Politicians have been on the nose in recent weeks, so I thought I’d descend into their seamy, steamy world to see what’s going on. I was delighted to find things are improving, because those wise Bananabenders up north, have followed the lead of their Mexican counterparts down south, and turfed out their anti-green government. How wonderful. Now, if the anti-environment federal government can be neutered, the Great Barrier Reef world heritage area – the eighth wonder of the world – can be treated with the respect it deserves, not as a dumping ground for sludge and other pollutants, or as a super seaway for mega ships carting greenhouse gases (aka coal).

However, as a former Bananabender (I couldn’t do it; too straight I guess), I can tell you that both sides of politics have sinned when it comes to being kind to Mother Nature. And just as the Libs copped a caning last Saturday, back in 1995, it was Labor’s turn. I wrote about it in ‘Safari’, during a visit to Daisy Hill Conservation Park.

‘We were back at the koala centre. It’s unusual to have a display dedicated to a single species so, not surprisingly, there is a story behind it – the ‘Great Koala Election’. The Brisbane to Gold Coast highway was a nightmare, frequently gridlocked, particularly on weekends. Premier Wayne Goss was under pressure to find a solution before the 1995 election. The government had two options – widen the existing road or build a new one. The premier chose the latter, but the proposed route carved up the most significant koala habitat in urban Australia. The community was outraged.

In the lead-up to the election, the government announced several projects – including the koala centre – to try to placate those opposing the plans, but the locals weren’t conned. Refusing to budge, Labor suffered an electoral backlash, not only losing all three seats along the proposed route but also losing office.’

What I didn’t mention in the book was that one of the three seats lost was held by Molly Robson, the popular environment minister, who had vigorously opposed the new road construction. It ended her brief political career, and the incoming government was wise enough not to build the road but to just tinker with the existing highway – and not upset the koalas and their vocal supporters.

So where are we up to with ‘Southern Cross Safari’?  Well, things are progressing at the same genteel pace that has characterised the past 5 or 6 years, which is (one) of the problems with being a perfectionist. However, at any moment, the final quote for printing will make its presence known in my Inbox, and depending on what it says, will determine what happens next.

Yesterday, I tied up a book store outlet in Tuggeranong, in Canberra’s deep south, so I now have sale points in most of the city’s major centres.

But the exciting news is that a Sydney-based book distributor has offered to carry ‘Safari’ , which will open up many markets that would otherwise have been unavailable. This makes me feel more comfortable with the large print run I am contemplating, and for how long the spare bedroom won’t be available for guests!

Till next week, happy travelling.

Well, it was an Asian Cup quarter final, between Iran and Iraq, so along with nearly 20,000 fanatical supporters of the round ball game, I ignored the 30 plus degrees temperature, travelled the 15 minutes it takes to get to the stadium in easy-to-get-around Canberra, and sat in the blazing sun from 5pm till sunset as the game unfolded in front of me. And what an amazing match it was.

But hang on – I thought this blog was about travelling around Australia by bus and train. What’s soccer got to do with travel? Hold your horses;  check out p 377 of the yet-to-be published ‘Safari’. Better still, I’ll quote the relevant paragraph.

‘I was closing in on Melbourne, Australia’s other great city. While I knew Sydney well, Melbourne remained a mystery. As a Sydneysider, I was genetically wired to dislike the southern capital; several stays over the years had failed to win me over. One of those was in 1997, when my son Tristan and I went to the soccer world cup qualifier between Iran and Australia. With 85,000 screaming fans, the atmosphere was electric. The Socceroos led 2–0 with 20 minutes to go; a world cup birth was within our grasp, until Iran netted two late goals to sink the Aussies. I was gutted. Quite reasonably, I blamed Melbourne.’

Now, I’m not vengeful by nature, I’m not the  sort of person to hold a grudge for 18 years, but I did want Iraq to win! And when the Iraqi players ran on to the field in their emerald strip, I figured I was on a winner. However, I still had some misgivings. Surprisingly, these doubts stemmed from the Iran strip, which featured the Asiatic cheetah, an innovative way to highlight the plight of this endangered species to the sporting world.

So it became, for me, a match between the ‘Greens’ and the ‘Cheetahs’. I hoped it would be a good, close encounter between these arch rivals but someone had to win. With memories of 1977 still lingering, I stayed with Iraq.

