Karijini National Park - 13 August 2009

I have had my first big day of driving home. From Broome to Karijini.

I am camped in an overflow camping area, that could just be a carpark - I am not sure as I got here after dark. I arrived in Karijini and headed straight to Dales Gorge, to Fern Pool, a nice little waterfall and pool I remember loving as a kid. Low and behold it is exactly the same as I remember. Big fig and paperbark trees, beautiful green water, and the place to myself, given that the sun had almost set.

Fern Pool, Dales Gorge.

My brain is starting to switch modes, and change track to the things that will concern me working in Mingenew. Specifically I noticed today in the car I was paying attention to the ridiculous politics on the radio surrounding the emissions trading scheme - politics I would usually ignore. I was also running over what a farmer might want to know in relation to the scheme, what numbers regarding agricultural emissions we do know, and who are the people that are going to tell me what I want to know. It seems I might enjoy this real work thing! I guess we will see…

It is clearly evident up here that iron ore mining hasn't been hugely effected by the downturn. Along 250 kilometres of road today I would have passed over 50 trucks, mostly triple road trains, and three oversize load convoys. Port Hedland is as busy as ever, the main roads between Wedgefield, South Headland, and Port Headland are being upgraded, as are parts of the highway east and west of town.

Yet still it is all not happening fast enough for the miners, those pesky environmental and indigenous impact assessments are taking to long to assess and approve according to the industry report tabled in state parliament this week. They would have us create one body to approve everything.

The thing I love most about the way the reports chief author speaks is the way he says that approvals are too slow, and that a single agency would approve mines more quickly. It is clear that the possibility of a mine being refused approval on environmental or indigenous concerns has never been entertained. But indeed there is good reason for that. I cannot think of one mine that has been refused approval to mine in quite a while. Often the EPA will recommend certain restrictions and requirements, that must be agreed to by the government, but rarely are they so stringent as to have any effect on what can be mined. They only affect how much money the company has to spend on environmental initiatives.

I also wonder at the wisdom of our approach to our non-renewable resources. It seems the mantra is that we must mine what we find as quickly as possible. My brief contact with FMG executives when I was involved in an innovation workshop with them indicated that is the mentality. They were annoyed that Rio and BHP were not mining their leases fast enough, but had been sitting on a few for 5 to 10 years. They would like the government to renege leases if they are not mined. It sounds to me like the conditions placed on early agricultural land grants, that it must be cleared and cultivated within a certain time frame. That turned out to be a great idea, didn’t it!

Economics also suggests that we are better off to mine now because money is worth so much more now than in the future. How much more it is worth depends on the discount rate you use. However the discount rate is not a simple idea, it changes based on how far into the future we are talking. For example you would be happier to accept 100 dollars today, than next year, but if I offered you 100 today or 120 next year you might have a harder time deciding. If the $100 and $120 seem of equal value, then the discount rate for that year would be 20%. However if I offered 100 dollars in 2015 or 2016 you would hardly care which year I gave it to you in. So less discounting occurs further in the future than immediately because well, people are people.

Anyway the whole point of that lecture in economics was to indicate that the economic reason to mine now rather than later is based on a difficult assumption about discount rate. I do not know how they include in their calculations the likelihood of declining metal supply, the costs of recycling, and the increase in extraction costs as low grade ores replace exhausted high grade deposits. So I am not convinced we need to mine, and make approvals, at break neck speed. I think a steady as she goes approach would serve us just as well, and reduce the intensity of the infrastructure and skills headaches of the last few years.

A picture from my Karijini odessey: 5 gorges, 1 mountain in 9 hours. The perfect way to end an Australian adventure. Kalamina Gorge, Knox Gorge, Joffrey Gorge, Weano Gorge, Hancock Gorge, and Mount Bruce. This is a picture of Weano Gorge from above. The furthest you can go in, and get back out of the gorge without a rope, is the narrow section in the foreground. To get there you have to wade or swim through chest high freezing cold water. I was there about 20 mins before i took this. It feels much safer being in the gorge, than looking down on it!


Nearing the end of the odessey, halfway back down Mt Bruce. The pointy hill in the background is Chinamans Peak.


Salut

Broome - 12 August 2009

I am in Broome. The bustling tourist hub of the north! There are people everywhere.

