THE EARTHRISE DIARY (July 2014)
Don Diespecker
© Text Don Diespecker
2014
With surgical precision he pulled out the details he needed from the
Gazetteer’s descriptions, rephrased them so they expressed the point of view of
a teenaged stowaway instead of an academic or bureaucrat, and worked them into
his own text. It was magic – or, more accurately, it was the magic trick
explained. This, I suddenly understood, was how you achieved historical
verisimilitude, how you looked at the landscape of the past from its own
perspective. If your main source didn't give you the information you needed,
you took it from someone else.
In “Work in Progress. The
Latest From The Front Lines Of Literature presented by Farrar, Straus and
Giroux,” (originally published in
Biographile, July 22 2014)
The sun was in
our eyes. We sat and sweated. The speedometer needle went up to 110-kph and
stayed there. Sometimes Mercedes taxis passed u, packed with Abadan and Ahwaz
merchants. But nothing else passed us. We dozed off in the heat and glare. Only
Hossein was as alert as ever. The road shone like black water. Sometimes we
slowed near a road gang re-oiling the road and once we skidded for 2-km through
the black, sticky syrup of ‘fresh’ crude oil.
Don Diespecker: From Khorramabad to Abadan on the Gulf. In London John (June 1957)
CHARIVARI
Some Historical Moments
July 31 2014. It seems I’m running out of time at a time when I
want to leave a few more stories behind so that they might later be seen as
literary footprints of some kind. Anybody who writes every day does so because
he or she feels bound to. While, Yes, writing is a choice it often feels like a
duty or a commitment: we can’t avoid writing
because we’re hopelessly addicted to writing.
It’s been
one of those months, still is. Some
days have been better than others, of course. Winter is still here yet its sunny
for most of the time, sunny and quite dry (at lunchtime it was 23-24˚). The river at my doorstep is low and is
getting lower and although that’s nothing new it’s still painful to behold.
This month has also been a time of winter ailments that have included the
dreaded flu (or should I write, perhaps, a
new strain of the dreaded flu that seems determined to lay me low). I
hasten to add that I’m not the only one being laid low: this particular flu has
not been deterred by an otherwise effective vaccine, the one that this March
was kindly injected into my arm. Having gained entry this flu seems very
reluctant to Go Away. Having been laid low for about a month I’m considerably
more aware of Time’s Winged Chariot, of my mortality. What with one thing and another and with time passing at
warp speed, your otherwise benign diarist has been struggling rather more than
somewhat: I’m running out of Good Writing Time. I also want to let you know
that The Diary is not the only writing I’m devoted to: I’m currently
self-publishing other of my writings: non-fiction essays, military history, a
critique or two, as well as fiction and caprice. I’ve added another three
anthologies this month to my growing ‘list’ (see below). Because my writings are important to me
I tend to pound the computer keys for long hours and to spend not quite
sufficient time doing housework, garden work and all-important exercise, viz., I’ve
not been doing enough physical work intended to ensure a reasonable degree of
fitness. I’ve therefore been making choices not entirely suitable for my happy
and healthy progress and have now to make better choices. All things considered, the first new
choice is that The Earthrise Diary will continue but its continuation will
depend on smarter decisions that enable posting (i.e., publication) at irregular intervals rather than ‘on the
last day of each calendar month.’ I’ll continue to send out a friendly email
advisory each time a Diary is posted and I’ll continue encouraging all Diary Readers to themselves write
creatively (if only because Time Passes). –I especially want to encourage
members of our greater family to write what they will, those who are still
impressively young and bursting with
energy (I even suspect that there’s not only a gene for writing, but that our
family have it in spades)!.
Having
made the decision to post future Diaries irregularly the relief is palpable: I already
feel better. To explain that: I once was inclined toward journalism and
although I don’t mind deadlines or even urgency I very much mind pressure,
particularly when I’m the guy self-applying it. I need to be responsible for
all my choices, especially the sillier ones. I enjoy doing writing of all kinds and I especially LOVE writing fiction:
once the stories’ early images begin to slip into my awareness I would rather
sit and write at speed than attempt anything else: eating, drinking or
sleeping. Getting elements of that first draft onto the page or on to the
screen is pure excitement. Although I always have several ‘stories’ or
narratives going at much the same time (and that means I can also move
conveniently from one to another and enjoy varied motivations) some of the
novel writing is necessarily interrupted by that almost essential duty to switch to a Diary deadline or to
write regular emails. It’s easy to follow so intensely an idea, a notion, a
partial scene or some likely words of dialogue, all jostling in one’s mind that
excitement may abruptly become stress, as in self-imposed stress. It’s perfectly easy, as Sharon Snir once
reminded me, that some writers (Morris West, as I recall) actually die in mid
sentence, expiring in the act of writing a story. See? Excitement is good, up
to a point; over excitement is neurotic. Balance is all.