And, as they say, the rest is history. The teams were 1-1 at full time; 3-3 after extra time; and Iraq finally prevailed 7-6 in the penalty shootout, an engrossing game, one of the best international matches seen in Australia according to some commentators.

And it happened in Canberra! (allow me some provincial pride).

Meanwhile ‘Safari’ starts to gain some traction. I spent last week ‘doing’ Canberra’s bookshops and getting printing quotes. Five stores have agreed to stock it, and I’m negotiating with several others. When I have finalised arrangements and have the books printed, I will list the stores on my website and the blog. Non-Canberrans will (eventually) be able to purchase print copies of Safari through my website

Smashwords has distributed the ebook to its retail partners and it is turning up on many websites including our own Angus & Robertson’s, and Bookworld.  It is also on Amazon and iBooks. I am working with my ebook publisher, An Van den Borre of Rubida Communications, exploring ways to expand the marketing of the ebook.

See you next week. In the meantime:

Read lots, travel safe.

Another sleepless night of canines and croakers, but let’s start by setting the scene.
I have 3 dogs – a collie, a kelpie and a heeler – all former farm dogs, and hence they live outside. But they all hate thunder and lightning (and noisy aircraft, low flying balloons, fireworks, sirens, ‘bangs’ of any description, and the other dogs getting more pats than they do!).

So when Zeus coughs and sneezes, day or night, the dogs go spare: the 15-year-old kelpie scratches at the door, the collie cries and the heeler barks. The kelpie is the worst; he’s obsessive, furiously dragging his long claws across the unfortunate door till someone lets him into the small laundry, where he snuggles up into his wet weather blanket.

If no one is at home, and the Big Z decides to hang around, the kelpie just keeps scratching! And that’s what happened on Christmas Day when the human household headed off for celebrations elsewhere, in my case, to a family function in Sydney.

A previous owner had installed a cat flap in the laundry door. When the thunder and lighting started, the kelpie got stuck into the door with his usual enthusiasm. With no humans inside to let him in, he just kept on going, and as his sharp claws assailed the cat flap frame, the 4 screws holding it in place eventually gave way, and the frame fell out.

Buoyed by his success, the brown dog then started chewing the masonite door itself. Fortunately, he didn’t open the door flap. Based on past experience, he would probably have stuck his head inside and got stuck!

As it was, when I returned that night, I was greeted by a very wet and tired kelpie, lying in a pile of wooden chips that used to be the laundry door (see pic above). New door required.

Back to the title of the post. A previous owner also installed a water feature comprising a series of 3 cascading ponds, the water being reticulated through the ponds by an electric pump. The feature is close to the house, beside the patio. I found the long-dead remains of the pump while exploring the ponds, now overgrown with a mass of protective vegetation. And, to my joy, the first heavy rain after I moved in revealed the presence of a family of frogs, happily croaking in their flooded home.

January 2015 has been exceptionally wet and humid in Canberra. We have exceeded our average January rainfall in less than half the month, with much of the downpours coming in evening thunderstorms. It doesn’t matter whether its 10 pm, midnight or 2 am, when Zeus comes, the kelpie scratches, and Bruce gets up and lets him into the laundry through the still-to-be-repaired door. The trick to then keeping him quiet on these stormy, flashy nights is to leave the laundry light on, as the lightning doesn’t seem to bother him then.

So the storm passes, the kelpie shuts up, the humans snooze, and … its time for the frogs to party, revelling and whooping in the latest deluge, sounding like an orchestra of poorly tuned banjos.

Frog pond with blobs of tadpole eggs.

And what a night, what an orgy, it must have been ‘down in the ponds’ as morning revealed masses of white eggs with tiny black tadpoles in them: future croakers.

Happy travelling.

New Year resolutions are easy. Just get out last year’s, add 1 to the year, and hey presto, it’s done – get fit, exercise more, lose weight, stop smoking, etc.

I’ve only ever succeeded in keeping one difficult NYR. About 15 years ago, I resolved to stop adding sugar to my thrice daily cups of tea. And I succeeded! I calculated I reduced my intake of the sickly sweetener by 115kg, or 1.5 times my body weight! Not bad eh.

I haven’t been so successful with my twice daily coffee hits. I no longer add it to caps or lattes when out, but instant and plunger brews at home still get the white death, though in smaller quantities.

