Tassie Part 3

Thurs 4th. Day 2 in Tas: Drove east not far to Trowunna Wildlife Park. This is a tassie devil specialist breeding park but also serves as a second chance for roadkill pouch young and broken-wing birds. They also had a couple of kookaburras with dislocated beaks. Apparently young kookaburras often screw up when trying to swoop on prey and scoop it up and they crash beak-first into the ground. Those who hit hard enough cannot feed properly. Kangaroos roamed and the thrity or so devils were divided up amonst enclosures all over the place. There were spotted quolls; a nocturnal house with (most charmingly) four sugar gliders; two wedge-tails rescued twenty years or more ago; other broken wing birds including a white gosshawk, some owls and parrots; and an echidna that we took forever to find because it had actually climbed the tree in the middle of its enclosure.

Eleven oclock was feeding time which started with two young wombat being brought out for a cuddle. The youngest was quite content to be cradled on his back like a baby. He had hiccups and this made him possible the cutest animal I have ever beheld first-hand. He looked like a happy fat buddha. The other was a bit shy and she tried to hide under armpits. In case you were wondering, wombats make great pets until they turn two when they get violent and independant and charge through walls and suchlike - ironically, this makes them perfect for rescued animals because they can be released much more confidently.
The devils were fed quartered pademelons (small wallabies) culled from neighbouring cattle farms. As with everywhere in Australia, opening up grassland has seen population explosions of grassland macropods. The farmers can cull, but I don't know the rules. The keepers don't use roadkill because they have no way of telling if a facial-tumour suffering devil has been at it already, thus pademelons are used for food for the uninfected. One of the enclosures had two males and six females - none of which we'd seen because they were all in burrows. Calling them out she coaxed one from the other side who loped up eagerly to the hind-quarter she was holding by the tail. This devil latched on and started growling. The keeper explained that this is what they do in the wild to call other devils to join in a tug-of-war because this is how they tear apart larger carcasses. Soon she was holding five devils all locked on and growling, and pawing at the meat and each other. The keeper showed a repectful wariness of these devils. The males are the ones with scars on thier hind-quarters because angry females who don't want to mate fight them off and bite them. Every so often one would be able to grab the lion's share and lope off growling usually pursued by one or two others.
Before this bunch she'd introduced us to a male who was a big softy who didn't mind being held and petted because he'd been rescue from the pouch at such a young age. He wandered around us sniffing our shoes much like a silent dog.

The drizzle we'd been walking around in had developed by the time we got to our next stop which was Alum Falls. These steeply folded limestone hills were cut by a river and the lookout provided a nice optical illusion wheer we both thought the river was flowing the other way until we worked out the seven sets of rapids weren't moving up the river. This place was a source of ochre.
On getting back in the car the Aunt proclaimed "Me pants are wet and me hair style's ruined!" She was loving it.

One of the focuses of this trip was to get fresh produce along the way, so we stopped by the roadside to hunter-and-gatherer some blackberries and look at flowers.
Did I mention how beautiful Tasmania is? No? Well, it's gorgeous. After Christmas I was burbling about how anyone who wanted to go to England to see rolling countryside should save money and just fly to Christchurch NZ and drive aorund the Canterbury Plain. Well, if you don't want to fly internationally then go to Tassie! The land is so fecund! Airfares being as cheap as they are, just go for an extended weekend even.

We stopped at Sheffield for lunch. The food was great at yet another awesome bakery. I had a pasty, a quiche and an eclair proclaiming that that would keep the Tasmania wolf from the door! Yeah. I don't know how I do it either. I mean, how can one *truly* explain talent? The town was pretty enough and had a whole bunch of murals on the buildings - if that's your thing. We bought cherries.
Out of town the eagle-eyes of the Aunt picked out the hand-written sign for fresh eggs in (I think) Forth.
'Probably they're cage eggs that they paint poo onto' suggested someone.

That night was in the caravan park of the seaside town of Ulverstone. Bass Strait was about thirty metres away. We inspected the surf and got our feet wet. Caroline went shopping to find fish for dinner. I took off afterwards to visit friends from my pub days who now lived in Burnie, leaving the Aunt to inspect the poo on the eggs.