There!
Enough already: the more I wax lyrical about literary deaths, the less time I
allow myself to progress the protagonist, Martha, in a new sequel novel (and
not forgetting the other characters)! And for that kind of reason, I’m about to
surrender space to Peter Thompson: his Outback memoir has reminded me, as it
has reminded him, of past times whilst driving vehicles of one kind or
another.
You may
recently have read or have heard that The Australian newspaper has
figuratively been celebrating its 50-th birthday. I heard and saw some of the
‘festivities’ on TV and was reminded that I was, in a way, connected to that
occasion in the 1960s: having offered to review any South African books that
the fledgling Australian might require to be reviewed I duly received two from
the new newspaper and then sent my reviews to, I think, the Books Editor who
was pleased to publish them both. These are the references:
(1965)
Review of: A King Of Butchery. The Australian,
February 17.
(1965)
Review of: Death in the African Bush. The Australian, February 17.
I had
thought that the two reviews were published in the first edition of the
newspaper, or perhaps in the first of the weekend editions. Perhaps after 50
years my memory has deceived me? Or, to put that somewhat differently, perhaps
there are not too many writers, journalists or reviewers who can make a similar
claim (the sound of one hand clapping is Yours Truly patting himself on the
back). In those distant times I ‘wrote’ on my Olivetti Lettera 22 typewriter. It was a reliable machine: I even carried
that typewriter with my luggage (inside a backpack) in the early 1950s when Pam
and I were traveling in Italy, Yugoslavia and Greece, i.e., more than 60 years
ago. I no longer have the old Olivetti. I wonder what became of it? And I
wonder what became of my father’s old Royal typewriter, that lightweight more
or less portable machine that I learned to use in the 1930s?
There’s
an ABC TV program titled ‘For the love of cars’ that usually doesn’t interest
me until by chance I happened on one recently that reminded me strongly of a
particular machine: the Series 1 Land Rover. It was eerie watching what was an
effective short documentary: the Series 1 Land Rover was stripped, cleaned and
re-built. While watching this re-assembling of a most effective 4-WD (and
Readers may read the historical details Online) I remembered my many journeys
in those reliable vehicles: in Iran in 1956-7. On one occasion near Isfahan our
driver showed us what the machine could do: he intentionally drove the loaded
vehicle (including two of us as passengers) directly
up a very steep mountain slope that entirely lacked a road of any kind.
Trying to sit up straight enough whilst hopefully avoiding being rolled over on
a very steep slope and then battered to death was hair-raising. I remember too
that after returning to London the Managing Director, on reading my article
(see extract above), asked if it was true that the Land Rover could travel
consistently at 110-kph on an oil road I was happy to say, ‘Yes, absolutely it
can!’
Here’s
another 1957 excerpt: “We hurried across the plains and into more mountains. We
slithered around the mountain bends through an ever-present blanket of dust. We
would look down and beyond the dust to the next bend and watch for trucks. We
passed roaring diesels, some of them lurching under 20-ton loads of construction
steel: all of them heading up the road to Tehran from the Gulf. Their drivers
were always red-eyed with fatigue. Sometimes we swerved through the dust-fog to
avoid a broken-down truck that had slumped in the middle of a bend with a
smashed axle or broken springs. And we saw accidents. There was the tanker that
had missed a bend and lay battered in the river and a 20-ton Mack that had
overturned at another bend. It was a road of disaster. Drivers had to get to
the capital as soon as possible and they often drove day and night. It was a
chance they were all willing to take.” (DD: 1957).
Those of
us who were contracted to Iran by our parent company in London weren’t supposed
to drive Company vehicles in Iran: an accident, we were told, would involve us
all in endless litigation. There was an Iranian driver for every Land Rover. I
sometimes drove the Land Rover in the desert where there were no roads and
nobody to become involved in an accident (other than myself). All of that was
57 years ago. Those were Grand Days!
Motoring
enthusiasts are invited to read Peter Thompson’s essay that he’s set in the
Australian Outback (below).
CREATIVE WRITING
THE DESERT THONG
(An Outback Memoir)
Peter Thompson
Petrichor (/ˈpɛtrɨkɔər/): is the scent of rain on dry earth, or the scent of dust after rain (Wikipedia).
