THE EARTHRISE DIARY (May 2014)

THE EARTHRISE DIARY (MAY 2014)

Don Diespecker

© Text: Don Diespecker 2014

It is difficult to convey the extraordinary silence of this garden, for it is true that the main road runs along the length of it, and that the noises of motors can be heard; but so dense is the packing of oleanders and small pines and so heavy the shadow in which the house is set that sound itself becomes blurred and mingles with the hushing of the sea along the beaches to the eastward. Here in the evenings we gather for drinks and gossip, sitting in cane chairs around the little painted table, hearing through the dusk the shallow strains of some forgotten fugue wafted to us from the old horn-gramophone that is the Mufti’s special pride.

Lawrence Durrell: Reflections on a Marine Venus; a Companion to the Landscape of Rhodes.

You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose.

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry: The Little Prince.

May 2014. This has been an unseasonal month. May has included some rain and showers (but not much, overall) and more significantly some surprising and extensive warm days and mild nights. Warm sunny days have allowed me to spend useful times outside whenever I want a break from the smoking keyboard. The house renovations (I think of this good work by Pete as Restorations) continue and the Restorer has also been tidying and renovating the riverbank edges: the old bauhinias along the top of the garden edges have been taken down and I’ve been stacking sawn rounds in the hope they might become useful firewood: tree lovers will wince at that, but the bauhinias had otherwise set the scene for a copse of near impenetrable jungle by blocking river views as well as good light for the gardens. Although they flowered each year, the bauhinias did so loftily: the flowers weren’t often seen close to ground level or to any great advantage, even though bauhinias are popularly known as Orchid Trees. Bauhinias have twin-lobed leaves and are native to tropical Asia, Africa, the Americas and Australia. The adjacent flooded gums, tree ferns and a native frangipani tree will be breathing sighs of relief: they never did get on well with the bauhinias… With the space-demanding bauhinias gone I’ve been clearing the undergrowth along the top of the bank where the first of the walled gardens are: this requires picking carefully through detritus and removing decaying flood debris and cultivating the flood loam that supports giant maidenhair ferns. Some loam is shovelled out onto the adjacent lawn and raked over as a top dressing (raking is an ideal combined exercise of ordinary work as well as a movement meditation directly above the rapids)… I could perhaps sell tickets to spiritually minded nature lovers wanting such experiences in a Raking Club. And were it not for the continually falling leaves here, I would by now have made a Zen Garden of sorts. Picture yourself, suitably robed and sandalled, sedately raking through pristine gravel, pleasurably using a heavy wooden rake of big wooden dowels, effecting granular furrows without there being any sense of urgency, and mist rising from the torrent, and the sounds of the rapids, and honeyeaters trilling. Or imagine yourself just sitting and watching shadowgraphs on the trunks of flooded gums…

--But I begin with a Charivari that includes two comprehensive travel journal descriptions from Kerry Smith and partner Susan Adams currently touring Western Australia in their 4-WD vehicle and caravan. 

CHARIVARI

A monthly blog suits me. As I proceed through the month I muse and reflect largely free of self-inflicted pressure connected to Press Time (or Blog Posting) anxieties.  I also can use what little diplomacy I have left to er, ah, encourage family and friends to share some of their writings (for the benefit of the historical record, for love and friendship, for nostalgia) by contributing to this Diary. You might be surprised, dear Reader, to learn that not all the other Diary Readers are, as well, closet poetry or prose writers, avid diarists or dedicated dispatchers of news, of events, of mysteries from far and wide.  And I can almost keep abreast of fragmented information enabling connections to some of what goes on in the wider world. There is a great deal of wider world Stuff currently going on and it’s doing so relentlessly. Indeed, there is so much going on that the temptation often is to sit quietly simply to see local aspects of the world unfolding around me: it’s a more or less stress-free experience requiring awareness of wild beasties like snakes, goannas, midges and a vivid alertness of the occasional deadwood branch falling 30- or 40-m from finicky flooded gums. Despite the busyness of the world, either close by or at a great distance, most of us are currently in similar situations: we can’t entirely avoid the hustle and bustle, the cut and thrust, the hurly burly of being alive in a global population now worriedly in excess of seven billion humans and there were scarcely two billions of us when I arrived in May 1929. One of the drawbacks to writing a monthly blog is that it simply isn’t possible to be on top of everything, to be continuously in the flow, or to be more than fractionally aware of what seems to be going on. Thus, writing comprehensively about these many matters calls for more writers writing and readers everywhere (not only Readers of this Diary) remembering that written words and spoken words may be hugely powerful. I’ve been a reading and writing enthusiast for most of my life. I was inspired by there having been books in our house and I was encouraged by parents who not only read books, but who also told or recounted stories of diverse kinds.  A journalist and broadcaster uncle who also wrote copiously poetry and fiction and who published much of that, was an enthusiastic mentor; my late father, one of the four brothers of the journalist-poet-novelist, was a kindly guide who wrote some family history for me because I asked him to do so. I grew up believing that writings of many kinds were something fine, even noble, and that a range of writings well enough made could be satisfying to one’s self as well as to others. And I learned that some writings in printed texts could even move one to tears or to dread or to joy: thus the would-be writer was obliged to pay attention and be willing to learn to harness his or her talents, especially that talent we call imagination. Once I could read solo there arose some significant house books: the family copy of Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat (for its simplicity, wit and humour and because our family had been re-reading it since its first publication); Sir Percy Fitzpatrick’s Jock of the Bushveld (because members of our family once shared related interests with the author and associated interests such as the Selati Railway in the Transvaal); and Ernest Hemingway’s first novel, Fiesta (aka The Sun also Rises) (because I discovered this book, without any family backup or assistance, and because I realised that this kind of prose fiction writing greatly appealed to me when I was reading widely as part of a developing intention to write fiction, especially novels). We may all be drawn to particular books, often to specialist writers that become special to us and we may also be inspired to write by particular examples of the writings of others.  I also read and enjoyed the great Diarist, Samuel Pepys, without becoming too preoccupied with daily diary or journal writing: prose fiction is the genre I love best to write.   

And at this point I confess to being uneasy and, yes, negatively judgemental about the misuse and abuse of some words, about some language poorly used by presumably well-educated Australians. Some of what relentlessly is presently going on are teeth-grinding examples of current trends in marketplace English: the maddening use of ‘you know,’ that some speakers cannot do without in most of their spoken sentences, and also the idiotic and excessive usage of ‘Look’ as the lead word in many spoken sentences (spoken by all and sundry and particularly by radio broadcasters who, forgive me, ought to know better) now seems plague-like. Look and you know are now so ingrown that they serve at some dim poorly lighted level as punctuation, like those paltry diacritical marks, inverted commas.  We all may see as well as hear this overuse by broadcast journalists and presenters as well as by a frightening cross-section of the Australian community. Nothing intelligent is conveyed by speakers beginning sentences, emphasised or un-emphasised, with the word, “Look… Informal speech is informal speech but some informal speaking by otherwise intelligent speakers is absurd.

On a related note, a word that (for me) has an uncomfortable feel to it is now cropping up more frequently: extreme. Extreme isn’t one of those spoken words likely to derange listeners: it may often have amusing and entertaining connections. Although it’s now widely used and presumably now widely accepted, I won’t write harshly about its use. 

