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Impressions of Tasmania Part 2

impressions-tasmania-two — A lucky sunset shot coming in to Port of Melbourne

If you have a yen to go to Tasmania, here’s three key pieces of advice. Go in spring or autumn, take clothing and footwear for all seasons and, most importantly, allow more time than we had (18 days).

I’m taking up the travelogue as we arrived for three days in Hobart (having arranged to drop our car into the dealers to troubleshoot a faulty sensor). We checked in to the Hobart showgrounds, a spacious complex close to the city.

After luckily finding a good ‘local’ breakfast cafe in the city, we set off on a day tour of Hobart. The double-decker bus found its way into some tight spots (a lookout at Battery Point). Our driver informed us that Battery Point has the country’s most expensive real estate (per square metre). We spent an hour at the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens, a compact but very beautiful oasis with a Japanese garden (and an ice cream van we didn’t manage to find). We went to the Cascades and heard all about an early settler, Peter Degraves, who had a plan to use the crystal clear water from the Cascade springs to build a brewery.

He formed this plan while doing time in Hobart gaol for fraud. On his release in the early 1830s he set about building the Cascade Brewery, which is still operating, producing beers and non-alcoholic beverages. It is not only a working brewery but a tourist attraction.

In the afternoon we headed off on a catamaran which took us to one of Hobart’s modern curiosities, MONA (Museum of new and old art). The catamaran ride was splendid, sailing at speed under the Tasman Bridge, catching sight of Australia’s $529 million icebreaker, Nuyina, which is based in Hobart. (Ed: The boat ride was nice – MONA was pretentious, IMHO)

Saturday was a day of highlights. First a day trip through the beautiful Huon Valley to Geeveston where friends introduced us to a gourmet café, The Old Bank, which serves local game dishes. Go there! In the late afternoon we set off to Rosny, which is a nearby suburb of Hobart where songwriter Fred Smith was performing that night. Fred recruited a local band to present his latest concert about Afghanistan, which includes the evacuation of 4000+ people with Australian visas from Kabul Airport. It’s a harrowing audio-visual presentation with images, videos and Fred’s narration, coupled with his insightful songs about Afghanistan and Afghans.

On Sunday we set off for Port Arthur. Like all road journeys in Tasmania, the distances are short but the roads require more careful, slower driving than we are used to on the mainland. I’d not been to Port Arthur before, but the ruins of the convict colony are evocative and the guides are knowledgeable. This is one place where you could spend an extra day, as the ticket to the historic site is also good for the following day. There’s such a lot to take in.

On balance, our colonial forebears treated convicts as brutally as they slaughtered the indigenous people of Tasmania. The cat of nine tails, which was traditionally steeped in sea water so crusts would form on the knots, was a particularly barbarous instrument of punishment. It was not uncommon for convicts to receive 100 lashes. Some of them died as a result. It’s not hard to conjure up the atmosphere when this place was home to 2,000 people, including 1,200 criminals we’d call recidivists (re-offenders) today.

From Port Arthur we drove up the fabled East Coast with its scenic wonders and wildlife. On advice from a friend we stopped at Eaglehawk Neck, a narrow isthmus containing another convict relic. An officer’s garrison was built at Eaglehawk Neck to capture convicts trying to escape Port Arthur. The Dogline at the narrowest part of the neck is where a line of ferocious dogs patrolled to prevent convicts escaping. We also took in a couple of spectacular blow-holes which are common on the Tasman coast.

Mayfield Beach Conservation Area, east coast Tasmania

We were aiming for Swansea but accidentaily ended up at a lovely free camp at Mayfield Beach. The Mayfield Beach Conservation Area was quite popular but we managed to manoeuvre our van into a site under some trees. It was right next to the road but after 7pm there was so little traffic it was not an issue. The park is maintained by park rangers but is in fact a scenic reserve. There are loads of places like this around Tassie and the best part is that, unlike a lot of Queensland free camps, you can stay for 2, 3 or even 4 weeks. (The Mayfield Beach camp sign says in small letters that merely moving to a different site after 30 days is not permitted).

Next day we did tourist stops at Kate’s Berry Farm, a popular place for people who appreciate good coffee and blackberry jam. Then we went to a strange place called Spiky Bridge. It is part of the infrastructure built by convicts with the aim of thwarting overland escape from Port Arthur.

Later we took the steep walk to the lookout at Wineglass Bay, admiring the young couple who took a two-year-old girl and a baby in a backpack to the top and back again. Those kids will grow up loving the wilderness and never know why. The mother took our photo up there, while we were trying hard to look as if we had got our breath back, given the so-so cardio fitness of a pair of 73-year-olds. Friends who have done this walk in the past tell us it used to be a rock scramble to the top. No fancy lookout and safety barriers then.

A Tasmanian devil, posing ever so nicely

We stopped the night at Bicheno at a caravan park because the Coles Bay national park camp site was full. The bonus was we could spend a good few hours at Natureworld, with its well-stocked aviaries, local fauna and a disease-free colony of Tasmanian Devils. We got there in time to watch these ugly critters fighting over a kangaroo tail. Been there, got the T-shirt. (Ed: they were a bit cute – like a Staffie!).

We ended up staying in a caravan park again at St Helen’s when, if we’d thought about it, we could have travelled into the Bay of Fires and stayed at one of the many free camps on the beach. Ah well. We had a jolly fine day trip including a walk along the beach from Walsh’s Lagoon. You can walk the whole 11km from Binalong Point to Eddistone Point along the the Bay of Fires. The walk is mainly along the beach but the trek implies a bit of organisation in a group with a car at either end. Bay of Fires is distinguished from other beaches by its orange granite rocks (the colour is caused by lichen. There are also ancient middens along this trail, evidence of indigenous settlement. We reached the northerly terminating road (The Gardens) near sunset which is the right time to be there although there was a bite to the wind.

We got chatting to a guy with a vintage Chev truck built on a Holden chassis with a V8 engine. He was on his way to a hot rod rally at Ulverstone near Devonport. The things people spend money on, eh!

Next day we set off on a hilly winding road to Scottsdale, stopping along the way at the Pyengana Cheese factory (recommended) where we had freshly made scones with home-made butter and cream. We bought our rellies some cheese to go with their Huon pine cheese board.

From there we drove on to one of Tasmania’s famous short walks – St Columba Falls. It is a short, east walk apart from a bit of downhill to the lookout. Because Tassie’s been in a drought the tallest falls in the State were not roaring like they usually do. but spectacular none the less.

The 15 minute walk goes through myrtle and sassafras groves with an under story of ferns, moss and fungi. Later on the drive we stopped at Weldsborough to check out an ancient myrtle grove with the ubiquitous understory of moss, fungi and ferns, Very dark and prehistoric.

impressions-of-tasmania-two — Old growth forest in north-east Tasmania

Not everything in Tasmania looks like that. Earlier in the day I tried (and failed) to take a ‘Tasmanian Mullet’ photo – where the lower slopes of a steep hill had been clear felled for pasture, leaving forest remnants clinging to the top, like a monk’s tonsure.

The hilly drive to Scottsdale, east of Launceston, goes through the town of Derby which has become famous among mountain bike enthusiasts. There are several bike shops there which hire bikes and take riders in tour buses to the many organised trails through the hills.

We stayed at a free camp in Scottsdale, Northeast Park, which is named after George Northeast who first established a community pool and reserve there in the 1930s. The project was taken up again in the 1980s by the local Lions group who did a lot of work establishing picnic facilities and tracks for walkers and cyclists.

On our way to Devonport we stopped in at Sheffield, known as the town of murals, to catch up with friends. Saturday morning we queued to board the Spirit of Tasmania for a day voyage. The thoughtful people at Devonport provide a toilet for people sitting in their cars waiting to board. Four stars! And five stars to Bass Strait which turned on one of its swell-less days for a smooth voyage. We arrived in Melbourne at 8.30pm and then navigated our way through the suburbs to a caravan park in Coburg. (Ed: night driving on a Melbourne freeway not recommended when towing a van). t was the weekend of the Grand Prix so the van park was full and it took a while to sort out where we were supposed to park. But by 9.30 were set up – exhausted and ready for bed.

