Outback road trip diary notes day 4: Erldunda to Alice Springs

Left Erldunda on a relatively short 200 kilometre leg to Alice Springs - this meant we could have a leisurely late start because there was no need to get up early to travel over a thousand kilometres as we had done the day before.  To know one only has to travel 20% of your previous day's journey was a comforting thought.  So while normally 200 kms would seem a trip of significance, on this day it just felt like driving down to the shops and back

Before we left Erldunda, I was able to demonstrate to Kiki that I am in the Mensa league when it comes to cleaning car windscreens.  Kiki says he is a genius when it comes to picking up or bagging dog shit.  Whether squeegee or cleaning up dog poo skills are more valued in today's society is a moot point.  While my squeegee work is not quick, which disqualifies me from tasks on the corner of Northbourne and Antill Streets in Dickson, ACT, it approaches perfection.  What pleases me most is how I combine a clear screen with a total lack of tell tale lines.  "What is my secret?" I hear you ask - well my brush strokes are not dissimilar to those I employ when painting walls or works of art.  It is important to have pride in the most menial tasks be it flossing your teeth or erecting an umbrella on a balcony.  My father taught me such zen like contemplative diligence is one of the keys to fulfilment - in his later years many thought he should write a book on how this philosophy infused his life.  I was to be his amanuensis.  Its title was to be 'The Tai Chi of vice regal cooking'.  Like the tome about my own life, a story of triumph over adversity tentatively titled 'All this with a horse shoe shaped kidney', it remains unrealized.

Because we had plenty of time in Erldunda, there was a chance to view the enclosures which held emus, an enormous echidna made out of fibro cement and an equally large inanimate frill necked lizard.

Each was at least two metres tall & if they had been alive a battle between them would have been on the scale of King Kong versus Godzilla.  Australia is well known for its large things and these include different creatures - e.g. Adaminaby's 15 metre long trout and Ballina's big prawn.  However, Erldunda is the only place where these monuments are fully fenced and roofed in, which makes viewing them difficult.  What motivates this claustrophobic approach to the display of gigantic animal models is unclear - maybe authorities are concerned they could be stolen.  Kiki told me about a spate of model cow thefts in the beef city of Rockhampton, which necessitated keeping the plaster cast bovines in a pen so they could be kept under surveillance 24/7.  More recently he reported how Tailem Bend's model gorilla and pig pushing a mower are kept under lock and key at night.

So as well as being a nation of big things, Australia is a nation of petty thieving, what with in recent times a large boulder being stolen from the national rock garden in Canberra.

Maybe fencing the big model frill neck lizard and the huge echidna in makes it easier for the enclosed emus, because they can think they are not the only creatures confined and the immobile creatures serve as model prisoners for their feathery inmates. Or perhaps seeing how the fence keeps in such large creatures makes the emus realize there is no escape.  The psychology of incarceration is fascinating, whether it involves deterrence or cross species group think, particularly to a psychologist like KiKi.

At a slightly more mundane level, Kiki had a toasted ham cheese and tomato sandwich at the next roadhouse called Stuart's Well.  Many of the locations dotted throughout the outback are named after precious sources of water and bear such descriptors like 'Well' and 'Springs'.  I ate  a corner of his sandwich providing me with adequate sustenance and taking a few calories from Kiki's perpetually bloated daily intake.

Nearby we stopped briefly at the monument to four people who were killed in the Northern Territory's one and only cannonball run from the South Australian border to Darwin.

In this event competitors were allowed to drive as fast as they could on the outback roads.  Unfortunately at this point a car piloted and navigated by two Japanese ploughed into two race officials by the side of the road.  All four were killed in a peacetime event redolent of the one and only conflict between Nippon and the antipodes where the actions of kamikaze first came to the fore.

Between Stuart's Well, with its rather tawdry dick joke in the toilet

 and arrival in Alice Springs, we briefly contemplated taking a 40 kilometre detour to Rainbow Valley,

which Kiki says bears some resemblance to Monument Valley in the United States of America.  I would like to have seen Rainbow Valley but Kiki, who is more risk averse than a condom wearing Volvo driver, was worried about getting bogged so we ended our first foray into the red sand country before it began.

So we then drove on to Alice Springs to Alice on Todd River apartments.  It was a great place, with two separate bedrooms.  It had a very utilitarian kitchen table which was bolted to the dining room floor.  Both Kiki and I have never stayed in accommodation with a table bolted to the floor.  We just took it as another sign of the level of theft in the Northern Territory, where both animal sculptures and furniture are liable to be stolen.

From there we ventured to the local Telstra shop to get Kiki's old phone reactivated after the new one was shattered.  A guy called Panos tried to get Kiki to phone Telstra help desk headquarters somewhere in India, but Kiki rightly baulked at this and asked Panos to do it.  Panos acceded to Kiki's request but I think this had something to do with him realising I had Greek heritage.  After Panos's initial reluctance, me turning the charm level to high meant we left the shop on good terms, with Panos not charging us for the new SIM card he inserted in Kiki's old phone.

There was no joy to be had from the local iPhone repairer who said $600 and ten days would be required to bring the shattered iPhone back to its former state.  Not even my high level of persuasive and diplomatic skills could elicit a different answer from the tech heads.

Kiki then took me to grab some lunch at Nongs Thai take away.  Kiki said he realised the food there wasn't much good but found the stupid name irresistible.  We then drove up Anzac Hill to eat our lunch. The hill and its name epitomise the Eurocentric naming of things in the outback.  Here is a prominent lookout and instead of it being known by its Aboriginal name, Atnelkentyarliweke, it is named after Australian military history's foundation event at Gallipoli.

After that, we went to an art gallery – normally $15 but we got in for free after I protested effectively at the being asked to pay for half an hour's viewing of art and photography.  Inside we saw paintings by Albert Namatjira and his family and some portraits of some significant people in the Northern Territory.

Exposure to high culture meant we had developed a thirst so we went to get some beers and wine from a drive-in bottle shop nearby and got interrogated by a cop about where we were from and our drinking habits - I found it like going through passport control in the USA.

We then went for dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant outside town, which Kiki had trouble finding it in the dark. It reminded me of an outdoor restaurant in Singapore.  I saw a mouse and a cockroach scuttling along the ground nearby and this didn't help my appreciation of the cuisine, which was pretty ordinary.  I guess it is a mistake to order prawns in batter this far from the ocean - it seems with battered seafood, the further inland you go, the greater the ratio of batter to seafood.

We ended the day with a trip to the local Coles where Kiki had problems with the automatic check out.  Surprisingly he didn't do his block at the malfunctioning machine and its "unexpected item in the bagging area" so my calming presence must be having the desired effect on him.

Outback road trip diary notes day 3: Port Augusta to Erldunda

Outback road trip with Kiki - written by Michael King (Kiki) & from an outline by Michael King & Mike Regan (I, me)

23 November - 1 December 2014
Trip Diary Notes

Kiki had wanted to get up at 5 am and leave Port Augusta at 6 am for the long drive to Alice Springs.  Although we were travelling in his car & we couldn't afford to dawdle in the Outback (it being able to sneak up on you and kill you before authorities come looking for you), I tactfully rejected this notion out of hand & respectfully asked him for plan B.  I am a man who needs his sleep (note the absence of the adjective 'beauty' here) & more importantly need at least one and a half hours in the morning to prepare to face the day.  It is a routine that has served me well & stood me in good stead over the years & while I am used to the hustle and bustle of Sydney (actually more used to the hustle than the bustle), I won't be rushed in the morning.