My well-worn Random House College Dictionary offers fourteen explanations of extreme, the last of which is “Archaic. The utmost point, or extremity of something [late ME extrem

(us), superlative of exterus outward. See EXTREME].” The first of the explanations is “1. Of a character or kind farthest removed from the ordinary or average: an extreme case; extreme measures.” Two synonyms of the second explanation are greatest and highest. An antonym from the sixth explanation is moderate. Of the many words used to explain the word extreme, I’m particularly impressed by these two: utmost and outward: it is these two words that imply (to me) a great outward force such as an explosion: something that cannot be ignored. And although we now use the word extremist more frequently and easily (as a noun of the adjective extreme) there has been, dare I suggest, a watering down, a diminishing of the meaning of this word: ‘extreme knitting,’ e.g., doesn’t quite fill me with dread, nor does ‘extreme music’; but ‘extreme weather’ is a profound cause for alarm.

Continuing in critical vein I have views and comments on some of what is telecast as “Free to Air Television” (FTATV) in Australia, because I’m silly enough to watch only these channels. Australian Diary Readers, if they understand what I’m getting at may wish to speed-read or to skip this mild-mannered diatribe, but overseas Diary Readers might just be sufficiently horrified to read on unless their telecasts are even more horrendously interrupted than ours are…

Much of what passes for Australian TV entertainment these days is a mind-numbing flood of commercials or ‘TV ads’ that are frequently interrupted by entertaining, educative, dramatic and informative programs from many sources. The best of the ‘regular’ FTATV programs are presented by the ABC, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, if only because ABC telecast ‘shows’ are not interrupted (the ABC has a foot in this sinister door, however, because now it tirelessly and repeatedly presents promotional program materials between its scheduled programs.  [“The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia's national public broadcaster. With a total annual budget of A$1.22 billion, the corporation provides television, radio, online and mobile services throughout metropolitan and regional Australia, as well as overseas through the Australia Network and Radio Australia. Founded in 1929 as the Australian Broadcasting Company, it was subsequently made a state-owned corporation on 1 July 1932, as the Australian Broadcasting Commission. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983 changed the name of the organization to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, effective 1 July 1983. Although funded and owned by the government, the ABC remains editorially independent as ensured through the Australian Broadcasting Corporation Act 1983. The ABC is sometimes informally referred to as "Aunty," originally in imitation of the BBC's nickname.”] (Wikipedia).

The SBS (Special Broadcasting Service) used to be rather like the ABC in that it was free of advertising interruptions, but now there are breaks for advertisements during scheduled programs (including during movies). [“The Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) is a hybrid-funded Australian public broadcasting radio and television network. The stated purpose of the SBS is to provide multilingual and multicultural radio and television services that inform, educate and entertain all Australians and, in doing so, reflect Australia's multicultural society. SBS is one of five main free-to-air networks in Australia.”] (Wikipedia). 

I’ll get to the point now before Australian Diary Readers fall entirely unconscious or into frenzied rage. Here is my point: I deplore the cynical programming of certain Australian FTATV telecasters, Channels 7 and 10 in particular, that fail to begin their programs at the advertised times (when it suits them to do so they will start and end a scheduled presentation 10 or more minutes late in what I assume is a cynical attempt to ‘compel’ viewers to attend their channel fruitlessly for minutes on end, thereby failing to connect with scheduled programming on other channels. (Yes, that’s what FTATV facilitates and we’re all fools to accept it). Consider for a moment an excellent US series, The Good Wife, on Channel Ten (and similarly, the UK period drama, Downton Abbey on Channel Seven): The Good Wife consistently starts later than the scheduled time by ten minutes or so and is then interrupted, regularly, every few minutes for several minutes of advertisements. Because The Good Wife is a well written, well acted and well presented show about professional lawyers at work and also about their private lives, and also about crime, punishment and legal arguments, the intelligent viewer is repeatedly challenged intellectually to follow the narrative whilst being restricted largely to watching the visual images, as brilliant and stimulating as they are, flash my often meaninglessly. Clearly, such presentations are offensive to all viewers while also raising obvious questions to those who control and regulate this idiocy; it is as if the TV audience is obliged to by the TV station and by the advertisers to be continue attending to the presentation of such shows although the presentations are intentionally made travesties by the broadcasters and their advertising conspirators.

And how foolish are we docile FTATV viewers to accept this!

On a note more rustic and rural and entirely free of fiendish TV moguls and money-crazed advertisers: some Diary readers may be deeply moved to learn that I’m much taken with the notion of scything. Although I don’t plan any dramatic entry into that jurisdiction, that precinct, I include here a link kindly sent me by Peter Thompson that will enable you to see a scythe painting or two (one of them is a battle scene: scythes have been used in wars). And despite the ‘historical look’ of the title picture I was surprised that the Finnish painter Pekka Halonen (1865-1933) lived on and into the early Thirties (into ‘my’ era, more or less):

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Pekka_Halonen_-_Niittomiehet.jpg

And in an adventurous way and one unsullied by TV ads or the ratbag wretches that devise intellect-free advertisements, I also include here another two excerpts from Kerry and Susan’s travel journal: they’re way out west in the State of Western Australia this month. It’s a pleasure for me to include these reports or ‘dispatches’ from my friends; it’s also a pleasure to record them in these Diaries because well-written documents that include names and, particularly, dates, are also historical documents. Such documents always deserve to be preserved, one way or the other and, who knows? An historian many years further along the track may find it a rewarding exercise to research our varied writings for a host of reasons. Viva all named and dated diaries and dispatches!

For oversea readers especially, who may not be familiar with the Australian Outback, road journeys are often difficult ones necessitating 4-WD vehicles, the best driving skills and sensible planning (including especially, sufficient potable WATER, adequate fuel, provisions and vehicle spare parts). If you compare maps of, e.g., Australia and Europe of the same scale, notice the great distances in Australia between towns (or settlements of any kind) and the topography and nature of the landscape. Great road distances between towns/settlements as well as aridity are enormously dangerous for inexperienced travelers. 

May 12 2014: Karijini National Park, Western Australia. [“Karijini National Park is a National Park centered in the Hamersley Ranges of the Pilbara region in northwestern Western Australia. It is just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, approximately 1,055-km from the State's capital city, Perth.”] (Wikipedia).

Greetings All:

Apologies for the length of this accrued email: we have no coverage at all here in Karijini National Park. I started this after we arrived on Tuesday so a lot has occurred since then. It's our last day here and I’m completing it so I can send it tomorrow when we get to Tom Price. I hope it's not too long and boring for you all but this is a special place and worth the extra words… [Oversea readers, please Google for maps and photos: Wikipedia indicates that Karijini National Park is a National Park centered in the Hamersley Ranges of the Pilbara region in northwestern Western Australia. It is just north of the Tropic of Capricorn, approximately 1,055- km (656-mi) from the WA's capital city, Perth. It was formerly known as Hamersley National Park.  At 627,442 hectares (1,550,440-acres), it is the second largest national park in Western Australia (Karlamilyi National Park is larger).  The park is physically split into a northern and a southern half by a corridor containing the Hamersley & Robe River railway and the Marandoo iron ore mine. KNP is served by Solomon Airport located 15-km (9.3-mi) to the west] Ed.