So what does 2015 offer? In 2014 I resolved to finish writing the book, though that was going to happen, NYR or not! With the magnus opus now done, I’ll have some spare time next year, so intend to take on a few new challenges. Being a shy chap, I can’t write about the personal ones; here’s some suitable for family viewing.

The book.

Find a publisher. If that fails, then self-publish/print-on-demand, and market like mad. I will also develop a website pictorial to complement the narrative.

Writing

With a climate sceptic for prime minister, and anti-environment state governments across the country, there’s plenty of scope for writing pithy opinion pieces or more genteel feature articles.

Nostalgia

I’m also planning to re-read the 3 books that greatly influenced me when I was a teenager, and led me down my career path. What are they? You’ll have to wait :-).

Homage

I’d also like to pay homage to my two favourite  travel writers who ‘travelled’ with me during my own long trip, kept me focussed, and helped me answer that difficult travel writer’s question: ‘What am I doing here?’.

Travel, of course

I had to keep the travel bug under control in 2014 or I would not have finished the book. However, this year, like Alexander Beetle, the travel bug  will regain its freedom to ‘follow the sun’ though maybe in a different way. Stay tuned!

So that’s 5 biggies. I’ll stop there because I need time to fix the garden, repair the house, learn French and German, exercise more, get fit, etc!

How are your resolutions going?

Happy travelling.

Well, it was the ‘blog before Christmas’ until a noisy thunderstorm rolled over Canberra and knocked out my internet connection for nearly a week. So it’s now the post Christmas blog, though unchanged from its pre-Christmas version; I hope you like it.

The blog is primarily about my book, but as I didn’t travel over Christmas, I’m wondering what to write. I’m hoping the blog will eventually morph into a discussion on national parks, which gives me a few festive season ideas. However, as the story unfolds, you’ll see, that at least for me, this one wasn’t so ‘festive’.

It’s December 1972; the nation is rejoicing at the election of Gough Whitlam –  our first Labor Prime Minister since Ben Chifley’s defeat in 1949 – so I am going segue into an anecdote from my book about the great Gough, concerning a visit he made to Kakadu National Park.

‘I reached the Bark Hut Inn, a popular roadhouse halfway to Jabiru. Almost 20 years ago to the day, I had stopped here with former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam and his late wife Margaret, who were touring Kakadu for a few days. I remembered the day well: two tourist buses had arrived just before us, and about 100 older Australians were milling about, stretching and chatting.

Gough is a big man and Margaret was not much smaller. I’m above average in height, yet walking between them I felt like a hooker between two props. They were not a couple to be missed and, as we strode towards the Bark Hut, they weren’t. The talking suddenly ceased and 200 eyes bore in on us. Then a miracle happened – the bus group parted, just as the Red Sea did for Moses, allowing us to pass among them. Then clapping started, rising to a tumult that was graciously acknowledged by those walking beside me.’

Wonderful people; I was glad to have spent a few days with them.

Now where were we? December 1972. I was soon to transfer to Sturt National Park, after 3 fun years at Kosciuszko National Park. My last job at Kosci was to attend a fire suppression course. The problem was we couldn’t get our practice area  to burn because … it was snowing!

So, two weeks after lighting fires in snowstorms, I was in Sturt National Park, 1500 km northwest of Kosciuszko, standing on top of a rocky, tree-less mesa, looking across a vast expanse of harsh red country on the edge of the Strzelecki Desert; the shade temperature was 45°C.

The 320,000 ha (790,000 acres) park occupies the northwest  corner of New South Wales (NSW), and includes Cameron Corner where the states of NSW, Queensland and South Australia meet. The nearest  town is Tibooburra, population, when I was there, about 120. The average rainfall is about 220 mm (9″). Rainfall is erratic, falling as intermittent thunderstorms, mainly in summer. I lived in Mount Wood homestead, parts of which dated back to the 1880s. It was a mysterious, rambling house, with wide-screened verandahs under a rusty, corrugated iron roof.

In the late afternoon of a stinking hot day, I loved watching the banks of angry black clouds roiling towards the homestead, waiting with increasing anticipation for the first huge drops of rain to sizzle on the white-hot roof. Then the main storm would hit, crashing onto the steaming iron, the din so fierce speech was futile, while my dog (Blotches) shivered in fright behind the lounge (spoilt pooch!).