I have been down on Cable beach, running, throwing the boomerang, practicing cartwheels, all the things normal tourists do! I have done some normal tourist things, like walk around china town, and spend lots of money (on books not pearls though).

As I was leaving the car park at Cable Beach I ran into some people I met right at the start of my trip, back in Kakadu. A couple from the sunshine coast with a young daughter, who are leasing out their house, and travelling around Australia for 18 months. But I didn't just meet them in Kakadu, I ran into them in one of the 5 caravan parks in Katherine, one of 6 caravan parks in Kununurra, they were parked at reception of a caravan park at Fitzroy crossing as I drove past on my way to Camballin, and finally in Broome.
It's a funny old world we live in.

Camballin - 10 August 2009

Tonight I am at Camballin. It is a township of about 50 people that now services the aboriginal community of Looma, 10 kms away. The town is on a slightly higher, rocky area, above the Fitzroy river floodplain. To the east lies the old Camballin farm. The brain child of 'Texas' Jack Fletcher, it took shape during the 70's. They cleared 56,000 acres of floodplain, mainly to grow sorghum. They built a 28 ft high levee bank around part of it to keep the Fitzroy floodwaters at bay, and built a barrage across the Fitzroy to divert water to the floodplain to irrigate the sorghum. In the middle of the cleared area is a hill ( that I think they built) where a house once stood with a view across the whole farm. I am not sure where the machinery sheds that housed the 20 Cougar-Steiger tractors used to work the farm used to be.

Sunrise from 'the hill that jack built', overlooking 56,000 acres of what used to be irrigated farmland.

Long forgotten and overgrown irrigation infrastructure.

I am staying at the Camballin Campers Base, a funny little place with space for three or four powered sites, a few trees to camp under, and some dongas. There is a team of geologists, drillers, and assistants in the process of arriving in dribs and drabs. They are looking for coal apparently. And it is a funnier show than the camp ground, the head geologist is of some sort of west Asian decent, the drillers look like a couple of retired blokes, and I listened in to their safety brief this arvo, which consisted more of arguing about what the procedures should be if someone did not return by the expected time, than anything that might actually help safety wise.

One of the local mum's is looking after the Campers Base a few days a week. A QLD girl from near Bribie Island, she convinced her husband they should go somewhere different instead of living a sedentary lifestyle in one QLD town. He said find me a job and I will go. He works as a builder in Looma. She was planning to stay for 6 months or so then go somewhere else. Three years later they are still here as her husband loves the places. They go hunting with a mob of Looma locals all the time for snakes, goanna, birds, barra, etc. And down at the river you can see evidence of the available tucker all around. Big snake tracks across the road, piles of feathers by the river where birds have been plucked, and bones in the fire remains. Currently the hunt is on for a big saltie that has moved into the local swimming hole. The blokes from Broome won't come out and trap this year, so there is an unofficial competition running to be the one to shoot it.

Fitzroy Floodplain near Looma.

Fitzroy Floodplain near Looma. Liveringa homestead is on a small hill behind the bush in the centre of the photo.

On the subject of crocs, I was talking to a bloke at El Questro on Sunday , who told me that Carlton Downs (where the set for Faraway Downs of 'Australia' fame is), on the north bank of the Ord, factor cattle losses to crocodiles in their budget. They budget for 1 beast a day! Mind you, they turn off 12,000 head a year so in the scheme of things 365 is not a huge number. The man with this information, is the young Matt Bran, the Kimberley reporter for the ABC's Country Hour.

Saturday night at El Questro is a night of live music and two old ringers telling yarns and demonstrating how well they can handle a stockwhip and lasso after a lifetime in the saddle. For example, roping a persons leg whilst they walk along. Walking back to camp after everything was over there was a bunch of people from my generation playing guitar, chatting, singing. Thoroughly sick of talking to old people all the time, with the same predictable questions, and answers to my questions, I made myself welcome. Fortunately they were a very nice bunch of mostly Kununurra-ites with a few friends and relatives visiting for holidays. Amongst them were an entomologist, a sandalwood plantation manager, Matt Bran, an events co-ordinator, a cop in training, a tv news editor, a boilermaker, and a couple that live just up the road from our Darlington house. And not a single one of them was retired, or travelling in a caravan! Sunday involved bacon and eggs for breakfast with my new found friends, then a dip in the magnificent, but always busy, Zebedee springs. Then we all went our separate ways - the Wyndham races, the Bungle Bungles, and for me, the equally magnificent, but much less populated El Questro Gorge. El Questro really is all it is cracked up to be!