A sleep-in!  Not too much a one but we were still in bed at 07:00 and that’s unusual for this trip. We are at Dales Campground just inside the Karijini NP.  The sites are all quite large and we are backed into bay 8 right next door to G&J in bay 7. It is the generator area but the sites are well spaced and there is not much call for the generators if it stays fine. Actually the campsites are based on loops and there are 4 loops at Dales with about 24 sites in each so lots of room but without our feeling cramped: it’s a well-sited campground. There are camp volunteer hosts who do the booking in and the Rangers are around several times a day to check on passes and keep the toilets clean.

The toilets are pit toilets but with a difference. The pedestals are tapered galvanized pipes that need to be "flushed" with a brush and disinfectant. The brush is in a bucket by the pan and before using you are asked to wet the pan walls with the brush and then repeat the process after using. It’s a little confronting at first but seems to work quite well if people do the right thing each time.  

There is a great information centre 8-km down the bitumen road: it’s built out of steel sheets and in the shape of a symbolic lizard. The steel must have been donated by the mines and is nicely rusted with a lovely brown patina. Inside, the displays are well arranged but like so many displays we’ve seen they seem always to be too dark for easy reading. Why the authorities do that is unclear to me but it’s annoying and much of the information is lost to me. They have the ubiquitous souvenirs (mostly made in China) with a scattering of dearer items that are made in Australia. We have come to look at the labels before we buy now and steer clear of the OS-made ones.

It’s lovely to have stopped because we’ve been driving for three days to get here through some beautiful country and have covered about 1,200-km. The road from Kalgoorlie to Leonora is straight and flat and with a small tailwind we made good time. We stopped at Gwalia just before Leonora to go through the mine museum and it was well worth the stop. We roamed through the old Hoover homestead that is still in use as a B&B and a conference centre. It’s magnificent with its original Oregon floorboards and period furniture and a lovely lush green grass lawn!  We did the tour and were there for about two hours before heading into Leonora and having lunch in the Main Street.  

After lunch we pushed on to a campsite (that Garry had found in Wiki Camps) that was about 65-km out of Wiluna. The camp was in from a rest area on a rise with a few loops to turn in and some nice rocky campsites. We left the vans hitched up and leveled with a block of wood from Garry's supply. No fire that night but it was a beautiful campsite far enough from the road not to be bothered by the trucks: number 274 in the camp’s book and one to remember.    

The next day saw us up, showered and ready to go by just after 8 am and the short run into Wiluna was easy with the same tailwind we’d had the previous day. Wiluna is not a place I would like to stay in for too long. We had refueled at Leinister the day before and we figured we could make Meekatharra without stopping for fuel so we drove a quick circuit around the town and headed back onto the road out of town. We stopped by the bitumen for coffee just before the dirt began in earnest, rather than stop in Wiluna.  

The trip from Wiluna to Meekatharra is 183-km of dirt road interspersed with patches of bitumen constructed as "passing opportunities".  The surface was remarkably good and the bitumen sections were long enough to pass a road train ⁽¹⁾ if required.  The dust, however, was something else!  Huge plumes of it accompanied us on our way across and it was easy to see if anything was coming by their dust shadow. We met few cars and fewer trucks so our crossing was uneventful. A grader was working on a couple of sections and there was a road gang building a passing section closer to Meekatharra. We managed to poke along at 70 to 80-kph, a respectable pace for the dirt.

We stopped to let the tyres down on the van toward the second half of the crossing as the road had deteriorated a bit due to the lack of mines and hence the lack of maintenance. Mines dot this whole area and it would be good to see it all from the air as there would be huge craters dotted throughout the landscape like a bad case of acne.  Some of the mine names were familiar to us but many were smaller concerns. We made it into Meekatharra and the blessed bitumen again by lunchtime covered in a fine red dust and refueled and put some air back into the van tyres. Meekatharra is a busy little place as it is on the main highway up to "Headland" as the locals call Port Headland. The great Northern Highway links Perth to Port Headland so it is quite a busy road especially for trucks and road trains. Lunch at Meekatharra was in a dusty lions park so we didn't pause long. We were breath-alysed as we drove from the service station to the park!  A car in front of us full of indigenous residents did a quick detour to avoid the police and ours was the next car.  

We had a headwind from Meekatharra so fuel consumption was poor and after the dirt road and the intense concentration we were feeling pretty tired so we stopped at a campsite about 165-km from Meekatharra. It was a rest area with a series of tracks heading back into the bush alongside the Gascoyne River. Nice spot but a bit too close to the rest area where trucks stopped for the night. One had a refrigeration section so his compressor went all night. This is a busy place for trucks and the closer we got to Newman the more trucks we saw.  

The next day into Newman was a short day of about 250-km.  We had coffee by the Kumarina Roadhouse (it’s for sale if anyone wants to throw money away). A poor looking place not far enough out of Newman to be a good fuel stop so it was dying a slow death.  We rocked into Newman about lunchtime and headed straight to the Information Centre to book in for a mine tour and get some info. Garry and I took the cars and vans to the BP to fuel up while the girls shopped at Woolworths. We booked in to the Caravan Park, set up the vans and had lunch and cooked a lump of corned meat that we’ve found is great for lunches as it lasts forever and is quite tasty. It's also gluten-free, and relatively cheap so its good camp food while we are moving along so fast.  

Newman is unique, a mining town through and through. It’s a bustling, prosperous little town owned by BHP Billiton where everyone is dressed in a high-vis shirt and reflective striped pants.  Women and men alike wear the miner’s uniform and we felt quite conspicuous dressed in "normal attire". The streets are full of leased Toyotas with a few Mitsubishi's thrown in and the very odd Land Rover. The vehicles all sport fluorescent striping, large numbers stuck to the doors and the ubiquitous tall flag swaying and fluttering from the roof. At night the flags have lights on them, so it's a picture as they all wobble their way along the roads to and from the mine. I was sorely tempted to buy a flag with a light when we visited the hardware store the next day, not from a safety point of view, but just because they looked sooo good

The caravan park had free washing machines and free dryers so we washed everything that was not on our bodies! I was even tempted to change into swimmers and wash what I was wearing just to take advantage of the offer (we’ve fed a small fortune in dollar coins into washing machines on this trip).  We cooked in the camp kitchen with our own skillet that night and fed all of us on a meal of Chris's Lamb Bolognaise and gluten-free pasta. Thank you Chris! It was nice to have some room to swing the utensils and to have hot water to wash up in.  

We slept well between shifts and woke for the start of the day shift to the sound of the fleet of small busses beeping as they backed in to collect the workers from the accommodation in the park. Large two-story blocks and little ghettos of dongas circled the small caravan section, some with painted signs saying Night Shift plastered to their doors. It’s a whole different world and I was fascinated by all of it. Most things are available in Newman. Garry even bought a whole sink unit for his van for the princely price of $35. He wanted a plug but they didn't sell just plugs so he had to buy the whole lot!

We rocked up for the mine tour after emptying the toilets at the dump point in the information centre's grounds and walking in to town to get some last minute supplies. I bought a jerry can because fuel for the next bit is going to be tight and I wanted to have plenty to be able to drive round Karijinni without worrying about getting to Tom Price and the nearest fuel.  