However, there was no storm on December 25, 1972. I had arrived only 2 weeks previously,  so knew no one in nearby Tibooburra, and my staff were on holidays. I was 25, and it was my first Christmas away from home – just me and Blotches! I awoke to my first Christmas dawn, sang a few verses of ‘Six White Boomers’, wished man’s best friend Merry Christmas, and opened the presents my mum had thoughtfully packed before I left Sydney. Thinking about mum and dad, my 4 siblings, in-laws, and nieces and nephews having a great time in Sydney made me feel very miserable!

There had been little rain for the previous 2 years. The two adjacent earth dams that provided water for the homestead were all but empty. The situation was desperate, both for me, and the 3000 corellas and 500 galahs that lived in the red gums lining the dams. If it  didn’t rain in the next 6 to 8 weeks, the dams would have only puddles of foul, polluted water, and I’d  be forced to leave.  So under a cloudless blue sky and blazing sun, I spent my first lonely Christmas pumping water from one dam to the other, to reduce the loss of water to evaporation, and so eke out a few more weeks at the homestead before I had to leave.

I didn’t need to  – it rained 2 weeks later!

Merry Christmas and safe travelling.

Yes, I know Canberra is officially in summer, being in the temperate latitudes of the southern hemisphere. However, this post was overtaken by last month’s World Parks Congress, and I didn’t want to wait till next spring to use it.

With spring comes that ‘lovin’ feelin’: romance is in the air – and also on the nest! As well as being Australia’s grey kangaroo and brown snake capital, Canberra has a healthy population of that melodious musician of the Australian bush, the irrepressible magpie. (NB: Don’t confuse Magpie Oz with maggies from other parts of the world – they are different species, though in some cases, superficially similar.) The black and white magpie Oz is a large bird, about 40 cm (16″) in length, with a long, strong, sharp beak.

While the cackle of the kookaburra is the most distinctive sound of the Australian bush, a magpie’s song is the most musical. To see – and hear – a flock of these maestros with their heads back, in full voice, singing their little hearts out, is guaranteed to bring a smile to your face and a flutter to your heart.

But there is another side to these loveable bush legends; they are ferociously protective parents. Walk, cycle or jog near their bulky stick nests in spring and your safety  cannot be guaranteed. In Canberra, known danger areas are signposted with ‘Beware swooping bird’ signs; walkers wear hats and carry sticks; cyclists tie stiff electrical cables to their helmets, looking like colourful echidnas (or hedgehogs) as they swish past.

Magpies have attacked me several times, including twice on my trip. The first was on the Manly Scenic Walkway, just north of Sydney; here’s what happened.

‘The first stage to North Harbour Reserve was along a concrete path, adjacent to a pleasant shoreline that includes Fairlight Beach. The path was hard on my knees; I prefer the ‘give’ of a bush track. I was thinking about this when the attack happened. From behind came a sudden ‘whoosh’, flapping wings, and clacking bill. I knew what it was. I didn’t turn for fear of getting my face scratched; instead I swung out with my free arm and dropped to the ground. As I was getting my cap out, it swooped again, then retired to a low branch, giving me a menacing look.

Magpies – the bane of school kids, walkers and bike riders during the nesting season. I put my cap on backwards, hoping the badge looked slightly scary, and moved off, the victor farewelling me with a mocking warble.’

The second attack occurred at Mallacoota in Victoria, when I was cycling.

‘My walking poles – a recent purchase – were jammed into my backpack, sharp ends protruding as I cycled into town to buy lunch. I hadn’t gone far when something ‘whooshed’ past my head, giving me a helluva fright. It was a magpie, the second attack of my trip. It came from behind, and would have clobbered my helmet, had not my poles deflected its flight path.’

Magpies occur across the country. In the south-west of Western Australian, at Two Peoples Bay Nature Reserve, I came across the following sign.

‘I came to a well-kept picnic area, set among shady trees near the bay. A warning, Bird Risk Area, disturbed the peaceful ambience. I read Bird feeding by visitors has increased the number and aggressiveness of magpies. They may swoop and snatch food from people. For your safety, please do not feed magpies.’

Magpies: love them or hate them, they sure liven things up.

Happy travelling.