I could write more on how I am the pioneer of the slow purposeful commute - whether it be by bullet train or in a traffic jam, on my way to a breakfast meeting or a conference out of town - I can put my mind into an hypnotic, almost hibernating idle, processing deep thought, not distracted from negotiating traffic and those around me, detached from the hurly burly & making my way forth in the world.  As such I am the perfect person to research and expostulate on the driverless car...as I said, I could write more, but I won't. 

So we left Port Augusta at about 8 am Australian Central Daylight Savings Time, heading due north through saltbush, scrub and mulga, passing mesa and salt pan, while making the occasional crossing of railway line.  Very early on on this day's long journey, I insisted that Kiki come to an almost complete stop at rail crossings.  Even though their lights weren't flashing a warning red, I don't trust these intersections between the descendants the creations of George Stephenson and Karl Benz.  There is absolutely no way I want to perish as the victim of a level crossing smash - the tabloids would point out how a road safety expert had been taken by a train & my reputation would be trashed forever.  So it is a matter of necessity that intersections with trains are approached in a hyper vigilant way.  As it happens, Kiki is even more risk averse than me, and quickly fell into my way of doing things, slowing to a dawdle as we crossed the Ghan railway.

Along the way, we paralleled the pipeline that delivers water to Woomera.  As Richie Benaud, the Sir David Attenborough of cricket commentators would say, it is a marvellous piece of infrastructure providing a lifeline to those in such remote dry locations.  At regular points along the pipe, there are stopcocks, which in the soft early morning light resemble raptors, perched on water carrying cylinder.  Or maybe the shimmering desert air was starting to play tricks on our perceptions & we were seeing life where there were only inanimate objects.

At our first rest stop for a leg stretch, I heard Kiki starting to mutter under his breath about something that was obviously getting on his goat.  Profanities spewed from his mouth - I wondered if this was some sort of delayed anger to the rescheduled departure time from Port Augusta.  It turned out that Kiki had found a torn piece of paper, on official Government letterhead, partly adhered to the picnic table that mentioned how the road might be closed about 200 kms ahead due to exercises being conducted by the Defence Department.

While I am a former employee of the Department of Defence, I have not the slightest shred of residual loyalty to them, and while not white with rage at their apparent commandeering  of her majesty's highway, I was dumbfounded by both how the army could close a major road for war games, thus incommoding grey nomads & others journeying to and fro, and also at the inadequate nature of the notice given to travellers like ourselves.  Kiki and I were in furious agreement about our lack of happiness at the prospect of cooling our heels at Glendambo for a few hours, while our troops took pot shots at each other.  However, after a chance to reflect further on the situation, we thought if it saves casualties from from friendly fire in battles on far away shores so be it.

As we pondered what to do about the possible road closure ahead, another odd thing happened.  A young woman travelling alone, pulled up in her four wheel drive and approached us.  She asked if we knew the way to South Hope.  Kiki could not help her despite his many journeys on this road and he remarked to me later that while he was always looking for hope, he really had no idea where South Hope was.  I was surprised that a lone female traveller would approach two men in the middle of nowhere for assistance, particularly as we had just started listening to an audio book about the abduction of Joanne Lees and the murder of Peter Falconio on the same highway we were travelling.  Later investigation of the name 'South Hope' showed no evidence it existed in South Australia, so our advice to her that we had no idea of where it was, may have been the best guidance she was likely to receive, or on the other hand, the whole event may have been a figment of our joint imagination.  The outback does strange things to the human mind.

We passed through the low bush into countryside that looked for all intents and purposes like the Martian landscape.  While I haven't any personal experience of visiting the red planet I've seen shots taken from various unmanned missions & the resemblance is uncanny.  You have to think that if NASA ever pulls its finger out and sets its sights on a manned mission to Mars, the treeless, grassless red rocks and soil around Woomera will figure in their planning, nodd, nodd, wink, wink, say no more.

In the middle of this faux alien terrain, we came across something mankind is unlikely to find on the red planet, a small family of emus, which consisted of one father bird and five chicks.  Apparently roles are reversed in the world of emus and fathers look after their chicks, while mothers indulge in other pursuits, which may or may not include hang gliding.  Four of the young emus were in rude health, but one was noticeably lame and unable to keep up with its avian siblings.  We slowed and stopped to take footage and photos of this heart rending scene unfolding before us.  Kiki was surprisingly moved by this 'red in tooth and claw' tableau and for a minute I thought his choked words, full of emotion were going to lead him to cry.  At the time I thought I might need to have stern words with him, telling him to get a grip, but as we left this desperate scene behind, our minds quickly turned to more practical matters like whether we would be able to get a connoisseur ice cream at our next stop.

Many stops were called for despite the thousand kilometres to be travelled.  We stopped at beautiful salt lakes, some of which were part salt and some water, and others that were 100% salt.  I went for a walk on some of the salt pans.  I am still the weight I was thirty years ago so the thin crust of the crystalline sodium chloride was just able to support my weight, as it crunched and compressed under my feet.  Kiki wanted to follow me, but again, in the interest of risk management, I advised him to keep his 110 kg self at the edge.  It's quite ironic that when filled with salt water these lakes are very buoyant and even a man of Kiki's obesity can be supported. But when the water has gone they are a complete death trap for the overweight, either swallowing up fatties completely or trapping them, their corpulent bodies stuck in the gluey bog, leaving them easy prey for Wolf Creek types or other feral animals.  

Kiki had a steak sandwich at Glendambo. As it turned out, the Defence Department had already shot off and exploded all of their shells & the road ahead was not blocked after all. Kiki was relieved & I was hopeful & happy that he might be able to enjoy some peace of mind till the next bee entered his bonnet.

Half way to Coober Pedy, we came upon the roadway widened so that it could be used as a landing strip for the flying doctor & any other planes that might land in the vicinity.  As Kiki said, this is all very good if there is an accident nearby, like the Defence Department blowing someone up, but we were both at a loss to understand what would happen if someone came to grief 100 kilometres further up the road.  And if a large plane had to land on the road, how would it negotiate a road train?  So as with many aspects of life, there were many unanswered questions, and given this, I was pleased to be able to at least figure out the rationale for the concordance between the colour of nearby stones and rocks and the red surface of the sealed road we motored upon.

Kiki fuelled up the CX5 in Cooper Pedy, which is a town that has adapted an idea of my former neighbours, Nev and Allison Reece of building living space underground.  In Coober Pedy, the houses are underground because it is very hot during a large part of the year, while underground it is a constant 23 degrees.  Coincidentally, 23 degrees was the temperature Kiki preferred to run the climate control car air conditioner at.  I preferred something a little warmer, given my Body Mass Index is not as large as Kiki's.  The CX5 had separate climate control for each side of the vehicle, which seems an idea that can't possibly work given you can't separate the air masses in cars.  So as I could not persuade Kiki to set his temperature to my preferred 24 degrees, I turned my knob up to 25 degrees and let the dual system reach some acceptable (to me) stasis.