The tour was impressive but the guide’s voice was a high, nasal, New Zealand twang that set my teeth on edge when she spoke. She had memorized all the patter which went for over an hour, so that was impressive, but if I had had to do it again I would have ended up tying her to the wheels of one of the 240-tonnes Haul Pack trucks!  We saw the mine from a hill that gave us a fantastic view of the whole concern. A spectacular piece of vandalism has removed whole mountains and reduced them to dust and rubble (but so lucrative)!  To watch the huge trucks and shovels nibbling away at the benches and carting the material to the crushers to be loaded onto trains that were 3.7-km long from this vantage point was fascinating. They do 12 trains a day and ship it all to Port Headland to satisfy the Chinese and Japanese hunger for iron ore. Then we buy it back from them at a much-inflated price ... but I mustn't appear to be cynical!

We finished the tour, grabbed some samples of the iron ore for Tim's rock collection, filled my newly purchased jerry can with diesel at 170.9-c/l and headed for Karijinni. About 65-km out of Newman we stopped at a fantastic rest area that afforded us fabulous views of the now much changed landscape. Huge hills of ochre red rocks lightly dusted with yellow spinifex (coarse grasses with spiny leaves in the Australian interior) and dotted with lush grey-green white-barked gums made me salivate for the camera. Every time we breasted a rise we looked down into yet another valley of this grass.  If I could, I would have stopped on every rise to take photos but road trains and semis made stopping on the side of the road a hazardous event.  It is the most beautiful scenery we have seen on all of our travels. I am in love with this country and just want to drive over rises to see the next magnificent vista.  

This is a mine road and it’s dotted with mines and busy trucks carting supplies, fuel and machinery along its length. We passed well-known lines owned by Rio Tinto, BHP and Gina Rinehart (the Miss Piggy of the mining set).  Some with their own huge airports; most with trains that take the ore up to "Headland" or into Newman for processing and all looking very prosperous. It's no wonder that WA wants to keep this to itself. It must be very lucrative for them. We were twice signaled to get off the road on the way up here. The first time was to make way for two huge mining trucks on the back of low loaders but with wheels removed. The second time were two more trucks, but this time with their wheels still on and overhanging the low loader on each side. They only just fitted across the road so we had to get right off the road to let them pass. The second one was clipping the white marker posts on the side of the road as it went by. Thankfully, they were plastic with flexible bases or they would all have been gone by now.  

We arrived at Karijinni NP mid-afternoon under threatening skies. We have had rain on this trip but not enough to make everything turn to mud. Just enough to settle the dust and green up the countryside. More rain is forecast and we had a shower last night at dinnertime but today is bright and sunny and putting 8 to 10 amps into our batteries. With luck we won't need to start the generator today.  Our fridge is coping but it needs some work to insulate it better. When we get home I intend to take it out and modify it to make it more efficient, or otherwise buy a new fridge. I can feel the cool coming off the back of it and that’s not good...

Our time in Karijini has been well spent. We have seen most of the gorges and swum in most of the swimming holes so we are quite chuffed with ourselves. They have a rating on all their walks and we have managed to do most of the Class 4 walks with only the class 6 ones that stumped us. If we had been fitter we might have tackled them too but there is quite a bit of scrambling to do and in a couple of them we needed to swim through some of the gorges. Class 4, 5 and 6 are for experienced bush walkers only so we managed well for our ages. We found the ladders the easiest to negotiate and the uneven steps and ledges the hardest. Some steps were flat rocks cemented in at all angles and at all heights and going down was the hardest. ,

It’s a great place for the young because of the difficulty of the walks but there were many our age that we saw on the trails. We have driven over 350-km in the park alone so it’s a big place to get around and see everything. The Gorges are really quite spectacular and appear out of the plains as if by magic. You can be driving along through a valley and come to a low section which is the entrance to a huge gorge. The colours are spectacular with the ochre red rocks like tiles all stacked up on one another. Huge plates of rock have fallen into the valley floors and lie scattered on the gorge walls and floors. Signs warning of falling rocks are everywhere: we wondered just haw many people have had close calls.

There has been rain all around us and we have been watching it with concern. Flash floods are common in the gorges as the land around them acts as a giant catchment funneling a small amount of rain into a huge torrent in the narrow gorges. Signs warn to evacuate the gorges at the first sign of rain but we were lucky. It rained quite heavily on the way back from the Weano Gorge but we were just ahead of it in the car and avoided the mud. We had one scare on the way home along a rough section of road when there was a huge screeching from the back wheels. I thought we’d shredded a tyre as the road was atrocious, but it turned out to be a stone caught up in the rear disc brake. Reversing seemed to clear it and no further problems have occurred since.

We went in to Hamersley Gorge yesterday, a round trip of over 200-km from our camp but I was a little disappointed. The walk was a short one and it led down to a muddy pool but the rock formations were spectacular. This is a section that has been bent and folded by volcanic activity millions of years ago and the rocks have fantastic folds in them like waves. A drive through a smaller section of Hamersley Gorge was interesting: it’s a one lane road through so you’re required to call up using the CB radio on channel 40 and warn of your progress through. "Landcruiser northbound in Hamersley Gorge" is the usual call and if you suddenly hear someone else going southbound then you look for one of the small passing bays to pull into. From the new car park you can hear all the calls on the radio.

We are sitting in the shade of the awning relaxing and contemplating the packing up that needs to be done. I have had the generator going today to get back a bit in the batteries. I’m frustrated with the 12-volt equipment: nothing seems to do what it should do. We have been running the generator for a while today but it's only putting in a maximum of 8- to 10-amps.  My gauge said we were down to 67% and I’d have assumed we would be putting in much more than that!  It’s the same for each of the power sources be it solar or the DC-to-DC charger, so maybe the batteries are not down as far as the gauge indicates. Voltage is my only indicator at the moment and it has been down to 12.5-volts: that would indicate about 70%. Who knows? It’s a bit of a black art this 12-volts stuff!

It’s time to start getting ready for dinner. We are changing sheets ready for a wash tomorrow. The fridge has been defrosted so that's one less task in Tom Price. We just need to wash and shop then top up with fuel and water.  Emptying the toilet canister is also a fun job for me tomorrow but we should have a little time to visit the info centre and get our permits for traveling the mine road alongside the railway. We are off up to Millstream Chichester National Park on Tuesday, a trip of about 250-km of dirt road!  Everything will be covered in a fine layer of the reddest dust you can imagine. It’s fine too, so it seems to penetrate even the best of seals. We will cover the bed in the van and try to keep it dust-free but it seeps in to everything.  We received an email from Ape range to say the campsites we had booked had been washed away in recent bad weather so they have re-booked is at a campsite a km up the road. We hope it’s as good and also hope they remembered that we have two sites booked!  A phone call tomorrow to them will sort it out we hope.  

As usual we hope everything is well with you all and that you are healthy and fit. Thanks for the emails and replies. It’s nice to hear what’s going on back home. Coffs Harbour seems to be having its share of rain: that seems to be usual when we go away! Thanks for the pics, Chris, and for posting our mail. Nice to hear you are on the improve Les, and great to read the travel log from Allison and Tom. I hope you had a good Mothers’ Day, Mum and it was great to see the pics Maureen sent of you with my card. Glad to hear you’re making up for lost time, Garry and Marg. We hope to catch up when we get back. Don't work too hard, Dick and thanks for the email, Jenny. The pictures came out well Cammo: of the Japan Trip, I can't imagine sleeping in one of those little booths!

