a mystery to me. Someone must know!

The Driver

2006-09-25T09:51:00.000+10:00

It is almost time to get back in the car. In fact, today is the first of 8 consecutive days where I will drive at least 150 km each day - and the 8 days will add up to around 4,500. It gets serious on Wednesday when the family and I set off for Queensland for a family wedding on the weekend. Since my wife's family are in Queensland and mine in Melbourne, ever since we first met whilst we were both living in Sydney, we have travelled lots just to keep in touch. Sometimes it is a major pest - but mostly, it is a great opportunity to change states for a break...

The truth is I love to drive. I love to see the country and love to watch it unfold and change as you move on past in the car. Perhaps one of the most significant driving days I have had was Christmas Day in 1987 was the first time I drove interstate between capitals non-stop. After doing all the things I needed to in the morning, I left Melbourne early in the afternoon, and with the roads super-quiet, I cruised all the way up to Sydney to visit my sister. It was the longest day I had ever driven, and as I headed in through the south-western suburbs of Sydney, the odometer ticked up to 1,000 kms since I had begun the morning at Cheltenham. A thousand kilometres in a day - had a nice ring to it! The TKD (thousand kilometre day) became something of a brand mark for long drives, and I decided to keep a look-out for them.

It was eight months until I got to do another one, and this time I did twice in a row. I wrote down the details and began to keep a bit of a list, which eventually became a complex Excel spreadsheet and statistical analysis tool... as of today, I have done 91 of them, and my forward plans indicate there could be as many as 12 in the next 12 months. The long term objective of 100 TKD's could tick up next July!

Over the next week, Wednesday could easily be a TKD, because the plan is to leave here and drive to Coonabarabran. And Monday next week could be number 93, when we plan to leave Toowoomba and drive right through back to Melbourne. With my in-laws living in Toowoomba, we have done this trip a fair bit. Not that we always do the 1,550 kms or so in a single day, but 14 times we have. The Newell is very familiar territory.

One aspect of long drives for me is keeping a mental focus. I use all sorts of "tricks" to give me things to be working on and thinking about while driving. If I notice my mind starting to drift, then it is time for a stop, a refresh, and so on. One of those tricks is the TKD concept itself - keeping statistical track of how far how often gives me a lot to think about as I drive. I confess the "power nap" concept has never been one to work for me. If I stop the car to have a little break, I discover my brain is abuzz and there is no thought of sleeping. Only once do I remember pushing myself to drive past safe limits - it was pretty stupid. The fact I got away with it doesn't make it better. I have an agreement with my wife that there won't be a repeat of that night!

So - it's back on the road shortly. Can hardly wait!

one BIG rock

2006-09-18T13:44:00.000+10:00

Here's a question for you; name the big rock located in outback Australia regarded as the largest single rock in the world, that provides a challenging climb to the summit and some great exploratory opportunities around its base? While you're thinking about the answer - let me tell you a bit about an exciting trip I had to visit it.

I had known about the rock for years, but it came sharply back into focus for me when one of these television travelog shows visited there in early 2002. They pointed out that despite the remote location, there was now a tourist complex nearby and lots to do when you get there. In fact my trip there was already planned, but it became that bit more exciting to see it on TV, hear stories about the aboriginal dream-time stories associated with it, and to hear about some of the panoramas it and its surrounding desolate country present. Particularly impressive were the sunset views! A couple of months later, four friends and I jumped in my 4-wheel drive and off we set to cover the immense distance to reach it. Leaving Melbourne, we headed up through Adelaide and Port Augusta, and then west across into WA, bypassing Perth and heading north up the coast...

And for the guy in the second row with his hand up, no, we weren't lost. It wasn't THAT rock we were going to. The answer to the question is not Uluru, but Mount Augustus. If the two of them stood side by side, you would be amazed at the difference. Augustus is twice as high, and almost three times longer. It is five times further around the base and has gorges and pounds, dwarfing the geography of its more famous cousin. As for location - it is much more remote. Around 500 km inland from Carnarvon on dusty tracks, and if you want to drive on to somewhere after that, it gets even worse.

I had high expectations going to Mt Augustus, because I have a real love of Uluru. And, I have to say, if it wasn't for the comparison, I would have been more impressed. Augustus is a remarkable place and the walks are genuinely fascinating, but if you have to compare it with the experience of going to Uluru, it comes off second-best. A few factors influence this; it is not as steep sided and therefore less imposing despite being much bigger; and it is often quite vegetated, so you miss the dramatic colours of the bare stone of Uluru.