El Questro Gorge.

The night before El Questro I stayed at the Parry Creek Farm caravan park. They were putting on a camp-oven dinner with damper for desert, and the sign asked if anybody could sing or recite poetry. Not comfortable with my solo acapella singing ability, but having learnt the Man from Snowy River by heart in year 6, and having recently attempted to remember it, I decided I would offer my services. So I got a free dinner for a recital of Clancy of the Overflow, The Man from Snowy River (for which I forgot a line halfway through - a very comfortable situation as you can imagine), and half of Mulga Bill.

The next day I headed into Wyndham, and straight to the lookout. And is it one bloody good lookout. It is called the Bastion, and from here you can view the junction of five rivers. The King, Pentecost, Durack, Forrest, and Ord rivers. The old port of Wyndham is a curious place. The main township is now located at three mile (surprise surprise, three miles from the original town), but the old port town site still hosts a museum, a tourist shop, a hotel, a few houses, and some derelict old places. The port exports live cattle, nickel ore, and I think some grain from the Ord, and imports fuel and other supplies.

However, Wyndham is now missing it's historical economic driver. From 1919 to 1985 (or thereabouts) Wyndham was host to a large meatworks. It was what got the northern WA, and parts of the NT cattle industries off the ground, and was a much larger operation than I ever imagined. The plans and photos in the museum show a building 5 or 6 stories tall, that could clearly process quite a few animals. In fact, over it's lifetime the meatworks processed just over 2 million cattle.

It seems I have found myself a job. An opportunity came up at the Mingenew-Irwin Group, a local farmer research group in Mingenew, in partnership with the Northern Agricultural Catchments Council. The job was too good to not apply for; it has no job description (except for 'Natural Resource Management officer'), a short term rolling contract, and is only half time (therefore I can work on a friends farm two days a week). So I find myself cramming in a last little bit of holiday before heading south to start work. Make no mistake, I will be back in the Kimberley very soon! I will be careful not to stay too long when I get back here - if I do I might never leave. The same thing has happened to many a Kimberley resident.

Kununurra - 4 August 2009

What have I done today?

Well not much it seems. I have been running, got my punctured tyre fixed, stuffed around on the internet, mostly creating this blog. Listened to the Country hour and slept on the tail gate of the car. Not a whole lot else it seems. One thing that is rather handy is some one at, or near the caravan park has an unsecured wireless network by the same name as our home wireless, so my computer automatically connected to it, alerting me to its presence. Very beneficial for a cheeky email or two.

Another thing I have done today is eat way too much for dinner. It only just hit me, but 200 g of steak, an entire large eggplant and 500 ml of custard is more than comfortably fits in my stomach.

But this is not the sort of riveting commentary I started this blog to write. So whilst I stuff around in Kununurra trying to work out jobs, logistics and travel lets go back a few weeks… to the Tiwi Islands.

There are three islands that lie north of Darwin, approximately 50 km offshore. These are the Tiwi islands. Bathurst, Melville, and a small one in the entrance to the straight between the two that I will mention when I discuss the creation story. There are two options for tours to Tiwi, fly or boat. Flying you get to spend 6 hours on the island, by boat only 3. Luckily I wasn't paying, and we took the plane. A six seater single engine Cessna. With my cousin and I crammed in the back seat it was comfortable for the duration of the half hour flight, no longer.

We landed on Bathurst island and were rushed over to meet our guide as our Cessna had taken a bit longer than the twin engine 9 seaters. Our guide, John, was a local Tiwi man in his late 30s or early 40s - although I am a notoriously bad judge of age. His ankles were about the size of my wrists, and the rest of his body was in proportion. Not too tall, but mighty skinny.