Happy 1st birthday to Paddy Smith for next Thursday and also a happy birthday to you, Don on the 14th. Thanks for your good wishes.  A happy birthday to you too, Glen and we will call as soon as we get mobile phone reception. That must be all, I hope.  

Love to you all, Kerry and Susan.  

⁽¹⁾ “A road train, roadtrain or land train is a trucking concept used in remote areas of Argentina, Australia, Mexico, the United States, and Canada to move freight efficiently. The term "road train" is most often used in Australia. In the United States the terms "triples", "turnpike doubles" and "Rocky Mountain doubles" are commonly used for longer combination vehicles (LCVs). A road train consists of a relatively conventional tractor unit, but instead of pulling one trailer or semi-trailer, a road train pulls two or more of them.” [Wikipedia]

May 18 2014: Karijini National Park to Exmouth, Western Australia. “Exmouth is a town on the tip of the North West Cape in Western Australia. The town is located 1,270-km north of the state capital Perth and 3,366-km southwest of Darwin.”] (Wikipedia).

Greetings All: I promise this email will be shorter than the last. It will have to be because Telstra has just pinched my last downloads from my prepaid sim that I bought in Whyalla: 2.42 gigabytes disappeared in half an hour; but will they listen?  Not Telstra. I am still trying to sort out the mess from last November and getting nowhere.  It’s so frustrating having to start all over again each time we try to call someone to get it sorted. I won't go into it now or I’ll have a minor coronary. Suffice to say we have not received an accurate bill since November 2013 and are no closer to getting it sorted.

We are in Exmouth and about to collect Geoff and Denise from the plane tomorrow morning at 07.20 and head out to Cape Range. We’ve spent our last few days doing, laundry, shopping and provisioning, getting our spare tyre fixed following a puncture and generally preparing for the stay in the National Park. I have also been wiping the dust from the parts of the van that we need to touch or access. There’s no washing of vans or cars here due to permanent water restrictions (despite the deluges they’ve had here in the past month).  

We have had some atrocious and fantastic dirt roads on the trip up to Millstream NP and across to Pannawonica and the van and car are filled with red dust.  We took the private road from Tom Price alongside the railway owned by Rio Tinto after getting our permits at the information centre.  That road was fantastic and wound its way alongside the railway tracks until we were about 40-km from Millstream. Then the lousy road started. That's where we did the tyre and had to change the rear off-side on the car right on the road as there was no way to get off. The dust from passing trucks and cars was horrendous and stuck to our sweat as we toiled in the heat. A stone went right through the tread of the tyre and my efforts to repair it when we got to Millstream were fruitless. Puncture repair kits are meant for small nail holes not ragged slits caused by sharp stones.  

Millstream is one of those places we were glad we went to but would not bother to go to again. It's quite different to Karijini but the spectacular scenery is scattered and long distances had to be traveled on the lousy dirt roads to see it. The pools are few and far between but were lovely to soak in once we got there. Python pool was starting to grow green algae but the country around it is striking and almost appeared to be from a different world: large mountain peaks sticking up from the flat plains and the red of the rocks contrasting with the spinifex grass.

The campsites were well laid out and typical of national parks but they had a plague of tiny ants building mounds all over the camp surface.  If one stood more than a few seconds in the one place the ants swarmed all over your feet. It was hard to find a place to put the chairs and table and we daren't put anything on the ground for any length of time. By the time we left they had swarmed up the guy ropes on the annex and were making their way into the van.  I had to broom them off the annex before I rolled it up!  Millstream has a great little camp kitchen with gas BBQ and cook top plus a gas hot water system.  Unfortunately it was not working when we were there but we did use the BBQ to cook a great meal of bacon and eggs on the last night. It’s a nice park and when the ants are dealt with will be a great place to stay.  They have the Red Dog Festival there in a week or so and things will need to be ready for that.

When we were leaving the road was being re-graded, but unfortunately, not soon enough. The road from Millstream to Pannawonica started OK but ended up a shocker and we limped into Pannawonica after bouncing our way over washouts and lumps and bumps at very slow speeds.  No busted tyres though so we breathed a sigh of relief when we got into town. The rain has been brutal on the roads around here and there are still large pools of water alongside the road and in the floodways. The mining roads are well maintained but the public roads suffer from a lack of funds to pay for the graders.

We overnighted at a roadside camp between Barradale and the Burkett Road. It was full of vans as people were heading up north away from Perth and the colder weather. Few vans were heading south which pleased us, but it reminded us that the balmy 30˚ days were drawing to an end.  

We drove past a wrecked Jayco Sterling all smashed up on the side of the road. It had been clipped by a road train and then went across the road into the path of another road train. The 70-years old couple escaped with scratches: that was miraculous but the van was totaled and still lies in crush bits beside the road. It only happened a few days before we came past so it served as a gentle reminder to be careful on these roads.  

We skirted around yet another heavy downpour on the way into Exmouth and arrived to flooded causeways and washed out roads. The damage in Exmouth is incredible with a whole section of the main road in town washed away. Eight cars were wrecked but no loss of life, thankfully. We are anxious to see the damage to the National Park as we’ve heard lots of stories from the locals. Damaged boat ramps and the National Parks staff have set up in town because the parks information centre was damaged and had to close. The reef still survives though, so we look forward to enjoying the run of fine weather they are having for the next week.  

We collect Geoff and Denise early tomorrow and then stock up with drink and some last minute food then hopefully swim, snorkel, and fish for the next four days!  It’s bedtime now so I’ll end this and send it using my iPhone’s data. There’s no coverage in the national park for a quiet few days.  As always we hope all is well back home and that you are all fit and healthy. Much love. Kerry and Susan.

MEANWHILE, AT EARTHRISE IN THE MERRY MONTH OF MAY 2014

I slide open the lounge room door and stand outside on the deck. The day is bright and sunny and the Great Outside feels warmer than the cool interior of the house. Although autumn should now be pressing winter, recent daytime temperatures have been in the mid twenties. I lean over the timber handrail to see directly into the flowering African Tulip Tree, its leaves both bright green and dark green against the tree’s orange flowers: it all looks so summery. When I gaze lower at Big Lawn there are soft black tree shadows and longer than usual grass that’s close to unkempt (or more politely, wild) and I see from the corner of my eye that the weeds on the stony beach across the river are brown and gray, so I’m sure that it’s properly autumn here, yet when I refocus to the crowded air not far from my nose, small winged insects are apparently as busy as they’ve been all summer. When I move in closer thinking to perhaps mow later, or to weed and to replant a few items like the white tibouchina, I see signs suggesting spring: uncovered seeds sprouting, new grass coming up, the last of the otherwise flood-buried dahlias (now reduced to The Last Mrs Rees) cheerfully blooming: new growth everywhere because it’s warm enough. And not forgetting that I’ve also enjoyed the first winter fires in the slow combustion heater. Winter is literally mere days away now. Australian Diary Readers might be surprised to learn that in this area (Darkwood, Thora, Bellingen) bare white cedar trees have, this month, put forth full covers of New Green Leaves! The white cedar trees have been duped into responding as though it were SPRING! Is that odd, or what? Is the weather now extreme, or is what I experience as weather merely an aspect of climate changing and is that changing in extreme ways?