Point form, Harry! Point form!

Tassie Part 2

Safely on Tasmanian soil I immediately started driving in random directions to find breakfast somewhere.
I went the wrong way. Port Sorrell, whilst pretty enough, was lacking in anything useful to us, so we broke out the map and went to Latrobe. We ate in a bakery and then walked the streets looking in the windows of the antique shops. We then headed south-east to Deloraine. Deloraine is a really nice town along the lines of the towns of the Southern Highlands of NSW but better. We picked up brochures about bushwalks and whatnot from the info place and did some long-range Uturning before arriving at Liffey Falls, about 25km south.
Liffey Falls as a World Heritage Area.
'Oh, we can't set it on fire' says the Aunt.
'That's a nice tree', he replied driving off the road.
Some idiot had commissioned a sculptor to 'interpret the wilderness' at the start of the trail that leads to the falls. Strangely, I don't need three large slabs of acid etched metal to show me the splendour of nature that surrounds said sculture completely. Nor should anyone. It was bizarre.
Liffey falls is pretty with lots of man-ferns, nothophagus and interesting geology exposed by the rushing water.
At the car park is a sign for a tap on the same post that the tap is on. Ingenious.
There is also a sign for "Big Tree". They didn't lie. It was a massive brown-top stringybark about forty metres tall and five metres in diametre.

Lunch was back in Deloraine. Excellent bakery-cum-cafe. I bought Ellen some jewellery in a hippy shop next door, and Caroline did auntlike things in other shops.
Deloraine is on the Meander River, thus the surrounding countryside is the Meander Valley. Unable to resist a joke at the expense of Tasmanian country -folk, yet still showing my education I told Caroline that the German for 'valley' is 'thal' thus, this would be the Meanderthal and the locals would be Meanderthals. I know. Hilarious. So on our winding trip to Mole Creek where we were spending the night a mere 24kms away I kept trying to find the village called Meander so I could pose as a Meanderthal myself at the sign.
Well, I didn't manage to find the village but we happily drove through picture-perfect rural scenery: dark green mountains in the background, fat stock in the fore, with dramatic clouds over all. One mountain was grey scree crowned with vegetation, looking like a bison losing its winter coat.

We emerged near Chudleigh and were blown away by the range of flavours at the Honey factory. Almost everything is available for tasting or testing: they have about 40 flavours of honey and the whole swag of honey, queen jelly and beeswax cosmetics and health products. I bought three distinct flavours: a blue gum (the state flower of Tassie), red gum and brown-top stringybark in memory of the Big Tree. All three have an individual and great taste. Given more money and a bigger boot I would have grabbed a whole heap more. Caroline was particularly taken with some skin cream.
We drove west a bit more to Mole Creek seeing more of the abundance of wildlife in the mammals of all different sizes squashed on the road. Evidently their populations are doing well to support so many suicides amongst their number. The lonely planet had mentioned this, but even then it was disturbing. It was easy to imagine a growth in Tassie devil population to take advantage of this bounty from man's interference, and then to have their numbers destroyed also by man's interference. Yep, surprise surprise, it looks like the devil facial tumour is caused by forestry chemical spraying.

I chose the Mole Creek Hotel because I wanted to stay in a number of proper little country town hotels because we enjoyed that so much last time, so I chose this out of the way place in a scenic area near the end of the road. I didn't know that it was a logging road, so Caroline's beautifully fitted out ensuite queensize bedroom gave her all night exposure to the rumble of prime movers. Her room was all lace, cushions and colonial frumpery. It was a hoot.
We drank Huon River Wines Pinot Noir.

Dear god, this journal is going to be far too long. From now on: selected highlights and stuff in point form.

Tasmania: A journey of many U-turns. February 2010.

Or, as the Aunt calls it: Tasmania and back again and again and again and again...
I don't think I'll take her anywhere again. Sensibly I have now moved to Melbourne thus making it harder to accidently do so.

(Fast forward 3 years)
Aunt: ...so, that was why I suggested that Clara turn it into a potato salad. That's Clara who married James Farris. And everyone said the potato salad was wonderful - never knowing the near disaster of two hours before. You always put Caraway seed in your potato salad now, don't you? Of course you do, because I told you to and you always listen to your wise Aunt.