My ‘weekly’ blog has become a monthly one! Oh well, another resolution for my New Year’s list.

My goal was to get ‘Southern Cross Safari’ published in time (12 November 2014) for the start of the World Parks Congress (WPC) in Sydney, so it could be sold through the Congress bookshop. I finally discovered that the shop was only displaying IUCN titles, with no sales. However, the shop manager kindly displayed my book, so I kind of achieved my goal.

I eventually had 20 copies printed for promotion and advertising, just in time to take to the WPC. Unfortunately, the shop was tucked away at the end of a huge exhibitor’s hall, so wasn’t visited by many of the 6000 delegates attending. However, I was delighted to bump into an old uni friend who I hadn’t seen for many years. Louise was volunteering at the Congress, and she liked the book so much she became my first sale.

So the book is finished, looks good, and reads well. I’ve now decided to find a publisher. The problem with self-publishing print books is distribution, ie getting the book into shops. Publishers have networks; self-publishers don’t.

If I were to self-publish, I would have to pay for printing, pay for distribution and pay the retailer; and lose money.

The other self-publishing alternative would be to sell through my website and through local outlets in Canberra, but it’s a small market compared with the rest of the country.

On a positive note, the book is now on Amazon and Smashwords as an ebook, and soon Apple, thanks to the sterling efforts of my friend An (Rubida ePress).  Even if you are not an ebook fan, you will be able to sample about 15% of the book at no cost to you – and no profit  to me! The ebook sells for about A$11.60, compared with A$30-35 for the print book.

The other thing I intend to do is to sort through my thousands of digital images and create an online picture book on my website to complement the written narrative.

Meanwhile, back at the World Parks Congress – it was a huge event, in fact, it was almost too big. Although it ran for 8 days, the first comprised half a day of introductions and partying; the final half day summarised proceedings before the farewell barbeque; and the Sunday in between was a rest day. This left just 5 days for the more than 900 presentations – talks, debates, workshops, dialogues … as I said, too big. All these contributions, and the many formal and informal discussions on the side, were finally distilled into a single document called the ‘The Promise of Sydney’.

The Promise will drive the international protected area movement for the next decade, the time span between WPCs.  It’s worth a read and can be viewed at: http://www.worldparkscongress.org/about/promise_of_sydney_vision.html

Happy travelling – see you next week!

As with all temperate locations, the best thing about the arrival of spring in Canberra is the longer, warmer days, accompanied by the rapid growth of herbs and grasses, the greening of skeletal deciduous trees, and the flowering of ornamental plants in gardens, and wildflowers in the bush. It’s a time of biological renewal and the city takes on a different, but delightful complexion.

Migrating birds pass through or return to breed, insects hatch and multiply, and reptiles wake up from their winter hibernation –  and therein lies one of Canberra’s springy problems: snakes!

I own three dogs. The 16-year-old kelpie has a dodgy ticker so his daily walk is short, around the lake edge to the dam and back, a ‘sniff and pee’ walk of about 600 metres. However, the two girls – a border collie and a blue heeler (aka blue cattle dog) – have longer walks, past the dam, down the creek, beside the nature reserve, to an aromatic sewerage stink pipe, a round walk of about 3 km.

In spring, the  faint track beside the creek disappears in the  long grass, providing excellent cover for slithering snakes – I often hear them before I see them! Yesterday, I saw my third brown snake – deadly to man and beast – in the past 2 weeks so have stopped walking there until the grass is cut.

Last spring, I also saw a tiger snake – also deadly to man and beast – and many red-bellied blacks – a bit deadly to m & b! I also had a brown snake in my front yard last summer, which was a little worrying, more so for the dogs than for moi.

But Canberra is not alone in having snakes. Across Australia, there are some 140 land snakes, and a further 32 sea snakes inhabit our coastal waters. I saw many snakes on my trip, as the following excerpts explain. One was in Queensland’s Lamington National Park:

‘I passed several more falls with tongue-twisting names – Minjayla, Joolbahla, Gwahlahla, Alcheringa – before climbing out of the valley to the New South Wales–Queensland border at Echo Point, on the McPherson Range escarpment.

I rock hopped towards the lookout and was in midstride between two boulders when I saw a large snake on the sunny side of my destination rock, just one hop away. My brain said ‘python not venomous’, but I stopped dead anyway. The black and brown mottled reptile wasn’t leaving its warm spot – it just stared at me, motionless.