While in Coober Pedy I had to pay 50 cents for hot water for my tea bag, which shot out of the dispensing machine, making capturing the jet of water a difficult task. In truth, I was slightly disappointed that I had to pay for hot water, especially as we had purchased petrol at an expensive price, not to mention Kiki buying a cappuccino from the same machine. Back In Cobar we had been able to persuade the woman in the coffee shop to give us the hot water for my tea bag for free, but here in the opal mining capital of South Australia, faced with a machine & not a human, providing the second necessary ingredient for a cup of tea, there was no avoiding the half dollar price on offer.

Up the road about 150 kilometres, which seemed a mere hop, step and a jump in the outback we stopped at Cadney Park, and Kiki had another steak sandwich. Whether he actually needed more junk food sustenance is a moot point, but his rate of ingestion told me clearly that at no time in the near future would he be tip toeing on any salt lakes.

Further on we stopped at the Marla roadhouse. When you traverse the vast empty spaces of Australia, it is a small tonic to find a remnant of civilisation in the middle of nowhere.  However whoever wrote the sign calling Marla as an oasis would be rightly described as using real estate agent terminology.

Later we stopped at a non flushing long drop toilet, just past the Northern Territory border.    We put our time pieces back an hour to Australian Central Standard Time & gingerly opened the door of the outhouse for closer inspection.  Kiki confided that he sometimes has nightmares about dropping his car keys into one of these.  Peering down into them, they are a dark foreboding concatenation of slowly decaying human waste & paper.  While Kiki has nightmares about associations between car keys and long drops, he really is accustomed to the privations of outback privies and quite happy to use them should the need arise.  Later, in what might aptly be categorised as 'too much information', he indicated to me that while the outback dunnies quote "do the job", he would prefer more feedback re. the results of his toilet visits.

I drove the last hundred kilometres and as evening turned into night, almost inevitably, we saw several kangaroos on this last stretch.  Authorities have little meta data let alone actual data on how many roos are killed annually on Australian roads, but the carnage and numbers involved must be truly staggering.  However, as noted earlier, this supports a large amount of activity involving road kill de jour, rescuing joeys and untold amounts of panel beating.

In Erldunda we stayed at a hotel that had note on the door about not leaving the door open because of snakes entering the room.  As neither of us have any tendency towards being latter day Steve Irwins, we kept the door firmly closed and locked.  I even checked under the bed for vipers, with the same level of care shown earlier when I gave the outback outhouse the once over.

Outback road trip diary notes day 2

Outback Road Trip with Kiki - written by Michael King (Kiki) from an outline by Michael King & Mike Regan (I, me)

23 November - 1 December 2014

Trip Diary Notes

Monday 24 November:

After negotiation and sweet talking by Kiki at the local coffee shop, I was eventually given  for free, hot water and a cup, into which I inserted my tea bag. Charm & hard bargaining had won the day again - I can see my influence is starting to make a difference to Kiki & his blitzkrieg approach to inter personal relations.

As we farewelled Cobar we stopped at a sign that announced the outback was officially beginning so we decided to take a 'happy snap' to record the moment for posterity.  Later we thought that Cobar could promote itself as a tourist destination with a 'big' gate thus touting its title as the gateway to the outback.  While on holidays and trying to relax, my mind still works at a feverish pace with creative ideas like this continuing to bubble to the surface - Kiki has tried to tell me that I need to relax and turn my mind off, but when you have had a turbo charged career like mine, living in the cultural firmament that is the centre of Sydney, it is easier said than done.

At this point we looked at each and realised the road trip into the deep heart of the continent was only now truly beginning and there would be no turning back.  Travelling down the Barrier Highway, both of us were surprised at the number and variety of feral goats grazing by the roadside.  Our westwards journey was punctuated by a few stops to stalk and try and photograph these creatures, which are on the menu at Rama's Fiji Indian restaurant, in Pearce, ACT.  Male goats, also known as Billy goats, with their facial hair, should be more chic nowadays given the popularity of beards among Generation 'Y' males.    While possibly obtaining some cachet via their beards, it is doubtful that this will save them from hunters' bullets and or restaurant menus.  Whether further synergies develop between these two beard wearing groups, and young men start adorning their heads with artificial horns remains to be seen, but a return to the Viking look in fashion is well overdue.  Emus were also common along the Barrier Highway and like their fellow Barrier highway foragers were camera shy.  We concluded that both creatures would be almost impossible to get a selfie with.  How you might do this was something we turned our minds to.  Options considered included: (1) a long selfie stick; (2) dressing up as a goat or an emu and taking off the headpiece of the costume just before the photo; (3) using food to cajole the animal; or (4) employing someone like Kevin Rudd as a selfie emissary, having him sidle up to the goat or emu to ask "Hi guys.  Selfie time".

We passed a van that had overtaken us earlier and then hit a large kangaroo. Its front end was badly damaged and it was waiting to be towed back to Cobar, which is not a prospect one would savour.  With all the blood and guts strewn over bitumen and bumper bar, it wasn't clear whether it was a red kangaroo or a grey kangaroo; what was clear was that it was a dead kangaroo.  Kiki and I had had a shared carcass encounter previously on a trip to the snow more than 25 years ago, when we came across the body of a very recently departed animal in the middle of the Monaro Highway.  A quarter of a century ago, steam rose from the dead body, mixing with a fog that enveloped the countryside.  As much younger men, in 1989, we thought the steaming carcass was something a concept artist might use to depict beauty in death. Nowadays, with both of us on the plus side of 50, the death of anything reminds us of our own mortality and the preciousness of life. 

Dead creatures, at various levels of decay and being devoured, festoon the sides of outback roads.  With such a never ending cavalcade of life and death, car journeys necessitate caution and vigilance so as to be on guard against hitting roos, emus, goats, wedge tailed eagles, sheep or even cows.  Kangaroos and goats are attracted to the edge of roads by the grass that grows there, nourished by water that runs off the camber of the surface.  Lured there, the roos run the gauntlet of cars and when they are hit they attract raptors.  The recently killed often lie in the middle of the road adorned with crows and wedge tailed eagles.  When cars approach, crows are quick to move but wedge tailed eagles, the A380 of the bird world, need much more time to make their escape.  While Kiki and I feel bad about the deaths caused cars on outback roads, most of our apprehension is due to a fear of creatures damaging the vehicle and the cost and inconvenience resulting from outback accidents, viz the van making the sad journey back to Cobar.

We stopped at the Emmdale road house where a young woman was sweeping the dirt off the path at the front. Taking care with appearances in an environment often subjected to dust storms suggested it might be worthwhile lingering in this place a little longer.  Inside the simple but tidy road side stop was a French woman with green eyes, who with her partner run the roadhouse.  We both obtained food, surprised by its availability in such a remote place: fresh lasagne for Kiki and a nutritious salad sandwich for me.  What at first blush looked like the road house featured in the start of Wolf Creek, turned out to be an idyll in the middle of nowhere.

Headed to Wilcannia, where Kiki has never stopped.  It is a town with metal grills or boards on many of its buildings' windows. Like the Darling river that runs almost dry through its middle, the town seems desiccated, sapped of strength, ready to give up and be taken over by the surrounding bush.