Harry: Who is James Farris?

Aunt: He was a work colleague of...

Harry: Wait! Why I am in the middle of what appears to be the Kimberley Ranges with you?

Aunt: How odd you don't remember that you agreed to drive me around the North West for four months!

Harry: ...My girlfriend is going to kill me.

Aunt: Don't swerve so! It upsets me when you swerve.

H: Sorry, Aunt.

Aunt: There's a good boy. Now, look, why do they keep making movies about Archaeology? It's not as if everyone of school age is going to rush out and become archaelogists, is it? Oh, look a magpie! Magpies always make me happy. I remember one time....

I owed The Aunt a road trip after the last one was postponed when I rushed off to Canada on a quixotic quest we needn't go into here; and Aunt Caroline's oldest daughter selfishly had another baby. Happily the Aunt grew bored of her most recent grandson and it was time for me to quit employment again, so the Tasmania trip was resurrected. On the advise of a travel agent I booked all accommodation (except Hobart - the Aunt did that), the Spirit of Tasmania tickets and a river cruise; and printed out maps of all the towns we were staying in. This was totally opposite to the Great Ocean Road trip where we just winged it.

We drove to Melbourne and rendezvoused with the Spirit of Tasmania on Tuesday the 2nd of February; worked our way around Tasmania in an anti-clockwise direction; and eighteen days later met the Spirit for the return trip across Bass Strait.

All up we travelled about 3500km - 500 of which Caroline claims were backtracking.
My job was to make Caroline's life as perfect as possible - and I only failed horrendously once! As well as being driver, porter, photographer, chronicler and washer-upperer I knew I had to keep an eye out for interesting wildlife, in particular birds of prey.
Caroline's additional role to the last trip was to spot likely looking produce at the side of the road - kiosks with honesty boxes and that sort of thing.

On the way down we spent the first night in Yass with friends of mine. Here Caroline used a stubby holder for the first time. Past readers will recall that our road trip on the Great Ocean Road in 2007 saw her use a portaloo for the first time.
Stubbies are better.
We stopped in Holbrook for morning tea at the bakery that my mate recommended. I had a quick foray through the submarine museum which answered the nagging question what the hell this thoroughly inland town has to do with submarines. It's not like those cities in the mid-south of the USA that made submarines which then sailed down the Mississippi and out to victory in the Pacific.
It turns out that pre-WWI Holbrook was named Germanton. It was patriotically renamed after a submarine officer who won the VC.
The Oberon class submarine in the park is, disappointingly, not the real thing - it is mostly fibreglass.

I had bought a bag of small apples for snacking on during the trip. Obviously these would have to be dealt with before we hit the furit-fly exclusion zone. Accordingly we stopped in some town I can't remember, took the apples from the esky, and ate a bunch of them beside the chain of fetid pools that was all that was left of the local creek. We tossed the remainder in a bin, well pleased that we were doing the right thing by the Victorian fruit industry.

We met Ellen for afternoon tea/late lunch in Port Melbourne at about five. I tried not to eavesdrop on the people at the table next to us were obviously criminals doing deals.
Eventually we bid Ellen adieu, and (to quote Spike Milligan) she raised us a Hindu. The boat sails at 7:30 each evening, but first they have to load all the vehicles.
There is a saying about piss-ups in brothels that serves to illustrate the incompetence of an individual or group of persons. It was almost instantly applicable to the vehicle check-in and traffic direction staff. Relating the details will be boring, but the guy with wild-hair and the linen safari suit in the car behind us cracked before we did.
Once in Tasmania there was periodic speculation from the Aunt as to how much fun the 'wild-haired man' was having at this same instant. I would suggest that he'd driven off a cliff or into a tree in frustration with a cry of "Right! That's it! This holiday is over!"
Quarantine had inspected us by making us pop the hood first - presumable to check for the exhaustive array of weapons listed on our 'banned weapons list' that they'd given us - and then the boot - presumably for stowaways armed with rocket launchers, grenades and land mines. They saw, but didn't ask us to open, the esky - which was lucky because it was crammed with heavy machineguns and surface-to-air missiles.
(The Aunt had insisted I move the latter from under the hood due to an unfortunate incident near Campbelltown where I'd tooted at a blue pajero cutting me off and accidentally shot down the Westpac Careflight helicopter. A smart call on her part because we possibly would have been fined!)