Which reminds me that there were contrasting images in two entirely different TV programs I happened to see whilst surfing channels: the insignificant reefs or islands that China and her neighbours are presently quarrelling over are vertically challenged, being close to sea level, but some now look like mini versions of resorts or lavish playgrounds that also are very close to sea level. Elsewhere, polar ice is melting on a huge scale: the current melt will add something like six feet or 2-m to the ocean’s level. In other words those tiny islands in the China Sea will vanish beneath the waves: similarly, many other partly inhabited reefs and islands will sooner than later be submerged. Australia is unlikely ever to resemble the very mountainous Switzerland, but mightn’t our politicians be wise to begin focusing on resettlement if only because Australia presently has much unused space. I may be overreacting because this relatively small corner of Earthrise, where the house is located, is so flood prone. The February 2013 floods reached halfway up my front steps. Today the river will not flood, but there are times when that probability changes dramatically. I’m writing this now scarcely 8-m above river level: the serpentine Bellinger is very capable of rising to where I sit in front of the computer and to go even higher. Thus I’m today clear of the potential torrent by about 8-m. Dare I predict that the thousands of Australians owning waterfront properties (some Sydneysiders for example) will necessarily have to pack everything up and move to higher ground, sooner rather than later? 

All of which brings me to the last week of May and much closer to the onset of cold weather: our autumnal Indian summer is almost at an end. There have now been more days exceeding a maximum daytime temperature of 22˚ in New South Wales than have ever been previously recorded (since records began in 1859). That certainly seems extreme to me.

Extreme or not, being outside, rather than indoors is always a pleasure. The leaves of four liquidambar trees that I planted more than 25 years ago are brilliantly turning, most to shades of yellow. These colours will last only for a few days, the leaves falling day by day. Standing beneath one of these days at lunchtime is like standing in a an unusual room, one that has a high ceiling, and the space between level ground and the ceiling’s top is a lively mix of changing colour. I think of some of the Impressionist paintings that I used to see long ago in France: Pissarro comes to mind, and Alfred Sisley, Georges Seurat and Paul Signac and others too, of course. The leaves of my trees are like good art, unforgettably beautiful these days: they bring to mind Impressionism and Pointillism and the best pictures by the best painters. 

On a related matter, birds visiting the gardens (unless they live here without my having noticed their residence) have become more prominent because I’ve been working outside so frequently this month. Today crows are significant: they rarely land here and their distinctive voices are always a surprise: what brings them here today? They invariably keep their distance and immediately fly off when I arrive in the garden. Why so shy, I wonder? Their loud cries are both complaining and sorrowful. Being big and powerful looking, why do they so determinedly avoid humans? A quite different bird, the grey shrike thrush (bigger than many of the local birds but not nearly as big as a crow) is always a welcome visitor. The ‘usual’ shrike thrush announces his (‘his,’ I think) arrival by singing lyrically whilst hopping about on the riverside deck (the thrush usually is hunting spiders for dietary variation, it seems, that live in the weatherboard nooks and crannies). Yesterday however, the songster was doing a related gig close to where I was top dressing and raking the lawn and where Pete had chain-sawed the rampant old bauhinias. The thrush was fossicking bouncingly (and singing) in the rotting flood debris and loam that had buried one of the oldest stone-surround gardens, the one with the flood-battered West Indian Lime tree (that first stone surround garden was named Ariadne, as I recall) and pretty much where we had parked and tied one of the original caravans in 1984 (…’those were the days, my friend: we thought they’d never end…’) and was doing very well feeding on dispossessed insects. I imagined that the bird recognised me: it sang, it hopped, it ingested without being troubled by my being so close by. A bigger kookaburra, somewhat nervous like the crows, or perhaps simply being circumspect, flew up from the same area (I see the kookaburra every day now, there being so much food in that area) but the bird seemed unable to tolerate me being on the ground at close range. I later found, whilst raking, a tiny black snake in the debris; it was only 200-mm or so long and had a distinctive white collar. It may have been small but it got up and was ready to do battle with me, not once, but a dozen times: possibly its ire had been conditioned by the search and destroy mission of the kookaburra? And later, when I was sitting resting on the belvedere I saw another familiar (I decided) but unlikely pair of birds some distance away downstream: a fastidiously slow-stepping heron in the shallows ‘together’ with a hassling cormorant in the adjacent but slightly deeper water. It was as though the cormorant was being either playful or slightly malicious: both birds are fishers and though the heron moves slowly and strikes swiftly when it has a target, the cormorant moves fast either by diving adroitly from the torrent, or by diving from above the water. Both birds strike their fishy targets, each differently. As competitors for the same food, the cormorant will easily queer the pitch of the big, slow, stalking heron; the heron’s stealth does little to upset the cormorant’s hunting other than by its being in the same hunting area. I imagine the cormorant has more fun on the river than does the heron. Might cormorants in the Bellinger River intentionally practice schadenfreude (‘malicious delight’), I wonder?           

CREATIVE WRITING

May 19 2014. I’m happy to record that I spent most of this past weekend outside in the garden working at outside gardening Stuff. There are times when I sit outside especially to read; times in which to think about The Next Step; times for sitting and pausing or drinking tea, or as I’ve been remembering most recently, celebrating my 1,020^th birth month (aka ‘my birthday’) with a glass or two of champagne; and there are times, too, when writing and editing and thinking and all the rest of the Inner Life Stuff, is best replaced by simply sitting and seeing. Sitting and seeing leaves falling, is one of my best ways to progress writing when not writing. For those not in the know: if you exit the place where you usually most seriously write (perhaps inside a crowded house or apartment space dominated by The Computer, a maze of wires and cables, by Books, by Notes to Yourself scrawled on the Backs of Envelopes), you may not always succeed in furthering your writing and editing by purposefully thinking of the words to be written once you return inside. Sitting and seeing whilst outside, works refreshingly well when that perspective isn’t burdened. I hasten to add that this process works well for me: I wouldn’t dare prescribe this for you, dear Reader (and I’m betting that if you’re reading these words at all, you’re almost certainly doing so somewhere Inside).  Progressing my writing by sitting outside and not writing while, instead, seeing leaves falling, is pain-free.

The Sydney Writers’ Festival concluded on May 25 and an edited extract of Irish author, Emma Donoghue’s closing address, was published in The Sydney Morning Herald (May 26 2014). The extract was titled “Advice to authors: readers have no idea what they want until you give it to them.” A lead to Ms Donaghue’s story was this unidentified epigraph: If you plan to be a successful author, give readers what they want. Giving readers what they want is of course an absurd directive because (as Emma Donoghue immediately points out) such a project is futile: we simply don’t know what readers want. Emma has also indicated that, “Writers who hit the big time with works of startling originality could have no way of knowing they would succeed” and ”Besides, you really can’t ‘plan’ to be a successful writer of literary fiction. It’s more like falling in love or mental illness than a normal business. So pursue the muse obsessively, or not at all. Get big or go home.”

An interior monologue:

GOOD TO GO!