[See Footnote]
We were totally present
and completely at one with the moment!
What else could we do
other than to absorb the magnificent Outback sunset and to soak it in while we
settled around our campfire? There were a few spots of rain. Perhaps it
was just passing. It was also December and the start of the wet season Up
North. It was really far too late in the year for us to be heading that way.
Yet the more we chatted around our fire the more we realized we were
encouraging ourselves to start such a trip. And that was how we made our decision. I remember looking up
at the darkening sky to the west and wondering what might be in store for us
the next morning when we headed west into the little used, remote tracks of the
Great Victoria Desert. There were a few small settlements, a remote weather
station and the so-called Track heading west that was often referred to as The
Gunbarrel.
During the six months
we'd worked at Ayers Rock (better known these days as Uluru), we had met very
few people who had driven across the desert from the west: most had all driven
4-WDs. Then one day, while working at the Chalet Motel bar, I met some people
who had just driven across from Western Australia (WA) in a 2-WD vehicle. They
informed me that the dry sandy river crossings were their biggest challenge and
that’s what got us both thinking: if they
could do it perhaps we could do it, too…
Significant clouds had
been forming on the western horizon, more than we'd seen in many months and
they were dark clouds. There had been
a little rain at The Rock in the preceding weeks but mostly the tracks were dry
now. Would it be a dry dusty and sandy journey, as we had been preparing for or
would we be facing the exact opposite: wet, muddy and slippery conditions? We
wanted an adventure and we weren't shy of taking on a new challenge. It seemed
that if we accepted the challenge we started such a journey it was going to be
a challenge indeed.
After dinner we relaxed
into the evening, cups of billy tea in hand. While we sat by our small but
warming fire the desert sounds seemed to get louder and louder, the stars
brighter and brighter but there were also dark patches in the night sky. Then
without notice and by the light of the fire, something at the corner of my eye
caught my attention, a flash of shiny slithering brown moving rapidly towards
us. "Quick! Up with the legs,” I yelled to Dee, as a huge brown snake moved
directly beneath our raised and thong-ed feet, past the fire and out into the
darkness. Thongs (aka flip-flops) are standard dress code in the Northern Territory.
I remember wondering, could that have been a King Brown, one of our most
dangerous and deadly snakes? Most likely it was hunting a small animal of some
kind and not at all interested in us. Perhaps that was also a warning for us,
one indicating that we take care extra care!
In folklore a venomous
snake appearing in a dream or even in real life might symbolize strengths such
as assertiveness, wisdom, healing power, or even magical abilities; or it might
represent weaknesses: such as destructiveness, vindictiveness and
cold-heartedness. Perhaps the snake might be a totem animal for one of us? If
so what might that mean? After all we'd already had many snake encounters, some
of them close calls and we were to have many more in the future.
We'd had a most
eventful afternoon: more precisely, we’d had a slight brush with death! Just
before we headed west to the Olgas (Kata Tjuta) to find an overnight campsite
we had decided to pull into the Uluru Motel for a bag of ice and as we had only
to drive a few hundred meters we decided to leave our fridge running on LPG
gas. Unfortunately as we pulled into the dusty car park KABOOM! There was a big
explosion inside our van. It very nearly sent us through the windscreen,
setting the inside rear of the van on fire. Dee jumped out even before I could
pull up. She reefed open the sliding door and grabbed the fire extinguisher.
The fire was extinguished rapidly and damage was only minor with some scorching
here and there, and we were considerably shaken. Evidently there had been a
small leak at the gas connection. The lesson was learned. DO NOT DRIVE with a
gas fridge running on gas!
Petrichor—the smell of
the earth after rain!
It was sunrise at 'Kata
Tjuta' when we awoke to the smell of fresh rain on the earth. The grey skies
now stretched westward as far as we could see and had also darkened a little
more. It had been a hot, humid night camping in the van and there had been a few
drops of overnight rain. Would or should we head west today or should we wait
for drier conditions? We' had earlier estimated that under normal dry
conditions it should take us about four days to drive the 1,200-km of dirt and
gavel tracks, but with wet and muddy conditions we might not get very far at
all or, even worse, we might get stuck in some remote location for days and
compelled to wait for help.
The plan was to head
southwest across one of Australia's most remote desert regions into Western
Australia to Kalgoorlie and then turn south and head for the ocean at
Esperance. Then we would head up to Perth and spend Christmas with friends.