We both marvelled at how we still had cell phone reception far away from the nearest big town.  So because we could we rang friends and family from our mobile island of civilization.  While we we experienced a sense of awe at the loneliness and peace of mind that being in the outback bought, I was slightly irritated that not once did Kiki offer me a Jatz cracker from the packet he was gorging himself on.  Later he explained his apparent lack of generosity was because he thought I was satisfied with the Sakata seeweed crackers I was nibbling on.  I rationalised his selfish behaviour as being a personality quirk or character flaw consequent upon living by himself for so many years.  "Lucky I have my wife to bring me into line" I thought as I contemplated the edges of savagery inhabited by my travelling companion.

Later on we stopped at Little Topar - we never did find out where Big Topar or Topar were - the place we stopped at was certainly small so the adjective 'little' was quite apt. Always on the look out for humorous curios, even confected ones, we both took photos of a sign instructing pet owners to stop their dogs defecating near the sign.  It struck us that there were probably more pet friendly places in the world than Little Topar. Speaking of pets, soon after Little Topar, I spoke to my good friend Marky Gledhill, whose dog Murph, was not well, and who unfortunately subsequently died after a poor dietary choice involving an inappropriately ingested sock.

Just west of Broken Hill, we crossed into the state of South Australia and took a photo of a large sign welcoming travellers to the State. Interestingly, going the other way on the Barrier highway, there was no similar sign welcoming drivers and passengers to New South Wales.  "Was this disparity a vestige of one State being an ex penal colony and the other being convict free?" Kiki hypothesised.  Kiki comes up with many far fetched theories in his self appointed role as forensic historian, and like the famous stopped clock, he is probably accurate now and then.

Further on we saw a Hills Hoist erected on a mound on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. The significance of this artefact went beyond a forensic historical examination into the realm of cultural theory and Kiki was at a loss as to why this Barrie Koskyesque motif might be half way between Cockburn and Yunta.

Later I went through my first fruit fly quarantine point and was rather surprised to be first stopped and then have the car searched by a Crow eater looking for smuggled fruit and vegetables. The official went about the fruit and vegetable detection task in a cheerful way and gave us a friendly smile despite having no teeth.  I guess if you wanted to smuggle a tray of nectarines or the like into South Australia your best bet would be to do so under the cover of darkness.  Onwards we went driving through first through Peterborough and then Orroroo, the town with the longest name in the world consisting of just two different letters.  Peterborough used to be the meeting point of the Indian Pacific and old Ghan rail lines and this heritage of a halcyon rail ensured a critical mass, which seems to have saved it from becoming a ghost town.

We saw beautiful bush scrub scenes going into Port Augusta, arriving there at 7.00 pm.   Port Augusta claims to be the cross roads of Australia, but with major roads running north, west and east is really a T intersection.  Stayed in room decorated like Mrs Lepperts house. We then drove to an Indian restaurant for dinner - called the Standpipe. It had a big Australian homestead kind of feel. Not at all Indian. But excellent food and a nice young waitress. Had a long chat with Kiki about Regan family stuff. Slept well.

Outback road trip diary notes day one

Outback Road Trip with Kiki - written by Michael King (Kiki) from an outline by Michael King & Mike Regan (I, me)

23 November - 1 December 2014

Trip Diary Notes

Sunday 23 November:

Sydney to Cobar. Left Sydney around 12-30pm. Later than planned because Kiki had had bad sleep the night before and had left Canberra late.  He arrived unshaven, looking tired & obviously still grieving over dropping his new IPhone 6plus the day before on a road, rendering the device largely inoperative.  Through the miracles of GPS he managed to find his way to the penthouse & his inner big city palpitations subsided somewhat upon his arrival in Darlinghurst.  Mei was keen to get me out of the house and on my way so she could embark on the day’s activities she had planned for the family.  With my stuff along with his gear, Kiki’s car was loaded up to the gunnels - we had more gear and provisions than the Burke and Wills expedition!  Because of Kiki’s inner city angst and tiredness, I drove out of Sydney in his new Mazda CX5.  Initially we used two different sat navs to get out of Sydney - one from my own IPhone & the Tom Tom, which was a feature built into the CX5.  We quickly realized there were some limitations to having two GPS in operation, potentially offering conflicting advice, deciding to follow Kiki’s GPS and the in car system guided us to the harbour tunnel. I was impressed by Kiki's new car. praise which Kiki took personally and accepted as cheap vicarious self validation.  Early on we encountered a nob who horned us as we entered tunnel.  This made me glad to be leaving aggro Sydney drivers behind us.  Kiki’s sat nav threw a tantrum as we went to get on the M4 - it wanted to take us via the cape through Richmond, but we ignored her polite instructions to take in this NW Sydney metropolitan locale.  This was the only time for the remainder of the road trip that she wanted to give us a bum steer.  Who knows, the Bells line of road might have been shorter than going through the Blue Mountains via the Great Western Highway, but we decided to plot our course and stick to the familiarity of the route via Penrith rather that take what appeared to be a nonsensical suggestion from the technological savant. The thermometer hit 46 degrees C just north and west of Sydney - record temperatures for November. There were many speed limit changes going through the Blue Mountains, which concerned Kiki, but I as a road safety expert and Professor was totally all over the speed limit situation - in fact I knew more than Kiki’s sat nav which was strangely silent when we did go over the speed limit - I investigated this, but couldn’t get a warning beep out of her as she refused to play ball on warning us when we did exceed speed limit signs, both those hoisted on posts and those painted on roads.  Fueling up, another nob horned us when we were too slow to move away from the bowser.  Moving from the bower needs to be done deliberately, with care & after zeroing all fuel consumption, tripmeter and average speed readings, but we doubted the horning nob would appreciate our perspective on service station exiting procedures, so we eschewed explanations to our impatient fellow road user while counselling each other to remain calm.  It was 40 degrees C in Katoomba, very unusual for the mountains. Speaking of heat, Kiki had a toasted sandwich at Mcdonalds in Lythgow that was very busy and hard to access. I had tinned tuna and bread, which reinforced my views that my eating habits were far healthier than Kiki's. It was difficult to prepare and eat my meal in my lunch box in the heat, but years of practice, eating airline food in cramped conditions on a range of domestic and international routes meant I was well prepared for the task of awkward eating.  Went through Lithgow, home of Roy Slaven/John Doyle & while no longer in Sydney I realized we still had some way to go before we reached the bush, let alone the outback.  Stopped at a rest area in Mudgee for a break & to change drivers. While there, I availed myself of the opportunity to take photos of grafitti in the toilet. This is something Kiki does and has introduced me to & while I’m not entirely comfortable with the notion of taking a camera into a public toilet, I realized it was important to ignore my qualms so as to comprehensively document all local culture during our road trip.  Got petrol in Dubbo where the temperature still hovered in the low 40s..  Kiki filled up the washer fluid reservoir and the heat of the day and from the car's engine had softened and made very pliable the plastic reservoir measuring stick making it challenging to reinsert it into the reservoir - a minor design flaw in the CX5, which no doubt Japanese engineers will turn their mind to in future models and hopefully fix.  Stopped in Narromine, birth place of famous Australian opening bowler, Glenn McGrath, who has a statue bearing his name near the centre of town.  Kiki went over to the statue, looked at it, and quickly realised a photograph of him and McGrath was not worth a digital image, so turned away from the bronze representation of bowler who took over 500 wickets for his country, satisfied that a mental  picture of what he had seen would suffice as a memory marker for any future recollection of the significance of ‘Pigeon’ McGrath in the Narromine sporting firmament. Kiki contemplated buying some dodgy gyros takeaway at a shop he had visited just over nine years previously during a storm chase.  However, I gently but persuasively convinced him from a risk assessment point of view the food on offer may cause digestive and excretory issues in the short and medium term.  This lead to a quick revamp of our dining plans so we proceeded on to Nyngan instead for our dinner.   This town is near the geographic centre of NSW, which prompted Kiki to regale me with stories of how he had been to both the geographic centres of Australia and continental USA.  While noting his experiences, I was neither overly impressed with these achievements nor prompted to offer any of my own as far as reaching mid points in continents, countries or states.  Nevertheless, deep within me, and at the time subconsciously, I knew my wider travels had taken me to heart of more jurisdictions than my travelling companion could ever dream of.  At the local RSL in Nyngan both of us had fish dinner, Kiki a grilled fillet, while mine was battered.  We both sampled the salad bar, and our meals included chips, which we gleefully scoffed after a long day on the road.  However, my gut wasn’t feeling so good as I drove from Nyngan to Cobar in the dark, for about 139 km, but I knew it could have been worse if we’d eaten the dodgy stuff in the Narromine take away.  Arrived in Cobar at 11-00 pm, where it was still 38 degrees.   Kiki told me the first time he’d been to Cobar they’d just had a downpour from a storm with cloud tops to 17 kilometres, so both our first forays to this town at the gateway to the outback had been had during times of meteorological extremes, albeit ones quite different in nature.  As such it was too hot to even sleep outside, so it was fortunate we had booked an air conditioned room saving us from the prospect of a toasty alfresco night under the stars!  I shifted my bed away from the air conditioner and the bed's initial placement and some minor drainage issues in the bathroom were the only flaws we could find in this 3 and a half star motel room.  We turned in for the evening. TBC.