The journey home was Melbourne to Albury, then to Cowra which has a Japanese prisoner of war cemetery and a Japanese garden. On to Dunedoo where we ran into friends who were on their way to the National Folk Festival. Somewhere along the road I got a call from well-known folk singer Bob Fagan to say that my song, ‘When Whitlam took his turn at the wheel’, was this year’s recipient of the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice award. It was presented at the National Folk Festival’s closing concert (in my absence). My songwriter friend Ross Clark who accepted the award on my behalf, has since been sending me photos of the award (like a garden gnome) posed in various locations as he travelled back to Brisbane.

I’ll leave you with this image, from Cowra Showgrounds, with a flotilla of road rigs (ours on the left) lined up ready for a 5am getaway. These are just a few of the 800,000 registered recreational vehicles on Australian roads. As the ABC reported this week, those on the road include families seeking lifestyle changes and ditching the school system after lengthy pandemic lockdowns and restrictions. Many are on the road permanently, both for reasons of lifestyle and necessity (more on that next week).

So that’s our land and sea return journey to Tasmania, some 6,500 kilometres in 30 days. Now you know why we needed to shout ourselves a night at Armidale’s Moore Park Inn and dinner at Archie’s restaurant on the last night. Hang the expense.
(all photos by Bob & Laurel Wilson)

PS: Last Saturday I got a call from an 03 number. I ignored it, as you do, but the number left a voice mail. It was a friendly young woman from TT-Line Company, better known as the Spirit of Tasmania. Had I lost anything on my recent holiday, Sally asked? ‘Ah, yeh, I still haven’t found my teblet’, I said, realising that when I’m anxious I revert to Kiwi. After a few key questions (make, size, colour), Sally asked for my pass code. It must be a different one to the one I use at home because it wouldn’t open. Not to be thwarted, Sally asked me if I had another email address (I do). I deduced she’d spotted my Gmail address when she tried to turn it on. I’m expecting it back any day now.

Confessions of a Tree Hugger

tree-hugger-confessions — Tall timbers at Heritage Landing, Gordon River, Tasmania.

Our whistle-stop tour of Tasmania (18 days) reminded me much of my teenage years in New Zealand as a fledgling Tree Hugger. Tasmania itself reminds Kiwis of the home country, with its hilly roads, sparse population and evidence of man’s attempts to harness the wilderness. Tassie’s north-west coast in particular looks like the rugged beech forests of the South Island’s west coast.

(Photo: tall timbers at Heritage Point on the Gordon River.)

There are other reminders; the valleys cleared for cattle and sheep farming and small crops, and roads lined with poplars (a species introduced as a wind break), just starting to put on their golden autumn coats.

After just a week in the World Heritage Listed north-west national park, I could see why people keep coming back to the Apple Isle (to see and feel the magic things they missed the first and even second time).

It could all so easily have been lost to industry and development.

The informative day tour on the Gordon River from Strahan reminds us of the 1970s conservation battle to save the Franklin and Gordon Rivers from a proposed dam and hydro scheme. It is extraordinary to contemplate today the mind-set of those who opposed conservationists’ efforts to block the dam and hydro complex. It was not until Bob Hawke’s newly elected government took the Tasmanian Government to the High Court that the dam was stopped.

The Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area is one of the largest conservation areas in Australia, covering 15,800 square kilometres – about 25% of Tasmania. The cherished north-west attracts serious hikers, bushwalkers, bird watchers, botanists and nature lovers from all over the world. Serious walkers make the 80 kms trek from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair, which takes six or seven days. Hikers carry everything they need on their backs, stopping at national park huts along the way. Recently (2020) a marathon event was started, with runners completing the trail (which is considerably up hill and down dale), in eight hours or so.

Having walked the six kilometre undulating track around Dove Lake, reading about the ‘run’ reinforced my personal goal to cap bush walks at 6kms (up and down) or 10 kms flat. You have to know your limits.

You might think that Tasmanian conservationists, having managed to save a quarter of the island from mining, logging and development, could rest easy. Not for a minute. There has been ongoing activism and opposition to logging and mining in the Tarkine (Takanya) for a decade or more.

The Tarkine in the north-west corner of Tasmania is the largest temperate rainforest in the southern hemisphere. Veteran conservationist Bob Brown is leading the latest challenge to the Tarkine, home to ancient native forest and threatened wildlife species. Brown’s latest campaign centres on a newly discovered valley which contains a grove of 2,000-year-old Huon pines. These particular trees are threatened by the activities of a mining company which has an exploration licence in the Wilson River catchment, where Brown and rafting companions discovered the Huon pines. As an article in National Geographic explains, this is a big deal because Huon pines are now rare in Tasmania after decades of logging by “piners”. Logging was banned in the 1970s, but you can never say never where mining companies are involved. Activists are trying to stop the mining company clearing trees (as part of its exploration licence).

There are a lot of minerals under the ground in Tasmania. The early miners came with pan and shovel for the gold but later the serious money came for iron ore, copper, zinc, lead and tin. There were always tin mines in Tasmania which went in and out of operation as the international price of tin rose or fell. Today tin has become a valuable commodity because of the advent of storage batteries for electric cars and solar farms.

Tasmanian activists are mounting a legal challenge against Venture Mining’s plan to mine iron ore in the Tarkine, Likewise, there is a protest against plans by a majority-owned Chinese mining company, MMG, to build a tailings dam in the Tarkine. Tailings dams are where mine operators store the liquid waste from mining operations. As you may have read over the years, there have been numerous occasions when tailings dams collapsed or started leaking toxic sludge into local rivers.

If you want an insight into the doggedness of the Tasmanian activist, check out Ben’s blog from the Tarkine front line. Ben and his friends are serious about their mission, willing and able to shackle themselves to trees and bulldozers to stop logging before it starts.

Since I started this week’s missive with the word Tree Hugger, I should explain that the word Tree Hugger is a disapproving term used to describe someone who is ‘too concerned about protecting trees, animals and other parts of the natural world from pollution and other threats’. (Britannica dictionary).

My Tree Hugger days started in the 1960s with a track-marking programme in Te Urewera National Park (New Zealand’s North Island). Volunteers helped rangers to cut paths for the growing numbers of tourists who wanted access to the North Island’s biggest stand of old native bush. It covers an area of 2,147 square kilometres and is a refuge for rare birds and native timbers like Kauri, Remu and Totora that once covered the entire country.

As an election looms, politicians of all persuasions should remember the times that governments fell, partly due to so-called Tree Hugger campaigns. The Franklin blockade and Bob Hawke’s promises to stop the dam helped him win government in 1983. Also remember Queensland Premier Wayne Goss’s defeat in 1996 was, in part, attributed to plans to build a highway through a koala habitat.

People who progress from nature lovers to conservationists to activists inevitably don’t notice the conflicts inherent in their actions. Just like developers who never give up on a development approval, no matter how much opposition there is, protesters can become just as bloody-minded.

There was a photo on social media a few years ago of hundreds of kayaks clogging up a harbour. The flotilla was protesting deep-sea petroleum extraction. Someone commented that it should dawn on the protestors that their kayaks were made from petroleum products.

I was dwelling on this sort of irony while pumping $116 worth of diesel into our SUV, one of Australia’s five million registered diesel cars. The other 15 million private vehicles in Australia are fuelled by unleaded petrol (the majority) with a small proportion powered by LPG or electricity. All, apart from electric vehicles, exacerbate the planet’s serious climate change crisis through their emissions.

After a round-Australia tour in 2015 we worked out our carbon footprint and converted it to a sum of money which we donated to a Landcare group. The idea is that the $300 or so be used to re-plant trees and replenish the carbon sink. It’s a noble gesture but probably futile on the scale of land clearing still going on in all states and territories including Tasmania (which has only 11% of its rainforest left). As we always say (when shaking our heads at the latest flood-plain housing development) – “Who the hell approved that?”