As for facilities, well - it is still pretty primitive! The tourist complex is basic, and the roads pretty rough. The day we arrived they had run out of fuel - hoping that the tanker would make it in the next day. When he did, they charged 15 cents per litre more than the next station 50 km down the road. The local mechanic had recently "done a runner on them" and taken most of the tools with him, so their garage was sorely ill-equipped and inexperienced. The day I left Mt Augustus, heading cross country to Tom Price, I wrecked 3 tyres in the space of a bad couple of hours somewhere on the Pingandy Road!

Still, I am very pleased to have been there, and hope to go back some time when I have a little more time up my sleeve and just slightly better set up than last time. Coupled with the nearby (well - 300 km away!) Kennedy Ranges, it is a part of the country that makes owning a 4WD worthwhile. But you will enjoy it far more if you don't go there intent on comparing it with Uluru.

Experiencing God

2006-09-14T09:20:00.000+10:00

I have been a spiritual person all of my life - by which I mean I have always confidently believed there is more to life than the here and now. Most of my life this spiritual aspect of me has been shaped by the fairly traditional conservative evangelical church environment in which I have spent virtually all of my life. On some occasions, this has broken out into something else.

One such occasion in my youth was when I spent a month in New Zealand living in a small rural village, where the majority of the residents had at least some Mauri blood. They too were Christian, but it was a very different kind of faith to what I had experienced in suburban, (predominantly) white anglo-saxon, church. Faith to them had a currency that initially confronted, and then delighted me. I was surprised (and then surprised that I was surprised) that converations about spiritual issues would come up in virtually any context at any time. It was another surprise that some of these people who oozed spirituality didn't necessarily go to church when the calendar ticked around to Sunday. In fact - despite this life in spirutuality I was experiencing, the church I did go to was much more dead and dreary than my usual experience of church. I confess to spending quite a bit of that month wondering what on earth was going on to the spiritual values I thought I had mastered, and I reckon looking back it was probably pretty good for me.

A couple of weeks back I had the opportunity to attend the launch of Melbourne's bid to host the World Parliament of Religions - to be held in 2009. We are in the running against Singapore and New Delhi, and a group of 5 from Chicago were out to have a look at the bid and make an assessment. And, it seemed, to freely experience quite a bit of the good things about Victoria - all in the name of improving our chances of winning. I struggled a bit with the speeches, wondering if even I (with a bit of a liking for such things) had to experience all this over and over around the world, it might be a bit taxing. But to their credit, the bloke speaking on behalf of the delegation was easily the best and most passionate of the speakers and impressed me.

But the real interest of the evening was talking with some of the others around the room. It was fascinating to see and hear about the faith evolution of various people. Several extremely intelligent, articulate people that I spoke with sounded like they had experienced many of the things I had experienced, but ultimately responded by choosing quite different spiritual paths from the one I am on. They were/are not biggotted, misguided, misinformed, brainwashed, or uninformed. But they had come to a different point to me.

How does that make me feel about my faith journey? Could I be wrong? Might it be me that is miguided or brainwashed or uninformed? Is there still stuff for me to learn and understand? If I can be accused of anything, it is forgetting the fact that this is a journey. And maybe in saying that, I am passing another kilometre post.

Flying visit

2006-09-08T07:56:00.000+10:00

I dropped in on Hokkaido yesterday. Fascinating and fantastic place, really. I’d never been there before and in fact had heard very little about it. The northerly of the main islands of Japan, it is separated from Honshu by a tiny strait connecting the Sea of Japan to the Pacific Ocean, only a handful of kilometres wide. And yet, it is a journey to another world. The seething mass of humanity on Japan’s main island – particularly in the super-city of Tokyo, is scarce conceivable as one tours through the tree-covered, unspoilt slopes that give way to snow at barely a few hundred metres above sea level.

The southern-most tip of Hokkaido is a curious little hooked claw reaching to the south, as if it wanted – but just failed – to grasp the larger island to the south. Mostly it is wild mountainous country, although even the highest peaks hardly rate on the usual Japanese scale. Tiny fishing villages cling to the river deltas and narrow coastal plains. A two-lane road makes the perilous trip around the coastline, barely out of reach of the waves for most of the way, occasionally diving through tunnels where the mountains get too steep, all the way presenting breathtaking view after breathtaking view until you wonder if you have any breath left. It is at least as good as our own famous Great Ocean Road, but with much more dramatic engineering. With only a few exceptions, no roads penetrate the interior. Those that do either cling precariously to the steep banks of rushing rivers until they reach a place where the valley flattens out a little – where in typical Japanese fashion, every last square centimetre of flat land is taken up with farming; or else the wind and switch-back up and up until reach some icy mountain peak, presenting spectacular views or the opportunity to indulge in some cross-country skiing - so long as you don't mind the solitude.

Yes – I dropped in on Hokkaido yesterday. And all from my office here in Melbourne. You’ve got to love Google Earth.