Caroline had a cabin all to herself. This is one of the conditions of her, for better choice of words, rider. So, I guess a fair description since we were on tour and I was her roadie/manager. Other stipulations include Business Class or better for air-travel; no commitments after 9:30pm; and no heavy lifting.
I was in a four-berth shared cabin. Each cabin has a bible - presumably for use when sinking.
Things were chained down; aways were stowed; horns were piped; and I sat outside on a small deck on level nine while the Aunt sent increasingly terse text messages as she tried to find out where I was.
Melbourne fell behind as the sun set. On the shady side of the ferry the Mornington Peninsular appeared and I could smell dust on the wind.
Caroline visited the $10 salad bar and took so little the check-out guy only charged her a dollar. Perhaps inspired by such generosity she offered me some chicken.
Port Phillip Bay is enormous, and it was hours before we - travelling at 23 or 25 knots - started feeling the deep roll of Bass Strait.

Interrupted by occasion bursts of snoring from one of my two companions I drifted off and awoke with a start when the lights turned on and the public address system announced it was quarter-to-six and we'd start disembarking at six thirty.
Devonport looked colder than it was. It had rained during the night and the decks outside were wide puddles. The occasional calling seagull added to the atmosphere.
I met the Aunt and we blundered our way down to the car; drove off the boat to the quarantine station where they found the four lemons we'd completely forgotten were in the esky. I think they were underneath the anti-tank rifle ammunition. Bear in mind that we'd spoken at length about how we'd done the right thing with the fruit AND had joked about how defficient the Melbourne quarantine was to not even look in the esky, we felt like right fools. Luckily I am too handsome and charming to fine, so wasn't $129 down.

Dedication to work

Two emails I sent last week.
One to the deputy head of school who was promoted to Professor. He is a very good sort who has labs where I work on Level 6; and thinks I am hilarious. Graham is also tall and handsome - facts of which my boss (Phil) and I frequently remind him. The other people mentioned in the email are his PhD students and honours student.



From: Harry Simpson
Sent: Wednesday, 2 December 2009 10:18 AM
To: Graham
Subject: Congratulations, also: YOUR DESTINY!!

Dear Sir,

Since you have now embraced your true self it is time for you to realise your destiny. As we speak I am having the mechanical workshop boys reforge the shards of Narsil. This will of course set back the completion date for any number of jobs, but the hordes of darkness must be held at bay now that you have arisen to your True Station!

There are several things you must do:

Protect the hairy-toed one (known to you as Phil) as he goes forth to destroy the evil warlock XXX by tossing the ring made of his own stupidity and the tedium of wasted hours spent in meetings, into the fires of Administratium.

You must totally romance a hot elf babe;

You must call forth the walking dead of Level5 to regain their honour in your service;

and you must be totally awesome and kick arse! (You will receive help from a girly elf known as Blacklow and his rather fine elven sistren Youmie, Fran and Monique. The doughty warrior Casamento might be of some use, but I wouldn't count on it.)

Please start growing your hair long and practicing your smoldering thousand-yard stare (think pure jewels embedded in craggy ageless hills).


regards,
Harry Simpson
Technical Officer
IBID & MMB
University of Technology, Sydney
---------------

The second concerns our Christmas party which is tomorrow. One of the honours girls (who is a bit of a princess) asked me to email her the address of the party which is Haberfield Rowers Retreat.

From: Harry Simpson
Sent: Thursday, 3 December 2009 3:22 PM
To: fran
Subject: Haberfield Rowers

Dear Fran,

Undoubtedly you have beautiful eyes.
Such eyes have stirred men to noble deeds in the honour of their bearers for millenia.
Such eyes have been compared to moonlit pools of peaceful water, or the dark calming centre of the universe.
Such eyes have made otherwise cautious men recklessly expose their souls to their harsh regard and be destroyed.
And such eyes normally are more than enough to read the 34648 signs I put up around the place showing you where the Haberfield Rowers Retreat is!!!