Hide and seek

Thought I'd put the hide & seek cue in the rack but after 5 years plus away from this childhood game of obfuscation & discovery, my 13 year old son was keen for a game this afternoon at his mum's place  I was up for it so with the help of a timing device, his smart phone (for the "coming ready or not" part), we were off.  He led off with standing behind the drapes, which I gleefully pulled back to reveal him.  I went for the boo from behind a bush for my first turn & then serious attempts at not being seen commenced.  He hid in the pantry & after 20 minutes I still hadn't found him - his wait was so long he was forced to gorge himself on biscuits while he waited.  As the game unfolded I quickly realised there were many less places to hide my 110 kg, 190 cm, 56 year old self than for my son, less than half my size, to secrete himself.  I surveyed a number of places and rejected them for their likely accompaniments of bees and/or spiders, or the failure of my inner tree climbing Tarzan to come to the fore.  The game escalated slightly with his mate from over the road joining in.  I clearly remember, back in the old days, that the sought person would be sought by the others in the game and there not being one seeker seeking two others, but that's the way they wanted to play it.  Fortunately for me, this played into my hand because when they hid they were bigger & the earlier small target strategy was further compromised by the two boys being inclined to laugh as I, unbeknownst, passed close to them.  My son's mother drew the line at him wanting to hide in the boot of her car, but hidden elsewhere he artfully deployed the remote control boot release button to mock me while I scratched my head looking for my quarry, trying to work out where the boot release was being operated from.  Almost two hours later the game was over but I issued a challenge to my son saying I'd be a lot better at hiding during our next game of hide and seek played at my place, where my unrivalled local knowledge of nooks and crannies would stand me in good stead.

Team Australia

Four issues to get your head around if you are considering being on 'Team Australia'.  You need to know that:
1. 'Team Australia' members should wear blue ties when representing 'Team Australia', and the unofficial song for this is "Blue ties, nothing but blue ties do I see..." (apologies to Irving Berlin).
2. It is okay for 'Team Australia' members to shirtfront those not in 'Team Australia' for 'unTeam Australia' activities.
3. If you don't love coal, you cannot, in good conscience, be considered a member of 'Team Australia'.
4. It's okay for 'Team Australia' members to go overseas and fight an apocalyptic death cult but not okay for 'Team Australia' members to go overseas and fight an apocalyptic fatal disease.

Gambling on war

Well known on line bookmaker: As part of a service that is 2nd to none for those who love a bet, I will now be offering punters bets on wars our country is involved in.  First, that mecca of conflicts with uncertain outcomes, the Middle East, where I have framed a market for the upcoming 'A Death Cult' versus 'Team Australia'.  I grant you, there is some uncertainty about what will constitute a 'win' in this match up, but because the contest involves 'A Death Cult', for this introductory betting on war offer, I will pay out on any death cult that comes up against 'Team Australia'.  If the Kurds make territorial advances or if Kurdistan receives recognition as a State, I will pay a place dividend for those who have backed 'Team Australia'each way.  If a new axis of evil is identified, with 'A Death Cult' forming an alliance with a rogue state, no matter how shifting that alliance, I will pay place backers of 'A Death Cult' a dividend better than any TAB or online bookmaker framing a market on international conflicts.  Should a leader of a country that is a friend of 'Team Australia' declare 'Mission Accomplished' the free world will be a freer place and all win bets on 'Team Australia' will be paid, even if there is a protest.  If Iraq or Syria falls & 'A Death Cult' forms a caliphate, then if you've backed 'A Death Cult' consider yourself a winner.  Finally, we have our special bets.  Should the 'Team Australia' forces be farewelled by a tearful Senator Sarah Hansen-Young, the first 15 punters wagering on this contest will receive twice their initial stake back, no matter what the outcome of the conflict.  Also, remember, my special offer of a bonus $250 free bet if this is your first bet with me.  And as always, gamble responsibly.

Clutching at straws

Labor hasn't been a bad government but they are on the nose with the electorate.  The last time they were on the nose with the electorate was 1996 and in the last week of that campaign, in desperation, they made some inaccurate claims about future Howard government cuts.  From memory this involved Treasurer Ralph Willis being duped by letter supposedly written by Jeff Kennett that supposedly outlined planned cuts to be made by John Howard, but which was in fact a forgery.  It seems that now, with less than two weeks to go before the election, and being in a similarly parlous position, they've gilded the lily again, this time trying to question Opposition costing figures, but the bureaucracy has called them out.  As a Labor supporter and voter, I would have hoped they'd remember the mistake they made late in the 1996 campaign, when they overplayed their hand.  Admittedly they were going to be beaten then, but that monumental gaffe cost them seats.  Subsequently they just lost the 1998 election, which might have had a different result if they hadn't had so many seats they needed to win, after the 1996 landslide.  Labor, when losing power, federally, remind me of the gambler who, having had a bad day on the punt, increases his/her stake as the last race of the day beckons (the 'get out stakes' it is known as) to recover their losses, but they only end up in a worse losing position than would otherwise have been the case.

Search for meaning

I saw something recently that initially encapsulated the tendency to angst, the obsessional wondering about what is coming next, or to put it another way, the yearning clamor, concomitant with modern day life.

This visual perceptual prompt asked me something of a general nature, but before I could try and find a response to its inquiry, I believed I needed to work out more precisely what was being sought by this query.  I pondered this interrogative device.  It seemed to be putting me on the spot and leading me to plot a path to the heart of the matter.  It was an uncertainty that highlighted an imperative for certitude or at least demanded a way forward.  How it went about seeking a purposeful, knowing reaction from me was confronting.  It was insistent that now was the time for finding the truth; it was a declaration that there was an information void that needed to be filled with something meaningful.