We'd enjoyed a
beautiful six months experiencing all that the dessert life had to offer. This
was something that we'd wanted to do for a long time. Having spent most of our
lives living in the city we could only imagine what life might have been like
for the indigenous peoples of this region, or even for the early pioneers. We had
been fortunate enough to gain employment at one of the four small hotel/motels
then situated just a few hundred meters away from The Rock. Ayers Rock Chalet
was a rustic collection of corrugated iron sheds known affectionately as 'The
Tin Hilton'.
For almost six months
we called The Chalet home. With its iron sheds spread over several acres of
desert it had a certain outback charm all it's own and we felt ourselves to be part
of an authentic outback settlement. In fact there were four small
hotels/motels, a store, a police station, a campground, National Parks
buildings as well as various other sheds and utilities and an airstrip and they
were all spread about the base of 'The Rock'. The locals (approximately150
people) were the workers and staffs of the various establishments and the
indigenous population. Tourist numbers during the peak winter season, including
campers, were about 250 each night.
The Ayers Rock Settlement,
as it was then known, had grown in an unplanned manner: there had not been
taken into account the sensitive nature of the desert environment. Evidently
The Chalet had existed since the 1960s when Kerri Williams and Barry Bucholtz
had driven a Land Rover across The Great Victorian desert from WA. Theirs had
been a photographic expedition and they had apparently stopped to take a photo
when their overheated vehicle caught fire and was completely destroyed. With
nothing but their cameras in hand they could only watch and take photos of the
burning vehicle, including all of their gear and supplies going up in smoke.
Kerri and Barry had no choice but to walk the remaining distance to 'The Rock'
where, some time later, they were to open the first 'comfortable' accommodation
for tourists. The 'Burning Land Rover' photos had pride of place in the
Managers Office at the Chalet.
The opening for
business of The Chalet was followed by that of other new establishments, The
Red Sands, The Uluru, and the Inland motels, all of which serviced the tourist
industry through to the late 1980s, when Yulara (which means Howling and Dingoes)
was opened to the public.
In August 1983 and
during our time at the Settlement, the Inland Motel made international news
when Douglas Crabbe, a disgruntled truck driver, drove his 25-tonnes Road Train
through the front door of the crowded motel bar, killing five people and
injuring dozens of others. Dee and I, having considered visiting the Inland Bar
that evening, had fortunately decided to have an early night; and when we woke
next morning the tragic event was still unfolding. The driver, Douglas Crabbe,
was found wandering in the dessert some 30-km away near the construction camp
of 'Yulara'. I had actually spoken with Douglas Crabbe earlier that night at The
Chalet bar and had helped him unload his Road Train on other occasions. He
seemed like a regular truckie to me. I was later called as a witness in the murder
trial in Alice Springs. Douglas Crabbe is still serving five life sentences in
WA.
It happened that a
friend at the time, a young woman from England, had disappeared at
approximately the same time: she eventually returned to The Rock. She described
herself as one of the lucky ones. Trapped under the truck, with the engine
still running and the vehicle still in gear, covered by dust, surrounded by the
screaming and dead bodies, her foot had been caught beneath one of the wheels.
She had been in hospital recuperating for many weeks without our having known.
We had at the time assumed that she had left The Rock and had been in Alice
Springs at the time.
Six months earlier, prior
to gaining employment at The Chalet, we had set up our camp at the Ayres Rock
campground, the very same campground that the ten months old baby Azaria
Chamberlain had been taken from by a tent by a dingo in 1982. This was news
that had attracted interest across the globe. The campground had even been
fenced to keep the dingoes out when we were there. Our view of 'The Rock' only
200-m from the campground was truly awesome, to say the least: it towered 345-m
over us and measured 9-km around the base.
To say that The Rock
dominates the surrounding landscape would be an enormous understatement. One
just can't stop looking at it day and night with its constantly changing colors
and shadows of dark and light. Thinking of that now (32-years later) starts a
shiver down my spine and brings a big smile to my face. Nowadays the view from a
campground 18-km away at Yulara is just not the same experience.
It was 6:30 am at our
campsite behind the Olga's. After we had packed and eaten breakfast we started
on our journey west under the dark sky. Along that red sandy track there were a
few spots of rain and I was again reminded of that beautiful Greek word again,
petrichor. We decided to keep going. Perhaps we might drive through and so get
beyond the inclement weather but the rain got steadier and steadier. Soon, small
puddles became large puddles as we negotiated our way around them or we'd look
for the shallowest sections occasionally plunging into a deep unseen hole, one
thong-ed foot flat on the floor as we slipped and slid our way through each
section.