Perhaps before you go to your job interview on Friday you could visit an optometrist. Wikipedia tells me that: "Like most professions, optometry education, certification, and practice is regulated in most countries. Optometrists and optometry-related organizations interact with governmental agencies, other health care professionals, and the community to deliver eye and vision care."

There are at least 17 optometrists in the Southern Hemisphere alone! So there probably is one near to where you live or shop. Please do not make the mistake, as my Great Aunt Hilda did, of visiting an Optimist instead of an Optometrist. He told her that everything was going to be fine and, thinking just that, my Great Aunt Hilda happily walked into the path of one of the first 436 buses. She was horribly wounded and walked with a limp for the rest of her days. Ironically the 436 bus is one of the buses you can take to get to Haberfield Rowers Retreat. Talk about a coincidence!

The UTS Haberfield Club Rowers Retreat is on Dobroyd parade. This road is otherwise known as the City West Link.

regards,
Harry Simpson
Technical Officer
IBID & MMB
University of Technology, Sydney

Homeopathic solution to homeopathy

I worked out how we can cure the world of homeopathy.

Step 1: get all homeopathists in one room. Get an equal number of skeptics. Line them up opposite each other. Give each an empty glass.

Step 2: Open a big tin of poison. Put a fatal dose of poison water into each glass in front of a homeopathist.

Step 4: Using homeopathic dilution make a super dilute poison solution. Put this solution into the glasses in front of the skeptics.

Each side now think the other has the most deadly solution in front of them.

Drink.

End of problem.

(Perhaps the only good solution is a psychopathic one?)

Had an argument with a friend about the current industrial revolution in China...

Position A: China is being exploited by the West and is suffering for it.
Position B: China is being exploited by the West and is better off for it.

I am reminded of a parable in a novel or biography that I can't remember - but I remember the parable and it goes like this.

A man on holiday is walking along the seashore. The previous night there was a storm and the waves picked up all the starfish - thousands and thousands of them - and dumped them past the high tide mark. There they now sit, a whole heaven of stars, helplessly and inexorably dying in the sun.
The man sees a young girl who is picking up handfuls of starfish and tossing them back into the see. He walks up to her and asks "Why do you bother? You can't save them all?"
To which she replies "I can save these ones. I can make a difference to them".

I related this parable to another friend. He suggested this instead:

A rich business man is on holiday in a tropical paradise. The previous night there was a storm and the waves picked up all the starfish - thousands and thousands of them - and dumped them past the high tide mark. There they now sit, a whole heaven of stars, helplessly and inexorably dying in the sun.
The sea is now calm - so calm that he thinks he could skim stones across it. But there are no stones, only dying starfish.
So he picks up a starfish and tries to skim it over the water. It sort of works but the arms dig into the water as you would expect. After twelve attempted skims he changes the game to seeing how far into the sea he can throw a starfish. After fifteen minutes a young girl comes up to him. She is crying because all these starfish are dying because nature is uncaring.

So, which of the above characters owns the factory in China?

Errr....they just worked this out?!

"Mr Hunt, who is also a director of Tourism Australia, said travellers were increasingly looking for out-of-the-ordinary experiences they could brag their friends about..."

"Generation Y and baby boomer travellers looking for a holiday "brag factor" are influencing a new shift towards weird and wonderful tourism experiences, a conference has heard."

Really? People like bragging about their holidays?
Knock me down with a feather.
Next they'll tell me that cars are often seen as status symbols.
And let me guess that his audience were Gen X. I can see them all sitting there nodding along at how shallow Gen Y and the Boomers are, because THEY in Gen X only go on holiday because it's good the planet and because it helps them become a well rounded personality overflowing with understanding, insight and compassion.
I know this is how it truly works for Gen X people because we're differnet to GenY and the Boomers, but mostly because I went to Borneo.

Nah, that's me just being sarcastic: I was awesome long before I went to that place that none of you have been to. Losers.

But, still the important thing to bear in mind is this: "sure, Fred went and stayed in an eco-village on the Masai Mara for 18weeks and drives a Peugeot but he's still a fuckwit."

So yes, "Generation Y and baby boomer travellers look for a holiday "brag factor"" but it's because they are, by in large, fuckwits.