First stop on the Tiwi tour was the museum in Ngui. Ngui is the largest town in the islands with 1500 people, and almost all the people on Bathurst island live here. 500 people live in two small settlements on Melville island, and nobody lives on the third island, except the good spirit. The first stop in the museum is a picture board of the basic creation story. Mamukala an old good woman lives underground, but bad spirits roam the earth. She comes above the ground and fights the bad spirits off. Then she leaves her two daughters and son on Tiwi. Soon the daughters want children, and are unhappy, so the brother went to the small island where the good spirit lives. He asks the good spirit where he can find someone to make his sisters pregnant. The spirit says that he will go into them that night and make them pregnant. The obvious happens, and I think that is the end of the story.

The third, and by far the smallest of the three Tiwi Islands.

The first half of the creation story, in pictures.

I wonder if there has been any missionary influence on the story over the years?

Parts 2 and 3 of the Tiwi story will come later on; when I have not much else to write about.

Kununurra - 2 August 2009

Tonight I am in Kununurra, at the Hidden Valley caravan park, nestled into a few hundred metres of flat land between two steep, high, rocky outcrops. The colours, especially at sunset are fantastic! I used a bit of the local rock as a jack block this morning, which fractured the rock, and inside it is the most incredible red. Mary Durack in her book Kings in Grass Castles:

'If one were to paint this country in it's true colours, I doubt it would be believed. It would be said at least that the artist exaggerated greatly, for never have I seen such richness and variety of hue as in these ranges'

An interesting fact: The term Kings in Grass Castles came from Patsy Durack, the main man of the Western Australian Durack pioneers as far as I am aware. He took offence to eastern states media labeling him a Cattle King, and responded by writing "If it's kings we are, it's kings in grass castles that may be blown away in the wind"


The area immediately around Kununurra (I can't speak for it all yet, I have much to explore) is a land of two extremes: Rocky red steep ranges, and flat black soil plains. There does not appear to be much in between! The rocks rise straight out of the black and through the valley runs ribbons of water glinting in the sun and large square blocks of uniform, but different shades of green. If you step back and take it all in at once the natural beauty mixed with the human endeavor of the place, it is majestic ... You react emotionally rather than rationally.

Looking up the valley towards smoke rising near Lake Argyle. The lake is buried in those hills somewhere. Taken from Mirima NP right on the edge of town, and 50 metres from where I am camped. Unfortunately my camera doesn't do the sunset colours justice.

.. And dawn, well that is a whole other perspective, that I am not going to attempt to describe right now.

What I started the computer to write about was what I found in the pages of last weekends Weekend Australian magazine. The demolition of the old city of Kashgar. Kashgar is a melting pot. In fact it is almost 'the' melting pot. Situated not far from Afghanistan (the place I would call the centre of the world minus the americas), Kashgar is in Xinjiang province which borders not only Afghanistan but Russia, Borat-land, Krgystan, Tajikistan, India, and Pakistan. Kashgar is a major city on the old Silk road, an oasis of civilization between high mountains and harsh deserts, and a melting pot of culture and human genes. Kashgar and Xinjiang is home to the Chinese Uighur people, Sunni Muslims you will have heard about prior to Beijing 2008, and after recent riots in the Xinjiang capital. Just as many of our fellow westerners associate just about any Muslim with terrorism, so it seems do the Chinese. Whilst undoubtedly some Muslims and some Uighurs are terrorists, our large dominant 'civilised' societies seem to be very good at oversized solutions. In this case Uighurs are being relocated to the suburbs to live in large apartment blocks away from their narrow crooked streets that the police had difficulty patrolling. They are being relocated because residents were at risk from earthquakes, fires and other disasters. The old 'risky' city is being destroyed and will no doubt be replaced by a more open, safer city - and incidentally easier to patrol. At least Chinese minorities are not subject to the same rigorous one child policy as are Han Chinese, although my understanding is the one child policy is beginning to disintegrate as the threat of an aging workforce looms large.

Whilst I was sad and angry to hear about the destruction of old Kashgar, a place I have wanted to visit ever since I first heard about it 3 or 4 years ago, but mostly the over the top reaction to pockets of extremism in another Muslim population, I was more annoyed to flick through the rubbish that followed in the magazine. This included ads for the Australians Wish magazine, with a cover sporting Rove in a nice suit and the caption 'Leaders in Style: Our top 40 best dressed', as well as food, wine, and star sign pages.

It threw the dichotomy of life on our planet into stark contrast once more!


The typical tourist shot of Kununurra. Ivanhoe crossing just before sunset.

