Category Archives: Australia

WA

As pretty as an airport*

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Airports aren’t known for their aesthetics – well, apart from Vancouver which is outstanding – but I discovered that we do have at least one very nicely designed airport in Western Australia, and in an unlikely place.

Why I think Geraldton is an unlikely place no doubt comes from some regional prejudice I must harbour towards the town which I haven’t rated for it’s design qualities in the past (although the new foreshore is a dramatic improvement).

It’s the Greenough airport, and it is a very pleasant experience indeed.  High ceilings, an aquarium, a display of aeronautic history – it feels more like a trendy museum than an airport.

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*The title of this post comes from this quote:

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on earth has ever produced the expression ‘as pretty as an airport.’ —Douglas Adams, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul, 1988

WA

A rose by any other name

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At the airport a couple of weeks ago I was sharing a table at the cafe with a rather good looking chap who was on his way to Cloudbreak.

Cloudbreak, I thought, doesn’t that sound like a lovely destination…
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Well it is, if you like mining operations.

I guess calling it “big pile of red dirt” isn’t quite the same.

WA

The house-sitting chemist

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On a recent trip to Geraldton, I was looking for another camera bag after I lost the second one in two weeks and a hostess gift for dinner that night – and as luck would have it, not only did the local chemist include a camera shop it also had a Darrell Lea stand. Brilliant.

I took my camera bag and box of hard centres to the counter and I met Kristy.

Kristy’s story

Kristy has lived in Geraldton for about two and a half years. Originally from Adelaide, Kristy and her husband Bruce decided to up sticks and travel around Australia. They bought a four wheel drive and a caravan and signed up as housesitters.

For seven years (seven!) they travelled everywhere. They soon became known as trustworthy sorts and were in high demand – getting repeat business they were lukewarm about taking – it was kind of “been there done that”.

“I loved the adventure of sleeping in someone else’s sheets, in someone else’s bed with someone else’s view… it wasn’t the same if we’d already stayed there.”

They stayed in all sorts of houses, several of them home to millionaires and in between stayed and travelled in their caravan. They couldn’t imagine settling down.

One day, they were travelling to Halls Creek in the North-East Kimberley. Halls Creek was one of the places where gold was discovered for the first time in WA. I think it was second after Ennuin. You can also catch a small plane to fly over Purnululu National Park to see the Bungle Bungles and you might stay here if you want to visit the Wolfe Creek Crater. It’s the town at the northern end of the Canning Stock Route. It’s remote.

Anyway as they travelled along the highway towing their caravan they were caught in a willy willy. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it’s like a dust devil or whirlwind, a very small tornado.

The caravan was swept up and bashed against an embankment and as it was thrown up so was the four wheel drive.

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Time seemed to slow as it does in those life-threatening situations, Bruce turned to Kristy and told her that he couldn’t do anything and he was sorry but he thought they were going to die.

The 4WD flipped but the caravan snapped them back and the car crashed to the ground.

The car and the caravan were completely written off. Shattered.

Kristy and Bruce walked free.

The truck driver couldn’t believe it – he was sure they were both going to be dead.

Kristy and Bruce took the loss of their trailer and 4WD as a sign that maybe it was time to settle down and, after briefly checking out Mandurah (why do people live there? asks Kristy) and Perth as too cold, settled in Geraldton to be near their daughter.

Thank you Kristy for telling me your story – it was inspirational.

PS:  I should say in the interest of accuracy that Kristy isn’t actually a chemist,  she does work at the Chemist though.  (If you’re in the US, a chemist is a drug store or pharmacy)

Extracurricular, Film, WA

Mamma Mia! A Kimberley girl

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After a long day at work I thought I’d treat myself by forgoing yet another work dinner – hell I’d had a work breakfast – and head down to Sun Pictures to see a movie.

You can probably guess which one.

I’d missed the season in Perth so I was excited to see it showing on the 6.45 session.  I couldn’t convince anyone to come with me but I didn’t care – Mamma Mia at Sun Pictures sounded like something I just couldn’t pass up.

If you’ve never been to Broome, Sun Pictures is an icon.  It’s an old outdoor cinema – 90 years old – basically a corrugated iron shed with rows of those sling back chairs.  These days it sits directly under the flight path for the airport – and by directly under I mean about 800m from the start of the runway.

It’s quite unnerving to be sitting their under the starts singing away (in my head) to Mamma Mia as a plane roars up flashing with lights landing at Broome airport.  Unnerving but exciting.  Luckily the timing was excellent and lets be honest there are not too many moments that are critically quiet in Mamma Mia.

Oh I loved the film!  Sure it’s scmaltzy but in a good way.  The scenery is beautiful, the singing surprisingly good – especially from Meryl – Pierce is more of a worry – the choreography is excellent.  Any flaws in the film you simply dismiss because you feel so damn good.