She Who is Also a Tree Hugger says it’s a battle between people who give a shit about the environment and people who don’t. She expanded on this to describe that many of the people who don’t subscribe to environmental principles are fundamentalist Christians whose view is that they were put here to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion over the earth.

Amen, sister.

Antarctica or Bust.

antarctica-penguins-icebergs — Antarctica photos contributed by JH

For most people who like to travel, Antarctica is probably not on the list of places they aspire to visit. I say that because, although visitor numbers to the frozen continent have risen 50% in recent years, the numbers are tiny on the mass tourism scale.

People with some curiosity about the seventh continent can satisfy it by reading books or viewing any of these recommended documentaries.

Armchair travel obviously did not do it for the 73, 991 people who took a tour to Antarctica in the summer of 2019-2020.

For many people, following in the footprints of Scott and Shackleton is more than a bucket list item. For them, touring the South, snapping multiple photos of penguins and albatross or kayaking in the path of mighty icebergs, is a lifetime ambition.

A family member, John, realised a long-held ambition in 2017 when visiting Antarctica with his wife and daughter. On the 21-day cruise, the ship re-traced the voyage of Ernest Shackleton. In 1914, the explorer crossed from South Shetland Island to South Georgia. He and a five-man crew then set off on foot, the first crossing of the island. The latter day tour included stopping at Shackleton’s grave and toasting him with Irish whiskey. Some comments from their tour:

“Each day we’d go ashore in the morning and view seal and penguin colonies.

“We also visited an old whaling station where they carried out whaling on an industrial scale.

“After South Georgia we sailed to the Ross Sea, but we didn’t get very far because of large icebergs. We were constantly changing course to avoid them.”

Icebergs ahoy

Antarctica does not belong to any one nation, so no visa is required to visit. However your country of residence must be a signatory to the Antarctica Treaty. It’s a long way to travel, expensive, and there is no direct route.

Most tourists do it with a combination of air and cruise or cargo ship travel. One common route is Brisbane-Sydney-Ushuaia (a southern Argentinian resort town and port), then by ship to Antarctica. As an alternative to the return journey, adventurers may travel from the Ross Sea to Invercargill/Bluff in New Zealand then fly to their home base from there.

The travel advisory for Antarctica is currently at level two (exercise increased caution). Just how many people travel to the continent between November 2021 and March 2022 depends on the status of the pandemic.

US citizens (who comprise 34% of visitors), will need to prove they are Covid-free before re-entering the US. This may or may not be a deterrent.

Antarctica expeditions are probably out for Australians this year, given a ban on leaving the country for other than compelling reasons. Likewise, Argentina has a travel ban in place, which makes it difficult for many tours that use the South American country as a launching pad.

A writer friend, Dale Lorna Jacobsen (left), first travelled to Antarctica in 2013. She was one of 25,284 visitors who set foot on land that summer. On her return she wrote a book, Why Antarctica: a Ross Sea Odyssey, which chronicles the fulfilment of a childhood dream.

“When I told my friends I was finally going to Antarctica, the most common question was: ‘Why Antarctica?’. I didn’t bother replying. You either ‘get’ Antarctica, or you don’t. If you do, there is no need to ask. If you don’t, words could not explain why.

I have been fascinated by the 7^th continent since, at the age of eight, I discovered the existence of a place filled with mountains, ice, snow and wild weather; all the things I love.

My first expedition was in 2013, and incorporated a 32-day semi-circumference from the Peninsula to the Ross Sea. A dream come true for an Antarcticophile, getting to step into the historic huts of Shackleton and Scott; walking for hours in the Taylor Dry Valley. I knew one trip would never be enough. I returned in 2016 on an action-packed 12 days, camping in a bivvy bag on the ice; snow-shoeing; kayaking. Then in 2017 I repeated the 32-day semi-circumference.

I am chuffed to say that the ANARE (Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions) Club commissioned me to write the memoir of Centenarian, John Russell OAM, who still loves telling tales of how he and nine other Aussies were first ashore to set up Mawson Base in 1954.”

Dale produced a companion book of photographs to her first book. I bought mine as an E-book, files tucked away inside the USB body of a cute rubber penguin!

You have to assume there will always be ‘Antarticophiles’ like Dale and John, passionate about visiting and even re-visiting the South. It will be interesting to see what authorities do when visitor numbers inevitably creep towards 100,000.

The Antarctic Southern Oceans Coalition (ASOC) says the number of visitors has been doubling every couple of years, along with the establishment of “mass tourism destinations”.

The US leads the pack in terms of visitor numbers (18,942), followed by China 8,149 and Australia 5,077 (2018-2019).

Paul Ward’s website CoolAntarctica is a trove of information about the frozen continent. We sourced some of the visitor information from this site. Ward notes the ban after 2008-2009 on cruise ships carrying 500 passengers or more. Large cruise ships were spending two or three days in Antarctic waters, often as part of a broader cruise, but not landing.

“These large ships were a great concern as an incident involving an oil or fuel spill from them would have been very significant,” Ward writes.

“Any kind of rescue or evacuation would also have been very difficult, owing to the large numbers of people on board”.

The global pandemic was just emerging as the 2019-2020 tourism season came to an end. The next cruise season, still seven months away, is likely to attract even more visitors to the South, Covid-19 restrictions not withstanding.

The International Association of Antarctica Tour Operators (IAATO) plays a pivotal role in ensuring its members adhere to environmental and safety protocols. Formed in 1991, it requires all members to abide by the Antarctic Treaty. Cruise ships co-ordinate with each other to ensure than no more than 100 people are onshore at a landing site at the same time.

Despite these precautions, there are signs the continent may be at risk of being over-loved. Scientific studies have identified human interaction as one possible cause of sickness in Emperor penguins.

The Science Magazine published an article in 2018 based on research by a team of scientists from Spain. They discovered the effect of reverse zoonosis on bird and animal populations. Reverse zoonosis is the term used to describe humans passing pathogens on to animals.

The study found human-linked pathogens in bird poop, revealing for the first time, that even animals on this isolated, ice-bound landmass can pick up a bug from tourists or visiting scientists.

“This newly identified infection route could have devastating consequences for Antarctic bird colonies, including population collapse and even extinction.”

Regardless, if Antarctica is on your bucket list, a visit in the summer of 2021/22 will depend on how relaxed your country is about letting you leave. Still, we can all dream.

Further reading:

Strolling Through an Historical Village

A sure sign of advancing years is just how quickly you can identify household objects when visiting a local historical village. In my case, this is particularly so when an historic house has preserved its original laundry – twin concrete tubs, a mangle, a copper, a metal baby’s bath hung on a nail and a flat iron (designed to be heated up on a wood stove). Not to mention wire washing lines, strung between the outhouse and a sturdy tree, held in place by heavy timber clothes props.

We have a passion for visiting historical villages and museums, especially in the outback. I mean the ones in small communities, primarily run by volunteers. Not that there’s anything wrong with The Stockman’s Hall of Fame, Sovereign Hill (the gold rush town at Ballarat), or what used to be Old Sydney Town, But they are more theme parks than keepsakes of communities past.

Today’s photo, which I’ve shared on Facebook before, is my Dad, re-creating his days as an apprentice baker in Scotland. He is seen here in the replica bakery at Miles Historical Village in western Queensland, circa 1984.

The Miles museum, celebrating 50 years in 2021, is an outdoor historical village consisting of a 1900s streetscape, with 36 buildings. They include a bakery, a post office, chemist and general store. The re-launched Artesian Basin Centre houses information on artesian water, Aboriginal history, and land care. There’s a War Museum with displays from all World Wars. The historical village is operated by the Miles Historical Society. Its collections comprise memorabilia donated by families in the district. While the museum was closed for 56 days during the worst of Covid-19, plans are afoot to celebrate its 50^th birthday as part of the Miles Back to the Bush festival in September.