I looked down and peered intently at it.  As I stared harder, it gradually dawned on me that the answer was staring me in the face.  This poser was not only the interviewer: it went beyond tentative suggestions, past a firming up of hypotheses, to a declaration of verisimilitude.  I realized I had found a meaning in my life!  I had seen and absorbed the full impact of a thick human hair in the shape of a question mark, a profound piece of punctuation, alone upon a toilet seat.  

Tattoos, cosmetic procedures and varicose veins

When I was in my youth (1970s), tattoos were largely taboo.  The two most commonly specified criteria in personal advertisements were "good sense of humour" and "no tattoos" .  I haven't read personal ads recently, but I wouldn't be surprised if "needs to have tattoos" was a requirement people asked for, or at least something that, once introductions were out of the way, gave you some sort of advantage in the mating game.

I guess you can never say never, but I'm highly unlikely ever to get a tattoo - I can't even bring myself to to draw on my skin with permanent marker.

In Darwin recently, I noticed lots of people had tattoos   My travelling companions said this apparent abundance of tattoos was because of the heat: people were wearing fewer clothes, so more flesh was on show with its attendant body art.  But I reckon there were still more tattoos on more people, in this tropical outpost, than is the norm.  Of course the prevalence of 'tatts' in the Top End could be because there are more young people up there than 'down south' and that particular demographic is prone to dabble in the permanent daub.  Unfortunately the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) doesn't collect data about such things.  Despite the lack of ABS data, it can be said, unequivocally, there are more tattoos nowadays than back in the 1970s.

On a slightly different tack, but still in the realm of bodily modification, again when I was in my youth, I remember older people talking about women of middle and old age having their veins done.  This involved the removal from legs of varicose veins, which were deemed unsightly.  I don't know much about current varicose vein removal rates; it's not mentioned much nowadays.  I would guess it's done at the same rate that it was done years ago - again no ABS data.  But as a phenomena, it seems to have receded from view.  I suspect that other cosmetic practices have overtaken it in prominence.  Things like getting botox and having your breasts done or even rhinoplasty.  I've even heard of people having their eyebrow hair permanently removed and then getting eyebrow lines tattooed to their forehead, as a form of cosmetic enhancement.  What I can be sure of though (no need for verification by the ABS) is back when I was young and also nowadays, no one is getting tattoos on their legs of varicose veins.

County seats, state capitols & quirky diocessan boundaries & child abuse

I have wondered why in the majority of USA States, the State capitol is not the largest city.  Examining the maps of the States may help explain this.  In nearly all instances, the State capitol is reasonably central, close to the middle of the State.  Similarly, when you look at US Counties, the County seat seems invariably to be centrally located within the County in question.  I guess this centrality allows governance to be geographically applied in a more equitable and even handed fashion, with less likelihood of places within a State or County being ignored.  All this is supposition and I've done no research to back up my hunches.

I then thought of Catholic dioceses in my home State of Victoria.  When I grew up, Bendigo was the head office of the Diocese of Sandhurst, and it extended as far as Wodonga, almost 300 kms away.  However, back then, a place like Inglewood, only 40 odd kms away from Bendigo, was in a different diocese, and was part of the Ballarat diocese.  As it happened, over the years, Inglewood had a succession of child molesting priests.  It was relatively 'far flung' from Ballarat, seemingly away from their attention.  I  wonder if there was a greater preponderance of child abuse that took place in parishes like Inglewood, relatively far removed from their centre of clerical governance.  I think it will be worthwhile for the upcoming Royal Commission to investigate this.

A whinge about rental car updgrades

"Congratulations Mr King, we've decided to upgrade you from a Hyundai I30 to a Volkswagon Golf!" I was told by the Europcar staff upon my arrival at Brisbane airport.  What was I supposed to do, get down on my hands and knees like a supplicant and give thanks to people who had decided it seems on a whim to 'move me up' to a superior vehicle?!  Why didn't Europcar just admit to me that they had run out of I30s and had plenty of Golfs in the shed!?

One of the reasons I'd booked an I30 was to go on a two day test drive,with a view to a possible future I30  purchase (as well as holiday recreational use) - golf is a game I want to play as often as a I can, not a type of car I want to buy!  What is it about Volkswagon and its cars named after four letter sports? Polo as well!

Getting into a strange car in a strange city is better done in a vehilce you are vaguely familiar with. Not that I'm totally familar with the I30, but I have sat in one previously and I know it has the indicator switch and windscreen switch on the 'normal' sides of the steering wheel, where I am accustomed to finding them.  And I'm pretty sure that I can easily find where the headlight switch is in an I30 (unlike the Golf) and I'd hope the I30's brake and accelerator pedal are more separated and suited to size 12 feet like mine than the cramped configuration of a Golf.  And the Golf requires premium unleaded 98 ocatane whereas the I30 will run on 91 octane fuel.  This move from an I30 to a Golf was more of an upsize than an upgrade!

An idea.  If Europcar doesn't have the car you have booked, then they should offer you the car at the level below you have booked, at a reduced cost.

Another idea.  To move away from the upgrade theme, why don't rent a car firms tell you on their website what reducing the excess will cost?  Is this because it is 'secret rental car business', like the type of vehicle you actually end up with?!

A further suggestion for Europcar and their staff. When you issue someone with a damage detail sheet for the car and invite them to inspect the car before you drive away, how about offering a place where the illumination is more than a 30 watt (non energy saving light bulb), for that inspection to take place!?

So I've got plenty of material for a complaint letter to Europcar.  I know I am a whinging consumer, but someone has to keep big business on their toes with constructive feedback and criticism.

Of course I wouldn't have minded being upgraded on the plane I flew to Brisbane, from cattle class to the pointy end, but that never happens nowadays.  I remember it happened once early in the 2000s, when Qantas had overbooked economy and I drew the long straw and was shunted forward.  Now that was a real upgrade!

Next time I want an I30, I shall book in for the car one level below it, possibly a Getz or a Yaris, and then maybe I'll end up with the car I want.

The tyranny of pegs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8u5TlfOiFXo

Initially I dismissed this TV ad, for the pegless clothes line, as just indulging in what I call 'North Korean rhetoric', that is a ridiculous exaggeration of the supposed travails of everyday life, but a discussion with two members of the Oliver family (father and son Oliver) made me think that pegs could indeed be tyrannical.

As I say, recently I got to talking then arguing about pegs with both father and son Oliver.  One or other of the Olivers (I can't remember who - we had had a few wines) is a taker down of pegs from the clothes line and then a putter of pegs into a receptacle, after you use them.  This is my position as well.  The other Oliver steadfastly chooses to leave them on the line.  It seems his main problem is having to reach for them from a basket, while pegging out clothes etc.  He believes you need both hands for properly hanging out clothes and other items, and this leaves no hands free for reaching for pegs - he refuses to become a peg and clothing juggler, while undertaking the boring but necessary task of hanging out washing.  Somehow though, both the other Oliver and I manage this, admittedly with difficulty, and the contortion involved, ultimately, could more quickly compromise us in an occupational health and safety sense (i.e. back and muscle strains).