After the film finished I decided to find some colleagues and see if they wanted to head out to Goolarri media for the finals of Kimberley Girl.

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So while yes it is a model competition it is more about learning to accept yourself and be proud of who you are.

The girls were beautiful and strutted their stuff like they owned the catwalk.  It was empowering just watching them.  The place was packed and the crowd loud and supported.

I had a blast.

The great thing about Broome is that it is so casual… so my – now slightly pink with Pindan – sandshoes can be worn anywhere and with anything. 

People don’t even iron up here.  I think most of the creases fall out with the humidity anyway and boy is it humid!

So you find me lying on my hotel bed, weary yet feeling good, trying to decide whether to go to bed or maybe just read one more chapter of Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer – a book I bought for Dippity at the airport and which I’ve totally become immersed in… Have you read the twilight series?

Okay, I’m rambling now.  Catch you soon, CB xx

Introspection, WA

Broome-time reunion

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I’m in Broome today for work – I know, what a bitch of a job eh? – anyway I’m strolling through Chinatown trying to find a sandwich at 3pm – not easy – I almost had to go to Subway – when I spot a girl I knew at school.

She reminded me that it has been 25 years since I left high school this year.  25 YEARS!

How old did I feel?  As old as her at least.

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It was like that at the 20th reunion – I left with the realisation that there’s a reason why I don’t see that many people from school… they weren’t my friends then and the passage of time – with little or no contact – has not changed things.  I see the people I liked at school, and if I liked them and I don’t see them – well that’s usually because our lives have gone in different directions.

Still, it wasn’t a particularly comfortable feeling.  I wonder if the same applies to facebook?

Extracurricular, WA

Our football sized mammals

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Last night we went for a drive about 45 minutes out of Perth to Karakamia Sanctuary.

The sanctuary is named after the red-tailed black cockatoo and they were the first birds we saw on entering the property. It all feels a bit Jurassic Park as you enter: There are impressively electrified fences stretching away on either side, with electronic gates that slowly open onto a gravel road once you press the button to enter.

The fencing – which costs $90,000 a kilometre – is essential for keeping out feral animals such as foxes and cats which are the main predators these days of the smaller fauna once common in our Jarrah forests.

The sanctuary has been in operation since 1992. They enclosed the 275ha and set about removing all the feral predators. When they were convinced they had a feral-free zone, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy started introducing species all but wiped out: Woylies (brush-tailed bettongs), Quokkas, Numbats, Tammar wallabies, quenda (southern brown bandicoots) and so on.

Some – like the woylies – have thrived to the point where they have been captured and sent to other conservatories, others – like the Numbat – have been less successful.

One of the things I found out was how little leaf litter you find in a forest where there are a lot of animals such as quenda. They bury so much of it the forest floor is quite open and clear.

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We learned that the Australian bush is not just about kangaroos, echidnas and possums – the three types of animals that have a chance of surviving against foxes and cats (roos are too big, echidnas too spiky and possums too high).

Everytime we stopped the bush came alive with the sound of animals moving in the undergrowth. It was inspiring.

If you are at all inspired, the AWC have 18 sanctuaries around Australia. Absolutely magic.

(And I hope you get as passionate a guide as ours was! Thank you Simon.)

The ironic thing? We didn’t (unusually they said) see any possums while on the walk and it wasn’t until I was driving through my suburb a couple of streets away from home that I saw one crossing the road. Go figure!

Update: Found a tick on my tummy today – it’s so itchy! Bloody nature! Thank goodness we don’t have Limes disease.

Introspection, WA

Flashback to the Polly Pipe opening

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Growing up with an civil engineer for a dad meant that we went to a lot of openings of big infrastructure projects.

Stirling Bridge
This is me and my brother at the opening of the Stirling Bridge in Fremantle. There is a better photo somewhere but I can’t find it.

I’ve crawled through the middle of the Stirling Bridge (Dad’s first project as project manager), I was been there when they cut the ribbon on the Mount Henry Bridge…

So perhaps it’s only natural that I’ve taken my kids to similar events.

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Opening of the Graham Farmer Freeway Tunnel

My kids certainly look more happy to be there than I did at Dad’s bridge!

For those of you not from Perth – we Australians have a habit of nicknaming infrastructure… well anything really… and it wasn’t long before Graham “Polly” Farmer, lent his nickname to the tunnel – hence the Polly Pipe.

Extracurricular, Random, WA

The mystery of the white trees of Perth

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For the last few years when driving past the man-made lake on Mounts Bay Road in Perth I’ve wondered why all the trees are white.