Wherever you journey around Australia, you will find (mainly European) regional history, preserved in historical villages, museums and outdoor displays. An example of the latter is the Machinery and Heritage display at Ilfracombe, between Barcaldine and Longreach. If you have an interest in old farm machinery and the like, it can take an hour or two to stroll along the highway stretch. If it’s a hot day, you can repair to the Wellshot Hotel afterwards for a chilled libation.

There are also few buildings along “Machinery Mile” which house items of local history that would not last in the outdoors.

Further west, in Winton, a visit to the rebuilt Matilda Centre includes admission to the original history museum, which includes a well-preserved settler’s cottage. Like most such houses, where rooms have been set up as they were in the 19^th century, wire grilles keep us from really appreciating the atmosphere. They do safeguard the memorabilia, however.

On the other side of town, Winton has its Diamantina Truck and Machinery Heritage Centre, most of it under roof. We visited on a rare rainy day, so it was a good reprieve from the windy conditions.

This museum costs just $5 to enter. We’re told that most of the prime movers, trucks, fire engines and tractors kept under roof are in going order. All they need (perhaps in 2021), is a street parade, a regional show, a rodeo or camp-draft to show themselves to the public.

Included in the display is a 1976 London cab. Museum secretary Robyn Stevens told me it was acquired and imported by a local donor who has loaned it to the museum. As befits such a rare vehicle, some 20,000kms from its original home, it is kept in an air-conditioned room.

Likewise another prized item – a fully restored, 1910 Talbot fruit and vegetable delivery truck, on loan from the Cassimatis family of Muttaburra. While browsing, I found a Bedford cattle truck made the year I was born (and possibly in better condition!).

The Dawson Folk Museum in Theodore was also a good find, as it is tucked away behind the main street. The museum is housed in a former power station and has a large collection of photographs covering pioneer families, Aborigines, ex-servicemen from World Wars I and II, and modern photographs – all tracing Theodore’s development. Displays include the history of early station families, a pioneer kitchen and bedroom and farm machinery.

Curiously, we could not find one mention of the State’s only Labor Premier of that era, ‘Red Ted’ Theodore,after whom the town is named.

One of the more comprehensive historical villages can be found near the Calliope River park south of Gladstone. We camped beside the river and set off for a look, admittedly a bit late in the day. The volunteers who locked up at 5.30 said we were welcome to come back and finish the tour the next day, which we did.

The Calliope River Historical Village, originally a cattle property, is located on 1.12ha of riverside land.

The village comprises a large number of original buildings, all of which have been relocated over a 40-year period from within a 60km radius.

historical-villages — The Clyde Hotel, Calliope

Buildings include several large country homesteads, a pioneer cottage, the Clyde Hotel (with a current liquor licence), an old school house, a jail, a church (hired out for weddings,) and a woolshed full of machinery and memorabilia. There is also a vintage steam train and carriages to explore.

Secretary Mary Lou Wright told FOMM the land is owned by Council and leased to the Port Curtis Historical Society Inc.

The village holds monthly markets which were put on hold for much of 2020. Mary Lou said that now the markets had resumed, they have been well patronised and everyone had co-operated with the Covid 19 rules. The markets attract many stallholders and big crowds and the revenue is vital to the ongoing upkeep of the village.

A large building on-site is home to the Gladstone Model Rail Group, which maintains an elaborate model railway village. The model rail is operational and open to the public on market days. The group also meets on Tuesday nights for its weekly get-togethers.

If visiting community-run historical villages is something that interests you, open your wallets and purses wide. Admission fees are usually modest (Theodore’s museum was just $2), so make time for afternoon tea, buy a drink, an ice-cream or a postcard. Go for broke – make a donation.

Speaking of donations, I just sent a few dollars to Wikimedia, which is on its annual fund-raising quest. Some 98% of Wikipedia’s readers use this on-line resource without ever contributing to its upkeep. I often use Wikipedia as a source for general information, (e.g.) background on the Miles Historical Village and Museum. Some people help Wikipedia by updating and editing existing pages. Or you can just send them (they suggest $2.75), a modest donation. It’s worth thinking about.

More reading:

Native forests recover from bushfires

native-forests-bushfires — Blackdown Tableland National Park, September 2020

We were at least one kilometre into a bush walk at Blackdown Tableland National Park in central Queensland before realising it was recovering from a bushfire. Such is the extent of regrowth since September 2018, it is only when you see trees that have been completely hollowed out by fire that you become aware.

She Who Bush Walks pointed out what she called ‘epicormic growth’ which is what occurs when buds buried beneath the bark of a burned tree burst into life.

You might recall hearing about this particular fire, two years ago to the day, when eleven tourists became trapped at the park’s feature attraction, Rainbow Falls. A fire and rescue worker was winched down from a helicopter to take charge of the eight adults and three children and lead them to safety.

At the time, fire was also raging 300kms away in Carnarvon Gorge National Park, which from all reports has also bounced back from the ravages of fire.

When fire burns out a patch of bush, it is not the ecological disaster it may at first seem. Fire burns plant material above the ground surface, which clears the way for new growth once the ground has cooled and there is follow-up rain.

According to educational material prepared by the Tropical Savannas Cooperative Research Centre & Bushfire CRC, regrowth primarily comes from above-ground re-sprouting.

“ While many trees are killed by total defoliation following a fire, some can re-sprout from epicormic buds, which are buds positioned beneath the bark. Eucalyptus trees are known for their ability to vegetatively regenerate branches along their trunks from buds”.

“Below-ground roots and underground stems can also survive because soil is a good insulator. Plants survive fires by re-sprouting from basal stems, roots and horizontal rhizomes”.

We explored several tracks in the park although after about 8 kms we did not have the energy to climb down to the rockpools (and back up again), fed by Rainbow Falls. The latter is popular with central Queensland residents and holiday makers, who can either camp in the park or travel from campgrounds and accommodation at nearby Dingo or Bluff. (above, epicormic growth).

The park ecology has certainly thrived since recent rainfall. Wildflowers were proliferating along the trails and it was great to see vigorous new growth climbing up the sides of burned trees.

We encountered a group of Aboriginal families, descended from the original inhabitants, exploring the culture trail with a couple of Rangers. A bluff at Blackdown Tableland is the site of a sandstone overhang, under which rock stencils are preserved

The traditional owners, the Gunghalin people, manage the 47,950ha Blackdown Tableland in a co-operative venture with the Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service. As part of this agreement, 70ha has been set aside as a conservation site for cultural purposes.

We chatted to an older woman on the cultural trail who explained why she was going ‘Cooee’ every now and then: “I’m letting the ancestors know I’m here,” she said.

Despite the progressive nature of this management agreement, I could not help but feel a twinge of white settler guilt when reading the history of the park.

Blackdown Tableland National Park was settled as a grazing homestead and perpetual lease property in 1869. Settler William Yaldwin named the tableland after the family home, Blackdown House, in Sussex, England. In more recent times, Blackdown Tableland was gazetted as a State forest and timber extraction site because of its store of valuable hardwood timbers. QPWS says most of the pastoral artefacts are being allowed to decay naturally into the landscape. Wildfires have caused damage to the cattle yards and fences at Mimosa Creek campground.

This week’s FOMM coincides with the first anniversary of the catastrophic ‘Black Summer’ bushfire season across six States and Territories.

The 2019-2020 bushfire season began as early as August in some states and at its worst in February had burned out 17 million hectares.

The statistics are confronting, so I apologise in advance to those directly affected for bringing this up again.

Across six months fire caused:

33 deaths (including nine firefighters);
the loss of 3,094 homes;
5,000 people to become homeless;
the loss of one billion native mammals, birds and reptiles;
More than 85% of the World Heritage Listed Blue Mountains reserve in NSW to be affected;
Fire damage in 153 parks and reserves, 55 of them suffering comprehensive damage;

The Bureau of Meteorology concluded that the fires were the largest by geographic area in modern times. About half of the fires were started by lighting strikes. The rest were said to be of ‘human origin’, the majority accidentally started.