It's a beautiful day...

2006-09-04T08:27:00.000+10:00

...not. Our obcession about the weather continues to be absolutely short-sighted, it seems. Sunday was a bit wet. In a flash, people are complaining about the rain. Saturday, by contrast was "beautiful" - sunny and warm, and everyone was happy. Somewhere along the way we need to change our tune and decide that wet weather is desparately needed. That truly beautiful weather is a serious wet spell. We are in serious water bother.

My involvement with water levels began when I first experienced Lake Eildon up close and personal, in 1997 during a week on a houseboat. Of course, I had long known of this lake and its variable water levels, typified by how much lake you see above the township of Bonnie Doon as you drive along the Midland Highway. On our houseboating trip that year, the locals "apologised" the the low levels of the water - down to just 68%. We motored under the highway bridge and around Bonnie Doon to a little mooring that turned out to be an old viaduct of the flooded Mansfield railway. We were around 1 km upstream of the township, and fast running out of water.

Ever since we returned our houseboat, the lake has never been that high again. 1997 was a dry year, and Eildon quickly descended below 50%. And, although there was a brief foray about that level in 2000, it has basically remained below 50 ever since. And now, this winter, with the level down to 21% at the start, the usual refilling rains have simply not arrived. Here it is spring, and the irrigators are wanting water, and Eildon contains just 22.5% and falling. Never in its history has the lake been so low at the start of spring. If mathematical models hold up, we are heading for a new record low by Autumn, even lower than the 8.5% of early 2003.

These days I write a weekly column on the lake levels of Eildon published on www.lakeeildon.com, and feel very involved with the entire system. Probably this makes me more aware of water conservation than many, but I am none the less stunned to see the complete lack of interest and involvement shown by most people. Instead of complaining about restrictions, we ought to be desparate to save whatever water we can.

Meanwhile, further north at my wife's hometown of Toowoomba, the population has voted against waste water recycling, apparently because it is "too distasteful". The only alternative is to tighten the restrictions still further on an already ravaged town. The next steps are difficult. It will be Garden City no longer - once outdoor watering is totally banned. I guess people might need to suffer a little more before they realise this issue is serious.

Meanwhile, our lakes disappear... sometime we have to understand there is not the water there used to be.

Weclome to Outback Views

2006-08-31T19:50:00.000+10:00

Well, with some trepidation, I begin to type my first posting to a blog page. I don't really know why - Blogging should be just my sort of thing. I have lots of opinions about things, I love sharing my opinions, and I love getting feedback. So - where's the problem?

As my Personal Assistant tells me - problem number one is I don't have time for such games. True enough, life is busy. But maybe this is recreation, and will actually put something back? Maybe it's an outlet that will save time in other places? Mmm, actually, I don't know how that will all work out - but this negative has eventually been overwhelmed by the positives. As I always suspected it could be

Yeah, I know the real reason I am nervous about this. The scary thing is that blogging puts your views out there, and you just never know where that might take you, or with whom. I mean, can I really talk about issues at work when some of my readers will be colleagues? Can I really talk about worries I have in my church life when it can find its way back to my fellow worshippers? Or about the challenges of home life when readers might well be at least as close to my wife as me? Truth is, I don't know how this works, and how much of me will come out in my blog. I guess that is something that I will need to consider and develop over time.

So, welcome to my blog. And I suspect a part of that is I am saying welcome to a window to me. If you know me personally, I guess you know some of the stuff I am likely to get commenting about, and I trust you'll keep reading. But if you don't know me, I hope you get a real insight over time, and develop a sense of who I am from the stories.

My hope is to put up a story once a week or so, and I have plans for material for the next couple of months. But - I well suspect my priorities might change over time and I end up doing different things. Presumably that does not break the rules!

There will be plenty of time to share personal stuff about who I am. But I think I should at least start with a comment about the name of the blog. Since I got my drivers license in 1983, I have periodically needed to head for the desert in Central Australia. "Red dust in the veins" - I have sometimes called it. I have always lived in the city - mostly Melbourne apart from 7 years in Sydney, and I have a great love of the tropics and the Whitsundays in particular - but there is something about the Outback that calls me back, over and over. For the last 6 years, I have owned a 4 wheel drive that has opened a few more doors in this regard. I am not that interested in the really hard, long tracks across the desert - Canning Stock Route and the like - but I do love to get off the road and see some of the special hidden parts of our country. One outcome of this is a collection of photos and stories of the outback that evoke great memories. My screen saver on the computer scrolls through some of my most loved photographs. These outback views help me keep balance with my urban world. I'm sure they will play quite a part in what I have to share in coming months.

So - here goes. Look forward to hearing from you.