The white trees of Perth

The kids always ask me why, and I, like the guy on that ad – you know the Great Wall of China is to keep the rabbits out guy – make up some rubbish because I don’t know.

Like: “It’s the dust from the roadworks where they are building the railway.” Which of course didn’t hold water after the railway was opened last year…

The other day I decided enough was enough. I was going to get to the bottom of this for once and for all. I stopped the car, got out and investigated, Nancy Drew style.

These trees look as if they have been spray-painted and now I can reveal that they have… in a way.

Bird in flight

This bird – and his mates – are the culprits. Up in the branches there is a colony of these black birds (does anyone know what they are)… and that white stuff?
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You got it. Guano. Birdshit.

Doh! I should have guessed that.

It was, perhaps not surprisingly, very obvious. It coats the trees from the top to the ground – I’m surprised they can photosynthesise at all.

Mystery solved.

Just call me Nancy.

Books, WA

Last Horse Standing by Mike Keenan

Last Horse Standing by Mike Keenan tells the story of Jack Camp, a Kimberley stockman who went on a near fatal mustering expedition to Walcott Inlet in 1971. Based on a true story as told to Mike by Jack’s young jackeroo Peter Wann, the story tells of how Jack crossed the King Leopold Ranges and then the Isdell River to muster cattle grazing on the Walcott Inlet flats.

Things went wrong.

I was fascinated by the yarn. First of all it’s told well, but it also has special resonance for me because I rafted down the Isdell River when I was 16 as part of an Australian and New Zealand Scientific Exploration Society (ANZSES) expedition in 1983.

1971 was the year after a ban on shooting saltwater crocodiles was put in place. The salties had been hunted to quite low levels – although I suspect the remoteness of Walcott Inlet meant they were in reasonable numbers there. In the book Mike describes how dangerous the waters were because of the salties, how the Aboriginal people in the area called it Devil Devil.

In 1983 – some 13 years after the ban was put in place – you’d expect the numbers to have increased.

When we went on the expedition we knew saltwater crocs were to be avoided but we really didn’t know much about them or what signs to look for.

We thought they stayed in freshwater. We didn’t think about how far they might travel on land. We thought we’d be safe in our rubberised nylon yellow rafts.

Recently I transcribed my diary of that expedition 25 years ago. Here’s an excerpt. And be kind – I was only 16 at the time. 🙂

Around midday after a particularly large rapid with many of us feeling a bit annoyed with life – I was in front powering away and then K came up to talk to me. D went past and zoomed in front and W passed us as well and was between us and D.

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D, after seeing that his raft was not an especially safe place to be anymore, decided to swim for a nearby rock. If it had been timed I doubt anyone could have beaten that 5 yard dash!! K and I meanwhile had made our own dash to a rock and sat there thinking that WE were next on the menu…

After we left the Isdell – clambering up a muddy bank with the odd crocodile slide evident – we followed the inlet on foot until we got to a skinny part – the ankle.

The sight of a large salty was enough to put K and me off and we decided to cross at an ankle deep ford. HOWEVER to get there we had to cross a muddy bank. It is hard enough without packs, with them it’s impossible.

Well after struggling down the bank and across the ford we looked ahead to find a mammoth task yet ahead of us. We staggered over soggy semi-firm sand towards the rest of the party. After much complaining and frustration we made it only to have to continue – we had barely gone a quarter of the way. My feet and legs were just so tired.

We had two more stream ford channels to cross (thigh deep!) and three soggy stretches as well as a slippery bank – all with heavy packs and leaden feet. I figured I might get a bit of a rest in between but no, it was push on.

It was later realised that had we reached the inlet half an hour later we would have either been trapped in the middle of the river by the incoming tide or have missed low tide altogether.

Because of course a saltwater crocodile would find it a real bother to swim the 2-300 metres to snack on us… not. We were very lucky.

But back to the book – Last Horse Standing – it’s worth a read – especially if you are interested in the outback and Australiana. The region Mike describes is wild and untamed – possibly even more so today than when I was there 25 years ago – and absolutely beautiful.

Dippity, Hugamuga, WA

Picnic at Elachbutting Rock

On the way back from the station last week we stopped by Elachbutting Rock. This granite outcrop is one of many in the area but a bit more special because of Monty’s pass – where part of the rock has sheared off and created a tunnel, and the Rock Wave…. cunningly a little like Wave Rock would you believe.

Elachbutting Rock

Elachbutting Rock

The Shire says the name Elachbutting is thought to mean “that large thing standing”. Cute. And also according to the Westonia Shire: “Elachbutting has a reputation for being bigger, better and more pristine than any Wheatbelt granite rock formation that you may have seen before.”

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Before I go… would you have been slightly concerned that your kids might have fallen off the side of the rock?

Elachbutting Rock