In late September 2019, we left our home of 17 years in the Sunshine Coast hinterland for a new adventure on the Southern Downs. Our temporary home was a 1950s farm cottage at Yangan, 18 kms from Warwick, while waiting for settlement on the house we were buying in town.

Because of serial fires burning in the high country around Cunningham’s Gap and the surrounding areas, the whole valley was often blanketed in dense bushfire smoke. At night you could see the flames licking the tops of the hills. As the weather warmed through October and November we often had to keep the house closed up. Some days the smoke was so bad we could not go outdoors. The towns of Warwick and Stanthorpe were also affected by smoke.

The reprieve came in January with a solid day of rain, followed by heavier falls that topped up our new rainwater tank and partially replenished the town dams. We’re still on water restrictions though, despite a cumulative total of about 450mm for calender 2020.

A year on, after the public in general donated more than $500 million, many people left homeless by the Black Summer bushfires are still living in caravans and tents or sharing homes with friends and relatives.

Despite some decent winter rain, many parts of Australia are still in drought, with dozens of towns on water restrictions. Television news footage of wildfires in California’s Napa Valley this week will be provoking anxiety among survivors of last year’s bushfires.

The Bureau of Meteorology, meanwhile, is confidently forecasting La Nina weather conditions in 2020-2021, which means rain and more rain and an early wet season for the tropical north.

People in the bush, where droughts and bushfires are part of everyday life, tend to be stoic. But on our western journey, it became evident that 2020 has left its mark. COVID-19 restrictions have robbed the outback of its annual influx of tourists and much-needed revenue.

Let’s hope that workers, small businesses, farmers and bushfire victims in rural Australia are not forgotten in next week’s Federal Budget.

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Cigarette Butts Still Polluting Our Highways

cigarette-butts-highways — Emu and family, on patrol but not picking up cigarette butts! Photo by Laurel Wilson

While resting in our caravan at Winton on a sultry outback day, the stench of tobacco smoke came wafting through the open window.

Going outside to investigate, I found neighbours on either side, sitting outside their vans, puffing away.

I have found, over long periods suffering from respiratory problems, that I am incredibly allergic to cigarette smoke. For years now when anyone rummages in their bag and asks do I mind, I say, yes, I do mind. Outside would be great.

It’s our one inviolate house rule, so much so an old mate in Toowoomba still recalls the night (in the dead of winter) where he was told to go outside to smoke at one of our parties. The hard-arse attitude led to a ditty called ‘If you smoke in my kitchen I’ll fart in our bedroom.’ Not high art, but the kids loved it.

I had intended this week to write about Australian road travellers and our less than perfect track record at cleaning up after ourselves.

Somewhere outside Longreach there is a roadside rest stop, very tidy and well serviced, except for items of trash left on the ground. There were seven wheelie bins there and two small bins in the toilets. So why did I pick up two stubbies and an empty packet of Berocca (a vitamin C supplement) within a metre of the bins?

It might not sound like much, but do the sums; 365 days a year and soon this pristine rest stop will look like the ones where no bins are provided. You’ve probably stopped at one of those, to change drivers or have a quick pee against a tree. These rest stops are usually littered with empty bottles, cans, milk cartons, streamers of toilet paper and, scattered like mucky confetti, hundreds of cigarette butts.

According to Clean up Australia, we discard 7 billion cigarette butts a year. It is the number one litter problem in Australia. The seriousness of the problem becomes obvious when you learn that a third of smokers dispose of their butts outdoors.

The only way to rid rest areas, parks, beaches and other public places of discarded butts is to fastidiously pick them up. Volunteers form ‘emu patrols’ to pick up cigarette butts by hand (gloves and rubbish bags), and then dispose of them in the approved manner.

The term ‘Emu Patrol’ was invented by school teachers who encouraged children to tidy their playgrounds by advancing in a line, bending down and picking up trash. The actions mimic the emu’s feeding habits, frequently bending down to feed on leaves, grass, fruit, native plants and insects.

The upside is that over the last two decades, millions have given up smoking tobacco. The most recent data estimates that 14% of Australian adults smoke tobacco products. The figure is a good deal higher for the 15-18 cohort (54%), well known for lighting up behind the bike sheds.

The figure is also 14% in the US and 13% in New Zealand, where MP Winston Peters has announced a pre-election policy to reduce excise on tobacco products. That old-school tactic reminds me of Budget night in the 1960s which was only ever about two things – will beer and fags cost more?

If you look at statistics on tobacco smoking in 1980, the proportion of Australian adult smokers was 35% (men 46%, women 30%). Forty years on, the numbers have more than halved.

This gradual reduction can be linked to the connection made between smoking and cancer. A vigorous health campaign began which would, over the years, persuade more smokers to quit and hopefully result in their children being less likely to start.

In recent years, the odds have been stacked against tobacco producers, with high excise, restrictions on advertising and compulsory warnings on packaging. The game changer was when smoking was banned in workplaces, pubs, clubs and restaurants.

It’s all a long way from the end of WWII (1945) when 72% of Australian men (and 30% of women) smoked tobacco.

Many took up smoking while serving in the armed forces, which routinely gave troops a tobacco ration. Like many children of fathers who fought in WWII, we had to endure a post-war life of living in a smoky fug. People smoked anywhere and everywhere in that era; no-one gave a thought to passive smoking or health risks.

To my shame, I took up the habit in late teens until giving it away in my late 20s, due to persistent lung infections. Smoking is bad for the health of individuals, but carelessly disposing of butts puts everyone in harm’s way. We already know that cigarette butts are one of the four main causes of grass and bush fires. There are other issues with discarding cigarette butts in the great outdoors.

National Geographic covered this topic in great detail last year. Problem number one is that cigarette filters are made from cellulose acetate, a form of plastic. They can take up to 10 years to break down completely.

Clean Ocean Action executive director Cindy Zipf told NG that cigarette butts are the number one target during beach clean ups. The real problem occurs when butts find their way into rivers and oceans. The tars and heavy metals in cigarette butts leach in to waterways and have a deleterious effects on marine life.

Australia’s problems seem minor, when National Geographic reports that 4.6 trillion cigarettes are smoked and discarded around the world every year.

As The Beatles once famously said in the lyrics of ‘I’m So Tired’ – “We curse Sir Water Raleigh, he was such a stupid git.”

Raleigh introduced tobacco to the UK in 1586. The use of tobacco, most often smoked in pipes, worked its way up to high society and royalty and so became the habit of the masses.

Contrast that with the relentless Quit campaigns of the last 30 years, which, according to the statistics, seem to have worked. And the litter problem is improving. The Keep Australia Beautiful National Litter Index (NLI) measures what litter occurs where and in what volume. In 2017/18, the NLI counted an overall litter reduction of 10.3 per cent fewer ‘items’ than in the same period in 2016/17. The most significant included a 16.8% reduction in take away food and beverage packaging, a 14% reduction in CDS beverage containers and a 6.4% reduction in cigarette litter.

It might not seem like much, but it shows a positive response to increasing attempts to educate smokers.

Some conscientious smokers I know carry a coke can or similar in the car and cram their butts into it (having left a small amount of liquid at the bottom to extinguish the embers). It’s a crude plan but better than other methods, such as grinding the butt into the soil and worse yet, tossing the still-smouldering butt out of the car window, where it could start a conflagration.

Tom Novotny, an epidemiologist at San Diego University, one of the first to start researching the effects of tobacco waste on the environment, is pessimistic:

“It’s the last remaining acceptable form of littering,” Novotny told National Geographic writer, Tik Root.

“People are more likely to pick up their dog poop than cigarette butts.”

FOMM back pages:

Gorgeous gorges revisited

isla-gorgeous-gorge — Isla Gorge photo BW).

This week I promised you one from the archives. The topic of gorges nicely coincides with a visit to Isla Gorge, located in sandstone country between Taroom and Theodore. More about that next week, when we have reliable WiFi.