I had lunch, keeping a watchful eye on Monty, both of us enjoying our respective pleasures. Fertile river valleys, forest-clad ranges and conical-shaped mountains stretched away to the misty horizon of the Tweed Range, a nice contrast to the closed rainforest.’

I came across another snake in Cape Range National Park on the west coast.

‘The road neared a small range of rocky red hills, the proximity revealing their composition – dissected rocks, narrow gorges and dry gullies fracturing into a bewildering array of fissures, cracks and boulders. I was so intent on the view I nearly squashed a beautiful snake. The 2 m black-headed python was slithering across the road; behind its shiny head, dark bands crossed an olive-green body. I stopped an approaching car, the passengers as thrilled as I was to see this magnificent reptile.’

Tasmania has only three species of land snakes; I was lucky to see one in Mount Field National Park.

‘A light breeze had dissipated the mist, now a perfect day for the five-hour, 13 km Tarn Shelf Circuit. Greg Buckman had bemoaned the lack of onsite brochure holders. I agreed, as I followed a faded sign saying Lake Circuit via Pandani Grove, skirting the lake’s rippling waters, passing pandanus trees 6 to 8 m high with spiky green crowns sitting atop narrow brown skirts of tightly compacted fronds. King Billy and pencil pines hemmed the track; a slim grey snake, about 65 cm long, slithered past. Tassie only has three snakes: copperhead, tiger and white-lipped. The first two are highly venomous; it looked like the latter.’

Meanwhile, on the book front, the pre-printing formatting has had a few hiccups but is now back on track. I’m hoping both the e-book and print versions will be published by the end of November.

Happy  travelling

I just noticed my last blog was on August 17! So much for my weekly post; I’ll have to lift my game.

So here come the excuses. I headed north for three weeks, initially to Brisbane, then on to Bundaberg. I like Brisbane, in fact I lived there for three years. Apart from a few sweaty days each summer, it has the best climate of Australia’s capital cities. Brisbane is sometimes called Bris-Vegas. You can guess where the Vegas comes from, but why? According to Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary, the name derives, in part, ‘as an ironic reference to Brisbane’s lack of showy opulence (for which Las Vegas is famous), and partly because Brisbane was the first Qld city to have a casino.’ So there you have it, we’ve both learned something new today!

During the years I lived here, I never managed to get to North Stradbroke Island (Straddie to the locals) in Morton Bay, and visit Blue Lake National Park. I found a Straddie Visitor Guide at the Queen Street Mall information centre, and was pleased to see that the park had grown. It also had a new name, now called Naree Budjong Djara, Quandamooka words meaning ‘My Mother Earth’ . The Quandamooka people are the Traditional Owners of Minjerribah (Straddie).

With my son Tristan, I caught the train to bayside Cleveland to catch the ferry. Unfortunately, we missed an earlier train by just 30 seconds, which meant we missed an early ferry connection that cost us two hours on the island.

We eventually boarded the 12.30 ferry, passing Peel Island, now called Teerk Roo Ra National Park. I could see visitors kicking a soccer ball on a sandy beach. Peel Island was a leper colony for 52 years from 1907. Visitors can now explore the old leper colony town,  part of which is currently being restored.

Meanwhile, we berthed at Dunwich on Straddie, and boarded a free bus to Point Lookout, passing through part of ‘My Mother Earth’ on the way. An excellent walk followed the cliff line around North Gorge, one of two, deep sea water incisions into the headland (the other being South Gorge). The walk – which included some well-constructed boardwalk sections – was several hundred metres long, and passed through pandanus, casuarina, eucalypt and banksia vegetation, and gave panoramic views up and down the island’s coastline. Watching waves rush into the gorge during high seas would be a treat!

We only spent a couple of hours on Straddie; a couple of days would have been better.

My second excuse for this tardy post is that I have been busy getting the book published. As this is my first one, I’m discovering there is lots to do to get ‘print-ready’. In particular, I want  to have the book available for the once-in-a-decade World Parks Congress being  held in Sydney from 12-19 November 2014, just 38 days away. I think I can do it.

I am really looking forward to the Congress. I plan to write some posts about it to share the experience with my readers.

Happy travelling