Bullita Homestead - 31 July 2009

Tonight I am at Bullita homestead on the banks of the East Baines river. The word 'homestead' gives the idea of a grand old stone building with high, wide decked verandahs. This is nothing of the sort. The 'Homestead' is a three room corrugated iron shack/house, with outdoor bathroom and laundry, and a shower under the raised water tank. A two room hut for the stockmen, a meathouse, and two sheds.

Bulita Homestead

They describe this place as one of the toughest stations around, which is why it is no longer a station, and is now part of the Gregory National Park. There were people living here up until 1985 when it became part of the park, but no body except Charlie Shultz owned it for more than 10 years. He was an excellent stockman, worked well with the aboriginal population, and built infrastructure such as cattle yards, that no one much was doing in the 30's. The timber yards at the homestead have been reasonably well preserved. The top rail is level with my head, the gates are heavy duty and look as though they would have swung easily, and the yards are well designed. In fact the chief animal officer at the time thought the yards so well thought out he distributed the design and dimensions as a model for other pastoralists. Schultz was also the first person in the Territory to air freight cattle (I presume that means one or two bulls to improve herd genetics), and to truck cattle (quaintly, that was almost 10 years after first flying cattle).

The yards at Bullita Homestead

A Durack leaves their mark on a huge boab next to the homestead.

Tonight is my last night in the Territory before I cross into WA, and because of our relatively disease free status there is not much in the way for fresh food you can take across the border. So I have had assorted nuts for lunch, half a honeydew melon for arvo tea, and I did a little inventing for dinner of which I am moderately proud. I bought an eggplant in Katherine as I figured it would keep ok without refrigeration (I have yet to get a fridge) but it had to be consumed tonight or chucked tomorrow. In a separate incident, during my pre going away shopping I recognised that my menu was looking fairly tasteless (except for cans of beef and vegetable soup), and when I saw Rogan Josh curry paste I thought, well I like that, and I don't have to refrigerate it, so i bought it. Anyway, you know where this is going. The trick is cut the eggplant into reasonably thick slices, whack it on the BBQ, smear on some curry paste while it's cooking, flip it over and do the same on the half cooked side. Flip it again when it is almost ready. Make sure you cook it thoroughly and hot, it is better a bit mushy. Have as a side dish, or with rice. Beautiful!

Bon appetitie

Katherine School of the Air - 29 July 2009

Today I visited the Katherine School of the Air. They purport to be the largest class room in the world. And they probably are, given that they service the whole of the Northern Territory plus NT children in Kazakstan, South Africa, Nigeria, and various other places in Asia and Africa. The facilities here are fantastic! Gone are the days of crackly radio; the centre piece is Interactive Distance Learning (IDL). The kids in Australia participate in lessons of about 10 kids max. The teachers can show the kids a worksheet, and point things out, under a camera on their desk, or switch to a camera that shows them in the IDL studio. Students can interact via constantly available chat, or can 'call in' at the press of a button and ask or answer questions verbally, heard by the teacher and other students. This is the day to day stuff, then once a year for a week (the first week of the NT's month long dry season holidays) the kids come to Katherine for a week of school, sport, fun and games at the primary school just next door to school of the air. In addition the teachers will travel out to each location at some stage during the year to interact with the kids, understand their context, and provide support to the home tutors (that every kid/location must have - governernesses in station terms). All the tests seem to show that these kids come out of school better educated, and I bet better equipped for life. Teaching now extends to year 9 level.

Staying in the air, but to a different subject; Dr Clyde Fenton, medical officer with the Northern Territory government decided that to better service his patients he ought to fly to visit them, and when required he could use the plane as an ambulance service to remote destinations. Hence the Royal Flying Doctors Service was born. Fenton was a keen pilot, and something of a larrikin. He once landed his plane on the main street of Katherine, taxied along a little to the pub, and headed in for a drink - just one of many other stunts and practical jokes. It took a while for the idea of a flying doctors service to take off (pardon the pun). The territory government was not keen on it, and it was not until after the war (WW2) in which Fenton enlisted with the RAAF did the RFDS form. The Katherine Museum is home to his first plane. A two seater gypsy moth that suffered many a rough, or crash landing - this was partly due to the quality of the air strips, but I get the impression he was not the most fantastic pilot either. The plane was rebuilt after it's final, fairly significant, crash.