Of course the peg basket you use can make it easier or harder to store and retrieve pegs.  One is advantaged by a peg basket, or indeed bag, that rests on the clothes line and can move easily along the wires or nylon strands, so it is always nearby for an easy peg reach, or peg deposit, if you are bringing washing in.  Mentioning peg deposit is an important reminder and acknowledgement that problems with pegging stuff up are replicated or mirrored when you have to remove washing.

The leaver of pegs on the line Oliver admitted to a frustration with hanging washing among a predetermined peg pattern on the line, being faced with possibly having to shift pegs to best fit washing of differing sizes among such pre set peg arrangements.  This is a dilemma that doesn't face the other Oliver and I.  We come to the clothes line, to hang out washing, facing a tabula rasa or clean slate.  The other Oliver and I, while of the put the peg on and take the peg off persuasion, tried to humour the peg leaving Oliver and envisage how we would work with leaving the pegs on the line and suggested one could choose small items and hang them among small inter peg gaps and put large items among large inter peg gaps.  He rejected this notion, which to my mind shot holes in his position, betraying a flaw in the 'leave the pegs on the line' belief system.  As alluded to above, you can of course just slide the pegs along the line to adapt and fit the inter peg gap you are presented with to the circumstances of the washing.  But apparently 'leaving pegs on the line' Oliver holds such a fixed position (no pun intended) , that he doesn't even want to move pegs along the line to adapt to the size of his clothing; it would seem he would just rather hang washing around pegs left on the line, attached to nothing but wire or strand, and serving no purpose.

None of this discussion about pegs and pegless clothes lines has so far touched on how durable pegs are.  And of course this issue is impacted by what you choose to do with the pegs when they are not doing what they are designed for.  One might easily think that if you leave them out, they are more subject to wear and tear.  The proverbial rain hail and shine will lessen the life of pegs one might think, but Oliver of the pegs on the line belief system, says that the action of putting them on the line and taking them off, especially if this is done quickly, can lessen their working lives.  I've yet to see experiments that compare how pegs staying on versus pegs going on and coming off the line affects their lifespan, but my money would be on mother nature rending more deleterious effects on pegs' longevity than putting them up and taking them off.  People who affix and remove pegs, putting them in a basket, while they are not being used, while at the same time leaving the peg basket on the clothes line, are to my mind asking for trouble and wearing their pegs out both ways.  Interestingly the Oliver who I agree with about the need to put pegs on the line and then take them off, when not at use, chooses to leave his pegs in the basket on the line!

I might add, our far reaching discussion on pegs, event went as far as considering how one might lessen the problem of weather induced wear and tear on pegs in a basket, left on the clothes line, and on all three of us agree that in actuality, circumstances look after them self - the mere actions of putting on and taking off pegs, mix them up within the peg receptacle, and ensure the same ones aren't always in the top layer and thus exposed to the full forces of mother nature.

Any discussion of pegs and what wears them out and/or breaks them, needs to consider what to do with pegs that are seemingly broken.  Here filial bonds hold and both Olivers agree with each other and disagree with me.  When springs become detached from the other part of pegs, let's call them clasps, the Olivers just disregard them or throw them out.  They scoffed at my commitment to rehabilitate pegs.  To lovingly and carefully search on the ground for broken peg parts, and then retain and restore them, if not to their full former glory, at least to a sense of purpose and functionality, so to delay for a long as possible their journey to their ultimate destination of rubbish bin.

I see one of the Olivers as essentially being lazy in his 'drying the washing' practices, wanting to cut corners and not giving a tinker's cuss about how this relates to the efficiency of peg use and care practices.  But if one is to recognise that all the foregoing discussion about pegs, this conjecture, this toing and froing, this analysis of the pluses and minuses of pegs, then this deep rumination about their proper use can ultimately make you to question the value of pegs, and make you seriously consider other options for clothes line arrangements.  As such this Oliver's position of leaving them on the line, as an apparent permanent fixture, most closely matches the radical pegless alternative.  And while I find myself in agreement with most of the other Oliver's peg practices, I find an internal inconsistency in his peg belief system, which while I respect, I would like to change, both so I could find someone who I am totally at one with, around pegs.  I fear though, with pegs, everyone has their own belief system.  Ultimately, humanity will only be uniform and find unity with pegs, when ironically we are without pegs - the future with its pegless Ezyline clothes line beckons.

A rave about a raven

Crows are one type of bird you normally don't need to worry about hitting with a car.  They always scamper off the road and as such 'out of the road' avoiding collisions with heavy fast moving objects.  However a crow I saw on Australia Day 2012 seemed to be putting itself in mortal danger.  It wandered about in circles on the busiest highway in Australia not knowing where to go next and with little awareness of what vehicles were in the vicinity.  The reason for this was there was a take away cup 'caught' over the crows head and beak, which covered its eyes.  As I saw this, I wondered whether (i) I should stop and try and remove the cup and/or (ii) I should try and take a photo of this scene.

The next thought that came into my mind was it would be (a) difficult to remove a cup off a crow's head because I've never wrangled a crow in my life, (b) it could become agressive if I attempted to grab it, and (c) dodging semi trailers and cars as I tried to deal with the crow and its problems might endanger me.  I quickly realized to undertake the crow rescue safely would require in the very least a net, but I was bereft of a net.
Furthermore, I decided it was not ethical to take a photo of the cup on the crow if I wasn't prepared to try and remove it from its head and beak

So I continued on my journey wondering what fate would befall the crow, whether it would somehow manage to prise the cup off its head and if it didn't what would happen to it.  I also wondered how the cup became attached to its head - was it feeding on something in the cup and its beak pierced the bottom or was the cup somehow snuggly trapped on its head by just its rim?  (Later I ruled out human intervention re. the cup getting on the crow's head - as mentioned above, it was Australia Day, and I had somehow become caught up in the feeling of national euphoria, and as such believed my fellow countrymen were not capable of such avian malfeasance)

Sometimes I envied birds their wings and felt such apparatus that allowed most of their number to become airborne, a fair swap for upper limbs, hands and fingers.  But now I realized how important something to clasp something was and if I was armless and had a bucket stuck to my head, I would need the suppleness and flexibility of feet and legs or assistance from another to take away the view removing head gear.

A week later and I was still thinking about the crow on Australia day.  I remembered I had seen crows show a level of intelligence that allowed them to remove a bag of fantail chocolates from a golf bag, open the bag and then unwrap the chocolates. As such I became more confident that the crow escaped from the prison of the cup.  Maybe it was a metaphor for the Australian character - getting into trouble, but somehow through ingenuity and persistence, solving the problem.

Saga of the cock

“To sleep perchance to dream” – for me, in recent times, I would have been satisfied with “To sleep, perchance to sleep”.  Unlike some of my friends I can mostly get to sleep; the problem is then I re-awake prematurely with a mind full of stuff and at a different temperature to the one when I entered the land of nod.  Anyway, that is just background to a recent interrupted night of being horizontal, as when dozing off, a cockatoo made sure entry to sweet repose was temporarily barred.

There is a myriad of bird life in my neighbourhood and in the main I’m very neighbourly to these feathered friends.  I’ve learnt to recognize calls and plumage, as well as groupings.  I’ve made guesses at hierarchies and noted feeding patterns.  Seasonal fruit on trees has been left for anything with the ability to cling to a branch to help themselves to – no nets for me or ridiculous scarecrows.