Don Diespecker

Headline: LONER CELEBRATES OWN WAY! I can have fun with that one; I should do, anyway. Write it all down later, not right now. Now my head’s full heart’s full, breathing’s normal here again now at home in the garden blessedly here on the riverbank at last the official part of the day laid to rest. Here at home the king parrots might also be celebrating something, stopping by high in the flooded gums’ canopies high above the house noisily. As usual, usual is good. So the day has come and now is leaving: the tumult’s over and all of that the consequence of two pieces of paper, two processed parts of some poor trees once were growing and alive somewhere is all that paper is nowadays. Those two pieces of paper may yet be seen as my parole. Here I am now on May 1 2014. And come to think of it I’m not the only one. Now I’m remembering that old Pilgrim’s Rest primary school photo. The first I can remember now is Leonard Franck on May 3 was it? Then Leonard Frankish May 6 then it was maybe Richard Scott around the 10^th of May? And there was Elizabeth my grandmother on the 11^th and also Kerry on that day and then me and then Jannelle on the 19^th. Come to think of it Deirdre was the only one of us, the families of Elizabeth and Rudolph’s five sons, who knew Elizabeth 1867-1928 and Sis was 1921 to 1994, so long ago now and it’s always personal and therefore special to each one of us, always. Only two of us now from the 1920s though we’re continuing vertically we’re also slowing: Rik and I both from 1929 so we missed our grandmother by only a year, a single year. And what do the king parrots have to say about that? Odd they usually zip unerringly through the high trees’ crowns by the house at breakneck speed to get home to the nests up the nearby creek, possibly because home is in the subtropical rainforest creek, a place that lifts the parrot’s soul to canopy height or beyond I imagine while we mere humans that can’t yet fly and are soulful from different stances. Perhaps these parrots stop here because they like the garden those open views to the river between big trees the garden’s place on the riverbank. From here I see the slender white trunks and their shadowgraphs of other trees and branches and then the waving green crowns against the still bright blue sky. Nice. I wonder: do king parrots see the shadow-graphed tree trunks as I do? They’ve noticed something (not me I don’t think). The old window frames upstairs now shining white too and Pete’s started to restore frames on the other side of that area where there’s blue tape so the white and blue takes me directly away again momentarily to Greece, to the Islands and all the white houses by the bright blue sea and I think of Lawrence Durrell. Was looking recently for the name of that film made where he died in Languedoc the village or town maybe was Sommières where there was a journo visiting accompanied by a cameraman, a cinematographer, I mean. A good film that. Remembering as I walk here on the lawn carpeted with fallen orange flowers from the African tulip tree, remembering too that time when Pam and I made Rhodes our HQ that far-off winter in the Dodecanese and soon thereafter meeting the grand Mufti I think he was who told us the cottage close by was Villa Cleobolus where Durl, it sounded like, wrote his book and we couldn’t think who he meant till we began searching in London much later to find Bitter Lemons in the bookshops and eventually there was Reflections on a Marine Venus and that was the one about Rhodes. Rhodes, the Colossus, the Palace of the Knights, the Suleiman Mosque, more history than could be grasped and what a fine place to stroll and to take pictures and attend a party or two at the British Consulate and visiting the orange groves and Lindos the temple by the ocean. Lindos seems almost surreal now. Wait! Stop! Nostalgia time! Fast forward to the now reality! That was close and enough emotion for one day. It was a while ago too wasn’t it but can remember the date precisely December 18 1954 Pam and I in the Hotel Acropol in Rhodes and the posh hotel up on the hillside was the Hotel des Rose, probably all changed now even the seafood restaurants on Mandraki Harbour and so much more though not bad for an old guy remembering except that I don’t need to be doing that because I’m merely showing off to myself and after all here we are in the everlasting present now where there’s no past and no future, only native blue and white violets growing wild on my lawn the gifts of the flooding river. From 1954 to now is a jump of an eye-blink 60 years. Hi-ho and shortly with good fortune smiling there’ll be my 85^th birthday or 1,020 months! How about that? Now there’s a strong breeze blowing up in the canopy surging this way and that, the parrots moving on, green and red and the yellow leaves flying: good for my washing drying upstairs on the outside deck and dangerous wandering beneath deadwood branches as is my habit. Stay in the present whilst it blows old son and enjoy seeing the trees doing their thing, white cedars letting the spent leaves go and most of those a whirling yellow or gold if you prefer, the leaves flying every which way before turning down to the green grass. Golden leaves on my green garden chairs too. Standing still here for a few more seconds I feel the leaves touching me on the way down: I get 50 points for every leaf that strokes me going delicately past. Somebody I remember now asked what’s the best thing about living here and I always make something up because there’s so much to tell but I said: seeing. Seeing, that ’s the thing, not looking or watching, but seeing. Sitting or standing but sitting’s easier on the neck: to sit and see yellow or golden if you prefer leaves falling in all manner of ways is an education.  And oh such a day! And here I am in the riverside garden at last at the end of it all and still doing the special driving test in my head, no longer around Bellingen’s tree-lined streets and the CBD except that there’s still a part of me out there bypassing or colliding with other heady items significant including that imaged me clutching my numbered ticket from the machine and tottering speedily to the counter where the official checks carefully everything on the two forms my two bits of paper as I watch breathlessly her stapling both the Medical Report and the Driving/Riding Assessment and she looks up and smiles and says ‘All good to go!’ and I know, know absolutely, definitely that despite my great and significant age this month I may continue driving myself in my own car for a while longer, two more years praise the Lord without being deprived on my licence and I can again see myself slipping my seat belt on and patting myself on the back joyfully knowing I’m still Good To Go! 

A memoir of birds:

THE TWO ROBINS

Peter Thompson

It was once said that if one encounters a robin in a dream or in the real world, we might remind ourselves of the old saying, the early bird gets the worm and we might need to try harder or to be more alert in order to get a jump on the competition. A robin’s appearance could foretell a new beginning, or advise us to try something new.

Dee and I live on the upper Bellinger River on the edge of and looking into the rain-forested slopes of the Bellinger River National Park, a perfect location for observing and getting to know many dozens of local and migratory species of birds and other wildlife. From White-breasted Sea-eagles to the Red-eared Firetail Finches and everything in between, even the rarely seen but often heard Superb Lyrebird capable of mimicking many other birdcalls as well as it's own refrain that varies much in local dialect. The voice of the Lyrebird has been described as magnificent, mellow and far carrying: Dee once counted 22 different calls in a row from one bird. 

Several weeks ago Dee spotted a new bird in our garden, on the edge of the forest, once seen before many years ago in a National Park to the north, a beautiful Rose Robin. After keenly observing this new arrival in a state of awe, Dee was anxious to share her new sighting with me, her partner in bird watching for more than 30 years.  Out came our original copy of A Field Guide to the Birds of Australia (Graham Pizzey, 1983 edition).

And there it was in all its beautiful, rose pink glory! “What a blessing,” Dee remarked. This robin is considerably smaller than the more common Yellow Robin found in this area; typically, it’s about100-mm long.  The male has a territorial song, "dick, dick-did-it-deer-deer," with something of the quality of a ball bearing bouncing on a hard surface, the last two notes pitched higher. 