VH-UNI Clyde Fenton's first plane, and the beginning of theRoyal Flying Doctors Service.

Learn as if you were to live forever, live as if you were to die tomorrow

Mahatma Ghandi

Katherine - 28 July 2009

So I find myself back in Katherine once again. And the weather is perfect. Warm 30 degree days with a beautiful breeze that means it is not too hot to walk in the sun, and it is cold enough at night these last two nights that you can wear a light jumper, and sleep in a sleeping bag. This is proper dry season weather!

… and Katherine is a busy place in the dry season. The supermarket in town was packed by just after 9 am, every spare parking spot or patch of roadside dirt is occupied by 4WDs, campervans and caravans, and people are backed up onto the road to get fuel at the four servos in town. The local first Australian's (as I believe is the current most politically correct term) are also busy hanging around the streets and parks, and the cops and community patrol (their primary function being to deal with drunks I think, but also to help resolve disputes and advise on available services etc.) are busy too. Diving through the outskirts of town one evening, someone had lit up a patch of bush just next to the main road, and the air was thick with spear grass smoke. A common occurrence no doubt. Sitting in the library yesterday I could hear aboriginals arguing on the street below; the thing that hit me is that up here people still speak their local languages, or at least some of them. My guess is it was probably Jawoyn, the most common group around here, although there are 3 or 4 languages spoken in Katherine I think.

The Australian Defence Force also has a big presence here. Yesterday afternoon I saw two serious tanks roll through town (on the back of trucks), an old school looking bulldozer, and a series of what looked like segments of a bunker on a truck travelling with the tanks. And today I saw a convoy of 8 or 10 smaller wheeled tanks, and scouting, or troop carrier sort of vehicles. There is a RAAF base just out of town, as well as two very large (bigger than most stations) training grounds within a few hundred k's. One, the largest is equal in size to some of the huge aboriginal land grants up here, and has played host to Exercise Talisman Sabre, the name for the joint US-Australian exercises, with the George Washington being offshore. The defence presence is not just current day. You really get a sense of how threatened we felt we were in the second world war up here. Sure there is some legacy in Perth - the guns at Mosman Park, and Rottnest spring to mind - but up here between Katherine and Darwin you come across old airfield after airfield. I think there are 14 between here and Darwin. The station I am staying hosted a large airbase, built by the US, but occupied simultaneously by American and RAAF units. It had it's own abattoir and a large poultry farm. Most of the airfields were built just after the bombing of Darwin, and the southern ones were occupied heavily initially, but it seems they moved forces further north fairly quickly. Many of the fields were being under utilised less than a year after they were built.

A wheeled tank heading through Katherine.


May the force be with you

Edith Falls - 24 July 2009

Tonight I am at Edith Falls, in Nitmiluk National Park, near Katherine. I spent today lounging around plunge pools, swimming, walking, bird watching, and reading a book. It was all very interesting, but the bit that may be of wider interest - or quite equally may not be, as certainly not everyone will be - is the book.

Edith Falls at Dusk.

A Short History Of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson. So far it is shaping up as a short history of the universe, earth, physics, chemistry, geology, and life on earth. However it is littered with stories about 18th century thinkers/scientists. Usually about how crazy, or how misfortunate they were. The things that most struck me though were; how everybody seems to have know everybody else; how if you have a brain and know how to give it a work out you could try your hand in almost any area of science (or very unscientific pursuits for that matter); and how much fun the institutions they created(such as the Royal Society and Zoological society) must have been, if you could wade through the jargon the information was hidden in.

One of my favourite stories is about this guy who provided excellent intellectual insights into astronomy, but also believed that humans had evolved downward facing nostrils so as not to catch diseases and viruses such as influenza and the bubonic plague that fell to earth from space.

But to the scientific points in the book:

-The universe started as a singularity. A hell of a lot of matter jammed into a very small space. Well actually, not a space because the three dimensions that make up space didn't really exist. Something made this suddenly expand (not so much as explode) creating hydrogen, helium and a tiny bit of lithium in the process. The 'Big Bang' was termed by a strong skeptic of the idea as a way of ridiculing it.