But I do cross the line in the sand re. tolerance, as far screeching from a cockatoo at midnight is concerned.  While I lay awake and find these anomalous noises puzzling and muse at the avian motivation that underlies them, I feared they might go on for a significant period of time.  As it happened this instance of after-hours squawking must have worn Cockie out and it subsided, and apparently I fell asleep soon afterwards.

A very small number of hours later I awoke with a start.  Inside one of my nostrils – because of the tumult I can’t remember which one – I felt a strange feeling.  A tickling.  Like most tickling a faint pointed friction without decibels.  Quickly I was no longer supine, becoming in the blink of an eye, a fully participating biped again.  I turned on the bed light just in time to see a cockroach, not large but smallish, emerging from one of my nostrils.  Not being a flying insect it fell to the floor and scurried away as most of their brethren tend to do.  Foolishly it made a beeline, under a chest of drawers.  But there I’m almost sure it met its maker, gassed by liberal supplies of crawling insect killer, a brand Evonne Cawley once claimed in a TV ad “was kind to sensitive noses”.

Regaining whatever composure I could find, I blew my nose, resumed the attempt at shut eye, and wondered what motivates a cock roach to enter a nasal cavity.  As I lay down once more, my heart rate slowing and other metabolic processes hopefully moving into night time mode, I pondered the coincidence of the word ‘cock’ and how I had been kept awake and awoken by two creatures bearing this prefix.  A couple of days later, when rounding up a rooster and corralling him into his nocturnal hutch, I realized that in the past, I have been woken me up or kept me awake by two other types of cocks.

Suck it up sunshine!

When buying a bag of vacuum cleaner bags from Godfrey's or any other vacuum cleaner shop, you are more likely to encounter poor customer service than in just about any other retail environment.

Upon entering the shop, the retail worker would like you to be contemplating the purchase of a new vacuum cleaner as the sale of the non re-useable paper dust containers is mere bagatelle to his sales bottom line and commission.  You can see his lip drop as you mention what you want, and when you don't know straight away what type of bag it is you are after, from the myriad range, then it's a chance for him to shake his head at you, saying "Well, we've got lots of different bags for different machines, and if you don't know what type of machine you've got, it's going to be impossible to identify the right bag!", as if the problem posed is going to be harder to solve than coming world food shortage.

I actually sort of half knew the name of the machine I had.  I just hadn't bothered to write it down or bring with me an old empty bag of vacuum cleaner bags.  I was 100% sure it was a Hoover (an American president past) and vaguely remembered the model name also had something to do with the US of A - "That's right it's a 'Patriot'!", I muttered to myself as my vacuum cleaner bag name seeking mnemonic invoked its powers of magic recollection.  All this happened at the same time as my eyes moved along the lines of bags, like a visiting head of state inspecting an honour guard, and there it was a bag of five Hoover Patriot bags.

After the gruff treatment I received from the first salesman I encountered, I tried to complete the transaction with another salesman.  However the second salesman, who I suspect was an underling in the Godfrey's salesperson's hierarchy, passed me straight back the curmudgeon I first encountered.  Despite achieving the unachievable and managing to spot the correct vacuum cleaner bag, the first salesman merely processed the sale, without so much as a word uttered in my direction.  I saw his muteness and raised him no eye contact, as if we were in some giant elevator, where all communication had been banned.  Credit card sales can sometimes facilitate silence in the retail exchange, and our interaction was confined to me proffering my card, him passing me the bags and then thrusting a receipt into my hand.

As I exited the shop I realized my working life wasn't so bad, because it seemed to be employed in a vacuum cleaner shop somehow seemed to suck the life out of those behind the counter, and didn't match the autonomy, pushiness and apparent living on the edge their door to door counterparts enjoyed.  Maybe next time I could make the purchase of vacuum cleaner bags more pleasant for all concerned by ordering them on the Internet so then a welcome parcel of bags would one day turn up on my door step, where in the past an Electrolux or Dyson salesman had once stood.

Zappa tours

I have just completed my 2nd tour with an adventure tourism company called Zappa tours.  They provide guided storm chasing tours of tornado alley and throughout the Darwin area.  These tours are led by storm savant Clyve Herbert and thunder lover Jane ONeill.  Herbert is Welsh born, Geelong raised and along with ONeill, both are residents of Trentham, Victoria and Hillsboro, Kansas.

Their recent arrival in Darwin on 24 November saw the two veteran chasers not only hungry for storms, but also food, after Jetstar had apparently adopted austere Aeroflot catering practices with not a bite to eat aboard Alan Joyce's model for Australian aviation.  As they neared Darwin, almost on cue, a monster approached Darwin from the east and their inbound flight was diverted to a different path to the Top End capital's airport, while boiling sparking clouds covered the sky over the Northern Territory capital.

Day 2 looked as it offered slim pickings, but on dusk a costal storm cell grew rapidly and teased onlookers as it crossed Fannie Bay.  It was all vertiginous pomp and gust front presaging its passage to the maritime west and north.  In hue it was a mix of pinks, oranges and blues, with smudges of grey and white.  A short lived beast, its bluster and presence whetted the appetites of storm entusiasts lucky enough to watch its passage.  As it disappeared into the dripping wet night, dragon flies danced in delight, while at low tide, mangroves took a breath.  The chasers returned to their 7th floor apartment, cranked up the airconditioning and waited for early morning sparkage in the darkness that they knew was common in the tropical north.

Saturday saw Herbert twiddling the AM car radio dial listening for zaps so we could hunt down an elusive growing storm hidden among the comings and goings of mounds of confusing cumulus.  Eventually it emerged, expanding puffing convection, slowly wending its way across the flat savannah towards Mango farm and Fogg dam.  It provided ephemeral vistas of blues overhead, deep and vivid with curved striations occasionally punctuated by random filaments of electricity that touched earth like a pole held by a blind man feeling his way through the dark.   Arriving, it bought both cool wind and rain as the chasers dashed ahead satisfied with their catch.

Sunday's soup of humidity served up a gruel of weather visiting heat stroke on one of the chasers, who found the skies offered nothing in the form of relief to the low profile of clouds and drippingly high dew points.  Meanwhile, the atomsphere stored up and saved heat and latent energy for another rainy day.

As the following evening approached, with the air again a giant sauna, a failing shower threw warm spots of rain, while we peered at a far away storm more shape than substance, that later provided a light show as the day departed to the west.

Finally on our last day we counted four storms, the first an alarm ringer that shook us from our beds leading to a balcony chase in pyjamas.  Then before morning tea could be had, the view from the wharf gave us almost 180 degrees of a heavy thundery shower giving back evapouration and condensation to the sea from whence they had come.  Two hours later, outback edge country 100 kms to the south held a large thumping collection of wind, rain and lightning that blotted out the sky.  After its best work had been done, the third storm of the day became brilliantly lit by the sun, rendering an indigo shade reminding us where it had been and what it had done,   As our holiday closed, another storm lurked somehwere behind columns of tropical moisture held aloft.  Passing through a veil of rain, we saw it for the first time, rolling along and through the landscape accompanied by low rumbles, another forboding mass shouldering its way westward to an inevitable hydrological destiny.

Another great week in the tropical Top End had unflolded providing us with a stark contrast to our temperate lives in our everyday elsewhere.