July 13, 2018: Although I clearly remember rubbishing the concept of a “bucket list”, it appears we may have had one all along, namely a list of famous Australian gorges.

This week’s visit to much-lauded Cobbold Gorge, south-east of Georgetown in Savannah country, turns out to be the 10^th gorge we have visited from a debatable list of 14 “must-do” destinations. Despite its remoteness, privately-owned Cobbold Gorge attracted 11,500 visitors last year and judging by our two days staying in the bush caravan park, they’re on track for another good year.

Most Australian gorges of any merit are enshrined within national parks, with Cobbold Gorge the exception, through an agreement with the Queensland Government where a tourism venture is allowed to exist within a pastoral lease. The Terry family own the 330,000ha Robin Hood station, with 4,720ha set aside as a nature reserve. The family run 4,000 head of Brahman cattle on the property, which they have owned since 1964. They are the second European owners, after the Clark family who owned it since 1900 and the Ewamian, the traditional owners.

Robin Hood station, even today, is accessible only by a partially sealed road from Georgetown to Forsayth and then 41 kms of dirt road. The land in this region is cut off in the wet season (December to March). It’s not difficult to imagine the hard life out here before electricity, before a proper road was formed from an existing bullock track.

Like most gorges, Cobbold was formed millions of years by water scouring out a channel through a basalt cap then down into the sandstone and gravel escarpment. This is a narrow gorge, 2m wide in some places, which gives rise to the theory that it is relatively young.

Last week, we spent a couple of days at Porcupine Gorge, a National Park between Hughenden and The Lynd. Porcupine Gorge is sometimes referred to as Australia’s ‘mini Grand Canyon’ as its canyon walls are wide apart, eroded over millions of years by Porcupine Creek, a tributary of the Flinders River. We took the walk down into the gorge, a mere 1.2 kilometres, except for the 1,800-step uphill return walk. It cost about $25 to stay here two nights – stunning location but a bit short on facilities (hybrid dunnies). You have to come prepared, carrying your own water, food and power source.

By contrast, Cobbold Gorge tours have to be booked and paid for ahead of time and there is no alternative to a guided tour. Now that I’ve seen the infrastructure the Terry family have built there and taken the tour, I have no argument at all with the $92 fee (and $41 a night for a powered site). The facilities (the village also has motel units) and amenities are first-class.

Most of the information here was gleaned from a bit of note-taking and chatting to the guide, Graham, after the tour. The owners invested a lot of money to set up this eco-tour without any security of tenure. It was only recently that the Queensland government came to an agreement that the family would be compensated if at some future point the gorge becomes a National Park. As it stands, the nature reserve, a tract of old growth bush, can also be used for grazing and water can be taken from the Robinson River. No felling is allowed though, so the bush is allowed to regenerate.

We put this landmark on our list when last in the Savannah country circa 2007. We’d bumped into old newspaper contacts at Undara Lava Tubes. They told us they’d just come from Cobbold Gorge and said it was a special place and a must-do experience. It seems this natural gorge became a tourist attraction largely by word of mouth. The first white people to see the gorge were the Terry family’s teenage children who apparently drove a truck far enough in to carry a dinghy to the gorge and go exploring. It wasn’t long before friends and family started asking if they could visit and that led to the establishment of the tourism enterprise in 1994 (200 people visited in the first year).

The tour involves a short journey by four wheel drive bus, a walk up the sandstone escarpment to see the gorge from above then a ride on a flat bottomed boat (powered by whisper-quiet electric motor).

The walls rise up to 30m and at times the gorge is so narrow you can almost touch both sides. Spiders sit patiently waiting by their intricately spun webs. There’s a Jurassic vibe about this gorge, silent and still except for a freshwater crocodile which retreated beneath a rock ledge as we approached.

Last year, Etheridge Shire Council proposed making an application to have 49,000ha of the shire listed by UNESCO as a Geopark. The ABC reported that local graziers were worried what impact this could have on pastoral activities. The proposal caused deep divisions in the shire, but the plan was not progressed.

One could see why Etheridge Shire would want the region to become ever-more attractive to international eco-tourists. The famous Undara Lava Tubes are also within Etheridge Shire, which encompasses an area two-thirds the size of Tasmania. For all its size, the shire has only 1,500 ratepayers and has to rely on grants from State and Federal governments.

Our previous visits to well-known gorges like Carnarvon (Qld), Nitmiluk (Katherine Gorge, NT), Wattarka (Kings Canyon, NT) and Karajini and Widjana (both in WA), have mostly involved independent exploration. Hiking in outback gorge country is not without its risks. You can get lost, run out of water, have a fall or be bitten by a venomous snake.

No wonder Cobbold Gorge asks hikers to sign in and out when exploring the bush tracks. They also have a ‘no-selfie’ rule when standing atop the escarpment! It makes you think how the early explorers got by on horseback carrying water in canvas dilly bags, living off damper and bully beef, perpetually in a quest for the next waterhole.

I expect this won’t be the last gorge we visit on our six-week adventure. There’s Barron and Mossman further north and Cania Gorge on the way back home.

When you visit one of Australia’s remote National Parks, with or without gorges, it is hard not to soak up the timeless influence of the First Nations people. Cobbold Gorge was named after the famous Australian pastoralist Francis Cobbold. The Ewamian tribe were the original inhabitants of this land and there is a section on the gorge tour where guides tell visitors the Ewamian have asked them not to interpret the site or allow people to enter and take photographs.

A few months back, Aboriginal journalist Jack Latimore wrote an opinion piece in the Guardian Weekly, noting that two mountains in central Queensland were to revert to their Aboriginal names.

Jack thinks all Australian landmarks and monuments should revert to their first nation names, but he doesn’t stop there. Boring names like Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Adelaide (all named after British Lords and Sirs), should also be given their native monikers. How about Mianjin instead of Brisbane?

Water theft a sign of crumbling civilisation

water-theft-drought — Image: Storm King resident Penny Davies indicates the ‘normal’ dam water level. Contributed/

As communities across drought-paralysed Australia patiently wait for rain, reports of water theft, ranging from relatively trivial incidents to a 25,000-litre heist, are troubling. Can we be far from outright anarchy when dishonest (and sometimes honest but desperate), people help themselves to other people’s water?

There are precedents for this – just think back to Cape Town‘s ‘Day Zero’ crisis in 2018 when a city of 3.74 million was set to run out of reticulated water. The rich white South Africans relaxed behind their high fences and simply bought in more water as and when needed.

Meanwhile, the poor black (and white) people were forced to queue at a public standpipe for their daily rations. While Cape Town’s immediate crisis is past, water is still a scarce and expensive commodity. There have been reports of water theft from there too – allegedly by residents fiddling their water meters to give false readings.

The Cape Argus News reported that the percentage of water lost or not billed for was at 34.27%, above the normal 20% band.

Last year the City of Cape Town warned of water shortages and introduced incremental water levels to discourage high usage. Punitive tariffs for high water users (more than 35,000 litres a month), costs R768.64, or $77 per 1000 litres.

That does seem steep when compared to Australian cities that charge $3.12 (Brisbane) $2.11 (Sydney), and $3.35 (Melbourne) per kilolitre (1000 litres). Some cities quote a range of prices – Perth ($1.82 – $4.85), Canberra ($2.46- $4.94) and Adelaide ($2.39 – $3.69). As you’d expect, water-rich Tasmania is the cheapest (Hobart $1.06, with Darwin not much dearer at $1.96.

So yes, we can see how an excess water tariff charge of $77 per kilolitre would galvanise people into trying to find a way around the system.

In Australia, water theft is more brazen; the rogues just back a water tanker up to an absent neighbour’s dam, stick a hose in and turn on a pump. A year ago, Southern Downs Regional Council authorities acted to secure water standpipes after neighbours reported numerous trucks illegally filling up at Connolly Dam. In December this year, police were called to investigate the theft of 25,000 litres of water from a Council depot in Murwillumbah (northern NSW). The thieves did just that – backed up a tanker, filled it up and drove away. This was at a time of bushfires (the Rural Fire Service said the stolen water was equivalent to six or seven fire tankers). Not only that, Murwillumbah, like other rural regions in NSW, was under severe water restrictions at the time. In this context, water thieves are no better than the two people who looted an abandoned electrical goods store in Bateman’s Bay. Leon Elton and Kylie Pobjie were arrested, charged and denied bail. It was alleged the pair traded the stolen electrical consumer goods for drugs.