-Eventually the universe will find out if gravity is too strong, too weak, or just right. Too strong the universe will implode: to what I don’t think anybody really knows. Too weak and the universe will end up a vast empty space. As it is space is emptier than the best vacuum ever made on earth. Just right, and the universe will stay in a stable state largely resembling what it is now.

None of us, and most likely none of mankind will be around to find out at the rate we are going.

-Neutron stars/ Supernovae are cool. And are responsible for the creation of all the heavier elements that life relies on. There is a priest in Australia who is for some reason really good at finding supernovae. I wonder if he thinks god created them for a reason, or just likes watching massive stars explode as much as he does?

-A few hundred years ago geology was really really trendy. The attire for gentlemen of the Geological Society for an afternoon's 'stone breaking' was top hat, suit, and tie. Although a certain distinguished geologist insisted on an academic gown. I would hazard a guess that geology is not in for a similar resurgence for a long time yet!

-When you are an experimental chemist, don't taste everything.

-It seems I am not very good at re-telling stories or reviewing books. If you have a better understanding of the subject than me feel free to post corrections or other interesting facts.

Ciao
A Red-winged parrot by the bank of the Edith River. It is a female.

Katherine - 23 July 2009

I am in Katherine. At the Springvale Homestead Tourist Park or some such. Near the Katherine River, and 5 metres from a small billabong that, I am assuming, is not inhabited by snapping handbags (saltwater crocs) just yet. Actually they tend to call salties estuarine crocs these days to try and ram home to people that they can live in freshwater as well. Currently this part of the Katherine river is thought to be free of crocs, but it will not be too long until they move up here. Salties are moving further up rivers and into more and more billabongs due to an expanding population. Hunting has ceased as of 30 or 40 years ago, and aboriginal predation of eggs has also declined with less people living off the bush. Hence the population is large. Probably larger than it has ever been. The males are very territorial, and will defend as much territory as they can manage from smaller, younger males. Hence the crocs being found upstream are mostly younger males.

The Aggressor is so named by the locals for harassing boats on the billabong. This is him seconds after munching an egret on the bank for breakfast. Hence the rough surface on the water. Red Lily Billabong, Kakadu National Park.

For the last few days I have been moving further up the Daly river system. At the Mango Farm where I stayed for two nights, near the Daly River townsite (calling it a town site is a fair stretch, but they do) you are about 50 km by river from the coast. The next region of the Daly, accessed by a different road (there is no nice drives up along river systems in the Territory) is the Douglas Daly. This is where the Douglas and the Daly rivers meet. You may hear this area mentioned when pollies discuss northern Australian agriculture, and all this northern food bowl talk. Well now I know why they talk about the Douglas Daly. Apart from being one of the few areas in the territory with cleared land, the soil seems reasonable, the rainfall is said to be a reliable 1200mm, and even now that it is mid dry season there is still a reasonable amount of H2O rushing down the Daly. The cleared land has had non-native pastures planted on it (mostly buffell grass) for cattle. There are a variety of field crops grown, although not much, and mostly during the wet. They grow a tropical legume called cavalcade as hay, hence many paddocks are littered with huge haystacks. The hay gets compressed into small pellets and used as feed for cows on their way to Indonesian.

Cavalcade haystacks near the Douglas River.

Most of the cattle up here are Brahman. They handle the heat and ticks and walking to water quite well, but don't taste that fantastic as a big lump of steak. So almost all the cattle up here get shipped to Indonesia, where they are fattened up a bit more in feedlots. They get butchered and then taken home by our nearest neighbours to go into noodles, and stir fries etc, where tender tasty meat is somewhat less important. The other major landuse is African Mahogany. A hardwood I think, prized for it's timber, which is used for furniture. There are two companies I know of that are in action up here. One of them is everybody's favourite M.I.S. company, Great Southern. All the plantations I saw were less than 2 feet high. I imagine it will be another 20 years before they are ready to harvest. I came across almost all of this information by dropping in at the Douglas -Daly Research Farm, where the farm manager gave me an hour long tour.

African Mahogany seedlings in a Cavalcade hay paddock. The trees are the green fuzz along the small planting mounds.

The third and final region of the Daly is the Katherine-Daly (although not often called this). It is the region around the Katherine, Edith, and Florence rivers, which form the Daly. I have yet to explore here, but I believe the agriculture is mostly mango's and peanuts. The Katherine gorge, and Edith falls are the main tourist highlights and I will spend the next few days checking them out.