Fast forward now to one week later: whilst visiting our son James in Newcastle, 400-km to the south, conversation turned to the subject of our latest bird sightings. It was James's turn to share his recent encounter with a new bird.  James produced a beautiful picture of a Rose Robin that he'd rescued from certain death and a beautiful coincidence was revealed. James has spent most of his 22 years living in rural and forested locations and has a keen sense of and appreciation for all wildlife. On route to his weekend place of employment in the Hunter Valley and on a bend in the road he noticed a little bird with a beautiful rose-pink breast sitting apparently stunned by a close encounter with a vehicle.

James stopped his car and rescued the small bird from certain death by the next passing motorist or perhaps even by a predator of the more natural kind. Once in the car the little bird willingly sat on James's hand: it gave James the opportunity to take a photograph with his smart phone, a picture he could show us at some later date.  

After arriving at the vineyard where he works, James put the little bird into a box, most likely a wine box, so as to keep it quiet and calm, together with some water. Later that morning James looked in on his rescued friend now appearing as much more sprightly. It was then that our rose-colored robin took one last look at it's rescuer and flew off, hopefully to reunite with his flock.

As it turned out both first bird sightings of our Rose Robins were on the same day in two different locations (400-km apart) by two members of the same family. One might refer to this experience as a coincidence; or might it have been a "message from nature"?

Peter Thompson is a keen observer of birdlife particularly in the Bellinger River Valley.

Petede61@yahoo.com.au

May 31 2014. And now it’s raining. The rain began lightly last evening following a cloudy day with a few sunny breaks and temperatures in the low twenties. It rained lightly though the night, off and on. Sigh. Some sun would be nice and a little more warmth too. Farewell lovely mild autumn at Earthrise in 2014..

Thank you to my guest writers, Kerry Smith, Susan Adams, and Peter Thompson. My appended list of eBooks, below, is much the same as it was last month.

Best wishes from Don.

Final word from Emma Donoghue: A final reason why you shouldn’t focus on giving readers what they seem to be asking for is that they don’t know what they want—or rather, they don’t want it until you give it to them. A book passes through a reader’s hands in a matter of hours, days or weeks, yes, but it reshapes them a little, just like a stream widens the banks as it passes, deposits an erratic pebble or two, and leaves its alluvial trace.

MY EBOOKS

For those readers who browse for eBooks, here again are the first of the online books. These digital books can be found on Amazon/Kindle sites. E.g., see

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Don+Diespecker  

(1) Finding Drina is a light-hearted sequel to my two print novels (not available as eBooks) published in one volume as The Agreement and it’s sequel, Lourenço Marques. Finding Drina is written in three parts and in three different styles that also are intended homage pieces (to GG Marquez, Ernest Hemingway and Lawrence Durrell); thus this little book is also meta-fiction (novella, about 30-k words).    

(2) The Earthrise Visits is an Australian long story set at Earthrise (about 20-k words): an old psychologist meets a young literary ghost from the 1920s (his girlfriend meets her too) before a second old literary ghost, unaware of his spectral state, arrives unexpectedly.  

(3) Farewelling Luis Silva is an Australian dystopian long story partly set in Australia, Portugal and France (about 23-k words). A sniper meets an Australian Prime Minister, an old lover and a celebrity journalist; three of them meet a terrorist in Lisbon where there is a bloody assassination.

(4) The Selati Line is an early 20^th century Transvaal train story, road story, flying story, a caper and love story sequel to The Agreement and Lourenço Marques, lightly written and containing some magical realism. A scene-stealing child prodigy keeps the characters in order (novel, about 150-k words).   

(5) The Summer River is a dystopian novel (about 70-k words) set at Earthrise. A General, the déjà vu sniper, the Australian Prime Minister and the celebrity journalist witness the murder of a guerrilla who had also been an Australian university student; they discuss how best to write an appropriate book about ‘foreign invasions’ (novel, about 70-k words).  

(6) The Annotated “Elizabeth.” I examine and offer likely explanations as to why my uncle published a mixed prose and verse novel in which his mother is the principal protagonist and I suggest why the book Elizabeth (published by Dick Diespecker in 1950) is a novel and not a biography, memoir or history (non-fiction, about 24-k words).   

(7) The Overview is a short Australian novel set at Earthrise (about 32.5-k words) and is also a sequel to The Summer River.   

(8) Scribbles from Earthrise, is an anthology of selected essays and caprice written at Earthrise (about 32-k words). Topics are: family and friends, history of the Earthrise house, the river, the forest, stream of consciousness writing and the Earthrise dogs.   

(9) Here and There is a selection of Home and Away essays (about 39-k words). (‘Away’ includes Cowichan (Vancouver Island), 1937 (my cabin-boy year), The Embassy Ball (Iran), At Brindavan (meeting Sai Baba in India). ‘Home’ essays are set at Earthrise and include as topics: the Bellinger River and floods, plus some light-hearted caprices.

(10) The Agreement is a novel set in Mozambique and Natal during December 1899 and the Second Anglo-Boer War: an espionage yarn written around the historical Secret Anglo Portuguese Agreement. Louis Dorman and his brother, Jules, feature together with Drina de Camoens who helps draft the Agreement for the Portuguese Government. British Intelligence Officers, Boer spies and the Portuguese Secret Police socialize at the Estrela Café (about 62-k words). 

(11) Lourenço Marques is the sequel to The Agreement. Mozambique in September 1910. The Estrela café-bar is much frequented and now provides music: Elvira Tomes returns to LM from Portugal and is troubled by an old ghost; Drina and her companion return with a new member of the family; Louis faints. Joshua becomes a marimba player. Ruth Lerner, an American journalist plans to film a fiesta and hundreds visit from the Transvaal. Drina plays piano for music lovers and plans the removal of an old business associate (novel: about 75-k words).

(12) The Midge Toccata, a caprice about talking insects (inspired by Lewis Carroll’s Alice stories). This book has a splendid new cover designed by my cousin, Katie Diespecker (fiction, caprice, about 26-k words).

(13) Happiness is a short novel set at Earthrise. The ‘narrator’ is again the very elderly ex-ATA flier who unexpectedly meets and rescues a bridge engineer requiring urgent hospitalisation: she gets him safely to hospital in his own plane. She also ‘imagines’ an extension to her own story, one about a small family living partly in the forest and on the riverbank: the theme is happiness. Principal protagonist is a 13-years old schoolgirl who seems a prodigy: she befriends a wounded Army officer and encourages his plans. Her parents are a university teacher and a retired concert pianist. The family pets can’t resist being scene-stealers in this happy family (novel, about 65-k words).

(14) The Special Intelligence Officer is part family history as well as a military history and describes the roles of my late grandfather in the Guerrilla War (1901-1902). The Guerrilla War was the last phase of the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The title of the book is taken from Cape newspapers of the time: Capt Rudolph Diespecker was a District Commandant and his responsibilities included intelligence gathering that led to the capture, trial and execution of a Boer Commandant who was wrongly framed as a ‘Cape rebel,’ when he was legally a POW (Gideon Scheepers was never a Cape rebel, having been born in the Transvaal (the South African Republic,) one of the two Boer Republics (non-fiction, about 33-k words).

(15) The Letters From Earthrise, an anthology of my columns and other essays and articles written for the Australian Gestalt Journal between 1997 and 2005 (fiction and some non-fiction, about 70-k words).

(16) The Darkwood is a dystopian novel set here in the not too distant future (about 80-k words). Earthrise is again central to other themes.