Belt fruit growing town of Stanthorpe, which officially ran out of water last week. The town has just one water supply – Storm King Dam. Water is now being carted from Warwick, which is itself in danger of running out of town water by Christmas 2020. The State government has commissioned a $1 million feasibility study to extend the SEQ water pipeline grid from Toowoomba to Warwick. But what if it does not rain between now and the 18 months it could take for this to happen?

Other towns in Queensland (Miriam Vale near Gladstone comes to mind), have faced similar issues, although Queensland is often rescued by the northern wet season. It is not uncommon for drenching rain in southern parts of the state to follow a cyclone in the tropical north. Even then, Tablelands residents tell us the wet is late (again).

Drought-ravaged New South Wales is another matter, with the State government last year canvassing plans to evacuate up to 90 towns that are in danger of running out of water.

They include sizeable cities (Bathurst, Dubbo, Tamworth), and smaller towns like Orange, Armidale and Tenterfield.

In our new home town of Warwick, the Southern Downs Community Relief Group is hosting a weekly free water pick up from the Warwick Showgrounds The water is donated, rationed and available only to those who live in outlying towns which do not have reticulated water. Similar charitable groups are also operating on the Granite Belt.

Tambourine Mountain in the Gold Coast hinterland has no reticulated water service, forcing residents whose tanks have run dry to buy in delivered water,

A Mount Tambourine acreage dweller told FOMM the waiting time for truck-delivered water has blown out to eight weeks, because there are only two aquifer suppliers.

“It is a controversial issue on the mountain that a couple of other landowners are contracted to supply big commercial bottled water/soft drink companies. This means that thousands of litres are being trucked away from those aquifers every day, not available for local supply.

“Some residents have their own bores to supplement their needs but the water is of varying quality because those bores usually do not go as deep as those of the commercial suppliers.”

The Beverage Council of Australia, the peak body which usually responds to such reports, received some sort of vindication in December.

Its water division, the Australasian Bottled Water Institute [ABWI) welcomed the final report on the impacts of the industry on groundwater in the Northern Rivers by the NSW Chief Scientist & Engineer.

“After a thorough and independent review into the bottled water industry in the Northern Rivers, the NSW Chief Scientist and Engineer found that less than one per cent of groundwater in the Tweed is extracted for water bottling purposes,’’ Chief Executive Officer Australian Beverages Council Geoff Parker said.

The bottled water industry, which now generates over $700 million annually, has expanded in the past five years due to what Mr Parker says is “consumers’ preference for convenience, taste and rising health consciousness.”

A Queensland Urban Utilities survey found 35% of people preferred bottled water over tap water, while 29% thought it was better for them than tap water. But blind testing in South Australia revealed many people cannot tell the difference without packaging.

A report by consumer advocate Choice quoted Stuart Khan, an Associate Professor at the University of New South Wales and an expert in drinking water quality.

“Australia is a world leader in the way we manage drinking water quality and we have some of the best tap water in the world,” Khan says. “Tap water and bottled water are regulated differently in Australia, so they don’t need to meet the same standards. Tap water needs to meet more stringent quality criteria and actually gets monitored more carefully than bottled water.”

Even so, no disrespect to the local Council’s efforts to keep supplying potable water, but I’m not used to the treated water here. Occasionally I’m one of those who buys bottled water (on average Australians consume five litres per week).

But here’s the thing. At its cheapest in a retail grocery store, 10 litres of water costs about $4, or 40 cents per litre. That compares with about 0.2 cents a litre for reticulated town water (in Warwick). (It’s merely supply and demand economics, Grasshopper. Ed. BTW I can say what I like today, ‘cos it’s my birthday.)

Resolution: we all want to save the world

resolution-save-world — Image: Southern Downs Regional Council water-wise pamphlet

Blame it not on the Bossa Nova but on the ancient Babylonians, who, 4,000 years ago, invented the dubious practice of making New Year resolutions.

The Babylonians were the first to hold New Year celebrations, although held in March (when crops were sown).

The Babylonians pledged to pay their debts and return any borrowed objects (thinks: whoever borrowed Murakami’s ‘IQ84’ and Cohen’s ‘Beautiful Losers’, give them back!).

An article in <history.com> cites these rituals as the forerunner of our New Year resolutions.

“If the Babylonians kept to their word, their (pagan) gods would bestow favour on them for the coming year. If not, they would fall out of the good books -a place no one wanted to be.”

Off and on for at least 60 years I have been making promises to no-one in particular that I would turn over a new leaf (an idiom derived from the days when a page in a book was known as a leaf), thus, to start afresh on a blank page.

Adolescent resolutions included promising to keep my room tidy and stop acting on naughty thoughts (less I go blind).

As decades passed, these resolutions turned to more weighty matters: to drink less, give up smoking, spend more time with the kids – that sort of thing.

The stalwart English clergyman John Wesley took the Babylonian resolution to another level, inventing the Covenant Renewal Service, commonly held on New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Time has eroded the ritual’s religious overtones and these days making New Year resolutions is a secular activity that ranks alongside taking photos of your restaurant meal and posting it on Instagram.

If you have serious reasons for making an ethical promise to yourself to stop doing this or that or indeed to actively do something for the good of humanity, then go for it.

My three global resolutions for 2020, the first year of a new decade (although there are those who insist the first year of the new decade is 2021), are for the most part geared to survival (of the planet),

On Monday I was in the Warwick Council offices (handing in the paperwork for my seniors’ rates discount). There was a pamphlet on the desk explaining how to limit water use to 80 litres of water per day.

The limit was dropped from 100 litres per person a few weeks ago, given the parlous state of the region’s dams and lack of substantial rainfall.

Our existing 1,500 litre rainwater tank has but one ring left after (a) someone left the hose on or (b) someone sneaked in and stole it – an ever-increasing risk in this region. Next week we are having a 5,000 litre tank delivered. In so doing, we will have the entire cost of the tank deducted from our next rates bill. We have to pay for a handyman to build a base and also pay the plumber, but those are small prices to pay for water security. Mind you, it will take several decent falls of rain to make an impression on a combined 6,500 litre capacity.

Southern Downs Regional Council helpfully produced a pamphlet (above) which explains at a glance how you can get through 80 litres of water in a day.

The hard habit to break is flushing the toilet after every use (12 litres per flush). Most people in the region have a Mellow Yellow policy in place, which is what you think it is.

Living in an area which has seen no decent rainfall in two years quickly makes one mindful of how we routinely waste water. Now we aim to save and recycle every drop. Water left in a pot after steaming vegies, for example, once cooled is poured under a tree.

If you had wondered, yes, you could be fined for using more than your quota. The water meter reader will find you out. Not only will you get charged more pro rata for water use, if there is a leak in the system on your property, you are responsible for repairing (and paying) for it.

The second resolution is to ensure I generate as little waste as possible. As you’d know, moving house employs a lot of cardboard, paper, bubble wrap and rolls of packing tape which, at the other end, refuse to give up their grim hold.

Three trips to local transfer stations (dumps) later, I can see the urgency in re-thinking my attitude to household waste and packaging. When packing up, I picked up a few Styrofoam boxes (with lids) from the local supermarket. They made for sensible packing of fragile electronic components and the like.

But once you no longer have a use for Styrofoam or bubble wrap, what then? The local transfer station 15kms outside Warwick has a special container for polystyrene. As we found when getting lost looking for green waste, it also has a pit for asbestos and dead animals. (Ed: that’s what we call a non-sequitur)

We did donate a stack of flattened out storage boxes and a box full of plastic bubble wrap to a friend who is moving to our new town in January. A generous gesture, or did we just handball our waste problem to someone else?