Verily by beauty it is that we come at wisdom

(I am expecting to suddenly become very wise after all this travelling to gorges, waterfalls, billabongs, rock art and rivers)

PS. Do those of you who are UWA-ites know where this is inscribed?

Daly River - 20 July 2009

I am lying in my tent under a 100 year old mango tree listening to Australian and American fighter jets roar overhead at probably 500 knots. I had counted 8 jets before I was distracted, and the noise blended into the background like traffic noise in the big smoke. Now there is another jet passing over-head. It is much quieter though. It must be a passenger jet. The military jets fairly roar, and in the dead still air you can hear them for minutes, and see their flashing lights and headlights lighting up the sky. The mango trees were planted by Jesuit missionaries on the south bank of the Daly river, Northern Territory, when they established a mission here in 1886 or there abouts. At the time there was no white settlement on this side of the Daly, and the missionaries believed that was for the best as they were out to save the native people from the excesses of white civilization ... There goes another jet ... Heading south this time rather than north. And much lower. It is quite loud.


Camping under 100 year old Mango Trees.







The George Washington (the aircraft carrier replacing the Kitty Hawk in the Asia Pacific) … another jet … is sitting off shore in Darwin for three weeks, too large to enter the harbour. It was in Perth before here, with it's 5000 sailors, and the 17th largest air force in the world. They and the RAAF boys are having simulated battles south of Katherine … another jet returning from the battle field … The Washington is a nuclear powered ship, that requires re-fuelling only every 18 years but takes three years to re-fuel according to the old lady in the caravan park last night. The mere existence of such a large ship with such a large air force poses many questions about our desire for peace, security, and prosperity for every citizen on this planet, and the way we expect to achieve, or attempt to achieve that. But lets discuss that another time. It also raises the nuclear issue once again. Clearly it is beneficial having to re-fuel only once every 18 years, and nuclear is probably reasonably safe these days if built to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards. But what of the waste. How long will it take for the waste to reach background levels of radiation, and can we humans with our extremely short term view of things really commit to isolating a large volume of waste from the environment for that amount of time?




RAAF fighter jets on the runway in Darwin, ready to go play ball with the Americans.



In fact just a few days ago at Ubirr, an internationally recognized rock art site in Kakadu national park, I was looking at a painting (probably thousands of years old) depicting the effect of long exposure to elevated levels of nuclear radiation. The sandstone escarpments of Kakadu/Arnhem land are in certain paces high in uranium as well as other heavy metals. There are areas along this escarpment recognised as sickness country by the local aboriginal people. Not surprisingly maps of high uranium content rocks, and sickness country match fairly well. In fact, there are two or three uranium mining leases in Kakadu, the biggest being the Ranger uranium mine. Kakadu is unique in more ways than just having uranium leases. It contains the reasonably sized town of Jabiru, which is a tourist and mining service centre, and is home to a ridiculous looking, and dated, yet quite pricy apparently, hotel in the shape of a crocodile. Kakadu is also home to 1,000 head of farmed buffalo. The farm is, I believe run by local, Binning people.

A person affected by sickness country.




But back to Mango trees. Yes, I am in the Top end. I drove from Perth to Darwin to meet up with family travelling up here, and have been to Kakadu and the Tiwi islands. I am now travelling by myself back towards Kununurra, where I plan to work for a month or so, either prior to, or after having travelled around the Kimberley. I am at the Daly River Mango Farm Tourist Park, with three caravans, and the owners. It is unseasonably quite because a bunch of the long termers have left after having a very good run with the barra fishing. They have caught all they are allowed to possess (or that they can fit in their freezers), and are not able to eat it all quick enough to keep fishing, so they are on their way home. The property is home to 2,000 production mango trees plus 20 or 30 from 100 years ago. The production trees are flowering or have just finished at the moment. Mangos arrive late October to late November.

I am right on the bank of the Daly river, a fantastic place, apart from the mosquitoes. Hence I am taking shelter in my tent.



The Daly River crossing. When I say 'the' I mean 'the only'. There is an old rock crossing 70 kms upstream, the next crossing is the highway bridge in Katherine, over what is then the Katherine River.


There will be more to follow on other adventures, including the Tiwi islands.


Carpe Diem