Resolution number three is to reduce our personal carbon footprint – a hard thing to do when you live an hour’s drive from the nearest large city. When we were doing the green nomad thing driving around Australia, we worked out our carbon emissions and converted them into dollars. Then we donated an equivalent amount to a Landcare/tree planting organisation.

So while we are still driving a petrol-fuelled vehicle, we‘ll continue to do that. Once the height of summer has passed and hopefully some rain has fallen, we’ll plant as many trees and shrubs as this small suburban block can take. There’s a plan for a pergola on the western side, upon which we will grow grapes and other edible vines. This will hopefully mitigate our enslavement to the fossil-fuelled vehicle.

Of these three big resolutions for 2020, managing personal waste is the biggest challenge. We already started a compost bin. You can freeze and bury meat scraps, allowing decomposition and worms to work their natural miracles (Ed: if you have a dog, do not do this).

Avoiding packaging when you go shopping for groceries is harder. First thing: take your kete* with you. Fill it with unwashed fruit and vegetables straight from the bins. Check them out and put them back in the kete. Avoid prepacked fruit and vegetables, especially sealed packets of salad greens. Use paper bags if you have to, but be sure to compost them when they get wet and soggy.

On the outskirts of this town, young people are making a go of a small organic produce farm – hard to do in a drought. The ‘office’ is a small air conditioned shed with a couple of fridges, a bench with a set of scales and a pad on which to work out the total of your purchases. You then put the cash in an honesty box or arrange an EFTPOS transfer with the owner. It goes without saying you have to bring your own bag or box.

One can only hope that people do the right thing and that this brave little enterprise survives these arid times.

Happy New Year and please note, apart from the automatic distribution of this blog, I am having a break from social media through January. Thanks to those who subscribed to the cause.

*Kete is a woven flax basket traditionally used by the New Zealand Maori

When a church is not a church

Anglican-church-Yangan — Sold – St Peter’s Anglican Church in Yangan. Photo Bob Wilson

The motel manager in Cambridge, New Zealand, told me I could get something to eat ‘at the old church across the road’. It was 8pm on a cool November evening and I was tired and hungry after driving direct from Auckland airport.

The old church across the road was hosting a lively Monday night crowd, eating and drinking indoors and outdoors in a trendy bar and restaurant. A waitress, who knew a tired, hungry tourist when she saw one, seated me in the old church nave, which also contained a brewery, its cylinders and tanks reaching up into the vaulted roof space of what was once a place of worship.

Previously known locally as The Pink Church, the Cambridge property was tastefully renovated in 2016 by Hawkins Construction and transformed into the Good Union Bar and Good George Brewery. The $1.8 million project is just one example of how very old churches (this one was built in 1878), can be repurposed. The Cambridge church had also been a cafe and gift shop since being deconsecrated in 1981.

You’ll see a lot of that in this secular 21^st century; old wooden churches converted into residences, galleries, restaurants, bars, hotels, commercial offices, bookshops, libraries, carpet warehouses and bingo halls. Some have been taken over by religious groups and continue to be places of worship.

If you do a search of www.realestate.com in your part of Australia, you will probably find up to a dozen churches for sale. Most are offered when congregation numbers dwindle or merge with nearby parishes. There can be other reasons for disposing of church property; in Tasmanian the Anglican Church is set to sell 70 properties to fund redress for survivors of sexual abuse.

Former churches being offered for sale are usually deconsecrated, which is a Christian ritual to secularise the property. It may still contain physical relics of its holy past (pews, fonts, and pulpits but the spiritual link to its past is, in theory, dispelled.

Real estate agents are fond of using the term ‘blank canvas’ when describing an old church, which typically will have a vaulted timber roof, timber floors and stained-glass windows.

Most churches being sold are more than 100 years old. They will most likely be sold ‘as-is’, which is OK if you are paying between $60,000 and $160,000, which are typical prices for these original properties. There are exceptions. At the moment in Warwick, the Abbey of the Roses, a 14-bedroom, 19^th century sandstone mansion operated as a hotel/wedding venue, is on the market for offers over $2.2 million.

I had put this topic on hold until now, when it was re-activated by divine serendipity. I was walking down to the Yangan pub on Saturday, hoping to put a bet on the Caulfield Cup. The pub doesn’t have a TAB so as I told the barmaid, ‘you saved me from myself’. On the walk home I passed three people, one of whom turned back and said ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ A sound engineer/musician friend from Brisbane, he introduced me to his friends – who had just bought the old Anglican Church in Yangan’s main street.

St Peter’s Anglican Church occupies an elevated position in Yangan’s King Street, with views across town and out to the mountains.

The new owner told me his intention is to renovate for preservation and use it initially for commercial activities, with long-term view to residence.

In case you thought moving to the outback plains had limited my outlook, this is a world-wide trend.

As church attendances drop away, religious organisations look to consolidate their property portfolio by selling off that which is deemed ‘surplus to requirements’.

Marcos Martinez wrote a well-researched blog for Spanish multinational infrastructure giant Ferrovial. He explored what happens when, as he put it, ‘the infrastructure ceases to be related to the faith from which it emerged’.

He cited examples including a 13^th century gothic church in Maastricht, Holland. The building was abandoned and in an advanced state of deterioration before architects Merkx and Girod came up with a plan in 2006. They converted it into a bookshop, adding asymmetric catwalks. Visitors ascending the catwalks can enjoy the temple’s frescoes and architecture.

Churches have been converted to unusual uses: a circus school (Quebec), a skateboard arena (Asturias, SpaIn), a music venue (Leeds, UK) and a supercomputer (in a chapel on the Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Spain).

Martinez estimated that in England alone, there are 55,000 deconsecrated churches which have been converted to other uses. There’s no shortage of opportunity for commercial refurbishment, with some 200 churches abandoned in Denmark and 550 churches closed in Germany between 2005 and 2015.

Europe’s Martin’s Hotel Group set the bar impossibly high with its 2006 transformation of the 600-year-old Franciscan church and friary in Mechelen, Belgium.

Martin’s converted it into a four-star hotel. You can find a room in Martin’s Patershof Hotel from 129 euros a night, but if you want to lash out, the grand suite, positioned in the Gods, if you will, costs 449 euros.

Back here in Australia, the most common re-use of an old wooden church is to convert it into an open-plan residence. The church house became quite popular in the artistic communities of regional Australia. Songwriter Joe Dolce, who had a No 1 hit with Shaddap You Face, recently listed for sale the old Methodist church he and writer/artist Lin Van Hek acquired and enjoyed for the last 25 years at Natte Yallock, 200 kms from Melbourne. According to realestate.com, the property is under offer.

I suppose after all this you are wondering had we considered buying an old wooden church and converting it into a residence (and a venue for house concerts).

As we sometimes say, having owned four houses in the time we have spent together, everybody has one renovation in them. We learned that the hard way, restoring a 1930s colonial cottage in Annerley; it had bay windows, leadlight windows and domed ceilings. We discovered, after spending what seemed like three months without a kitchen, that preparing and painting horsehair plaster is a job for experts. We did the initial hard work – peeling off layers of wallpaper, lifting three layers of lino to reveal pages of the Brisbane Courier from 1930 relating Phar Lap’s Melbourne Cup win. I donated the pages to then Courier-Mail racing editor Bart Sinclair.

We wanted to polish the wooden floor in the kitchen but someone had replaced damaged boards with metal plate, so we laid cork tiles instead.

Meanwhile, the twin tubs under the house and a laundry bench doubled as a crude kitchen until the new kitchen was finished. We ripped up the carpets in the lounge and dining room and had the hardwood floors polished. Afterwards, we looked at the two main living rooms with the gorgeous domed ceilings, badly in need of restoration…and hired a painter.

Nostalgia aside, my ambition regarding old churches is now limited to a night at Martin’s Patershof Hotel, next time we’re in Europe. Not sure if I can justify $731 Australian dollars, but it’s free to dream, eh.