About an hour into our
Gunbarrel Dessert adventure we came across a stranded vehicle and a group
of locals heading across to The Rock: they'd run out of fuel. Sadly there was
little we could do to help because we were carrying petrol and the other
travelers needed diesel. Because we were unable to assist we offered to call
for help at the next settlement, Docker River. Meanwhile the rain kept coming
and the puddles became bigger and deeper. Before too long there was little or
no gravel to be seen at all; there was just muddy water. This flooded road situation was mainly the
consequence of the machine-graded tracks always being lower than the
surrounding landscape and their being compacted by traffic: naturally rainwater
will always find it's way to the lowest and most compacted point.
Our not knowing how
deep these flooded sections of the road were meant that one us would be obliged
to walk through each section checking depth and checking for firmness beneath
the water. The obvious choice of foot-ware for muddy conditions was of course
good old Aussie rubber thongs. Dee decided that she would rather walk the deeper
water sections rather than driving and thus avoid the risk of getting the rig
stuck in the mud. Driving had now become difficult: we frequently were losing
traction and sliding our way for most of the time. Keeping the vehicle pointing
in one direction was increasingly difficult. At times we slid sideways; most of
the water covering the road was 300- to 400-mm deep with some sections being 500-mm
or more. Because our vehicle was two-wheel drive only we needed to be very careful
in negotiating each section and as well, ensuring that the vehicle’s (engine)
air intake was above water level.
We arrived at Docker River
(Kaltukatjara) 204-km from Uluru (population 365). We set about finding some
fuel. Usually these little settlements have a general store with a diesel
bowser only and seldom one for petrol (i.e., gasoline). Petrol was becoming
scarce in some areas and sadly had even been banned in some communities because
of petrol sniffing problems. We were lucky on this occasion and were able to
top up our fuel supply. The town was basically a scattering of dwellings.
Abandoned car bodies and wrecks were strewn about. Some individuals wandered
about. And there was of course the General Store and combined Post Office, as
well as an airstrip (where many months earlier, while we were still living at The
Rock, Dee was lucky enough to have hitched a ride with the Docker River bread
run flight: the aircraft that flew bread from The Rock to Docker where it was
rushed by locals. The locals had seemed to appear from nowhere before quickly disappearing
again. Dee had boasted of a most spectacular flight over the Olgas, the bush
pilot flying sideways and a wing tip pointing toward the ground when flying
between the domes of the Olgas).
We paid remote area prices
for our fuel and then became somewhat lost. We drove around the settlement
several times before stopping to ask directions to the Giles Meteorological Station.
An elderly aboriginal gentleman drew a map in the wet red soil and pointed the
way. Trusting our elderly helper’s advice we headed off in the opposite
direction to the one we’d first chosen, skirting very large muddy sections
before heading essentially west again.
The track soon
narrowed; it was much narrower than the track leading into Docker and it seemed
to branch in all directions, At times it was difficult to tell which track was
the main one. A mistake there could mean the difference between our reaching
the next fuel stop or not. There were no GPS devices in those days, merely
rough and inaccurate maps that had usually been made from surveys many years
before. Constant checking of the compass confirmed that we were basically
heading west.
With ongoing rain and
no sign of a break in the weather we had few options other than to push on. It
was now midday, wet, hot and sticky. We had successfully negotiated another
long deep section of track with Dee walking through the deeper parts feeling
her way through the muddy water with her thong-ed feet. We were planning the
next section when we noticed a vehicle about 30-m off the track in among mulga
trees. There appeared to be a couple of people trying to dig and winch their
vehicle out. We decided to see what we could do to help. The vehicle was an old
1966 Valiant station wagon; it was bogged in deep mud. Rick and Hyker were young
German tourists and like us aged in the twenties. They had decided to skirt
around the next long deep section of flooded road and in doing so had become
hopelessly bogged, right up to the floorboards. They had managed to maneuver
their Valiant station wagon into this precarious situation now some 30-m off
the main track.
The boys had a small
hand winch and one of those small folding spades usually sold at army disposal
stores. They weren't making much headway and they'd been at it for hours. If we
were to try a towing we ran the risk of ending up just like the German lads. So
we assisted in winching, pushing and finding brush to place in front of the
driving wheels.
After an hour or so of
this painfully slow process only a few meters had been gained. I remember thinking
that we might have to abandon the old Valiant and could we fit a couple of
German tourists into our van? At least the rain was now easing and as luck
would have it we could hear the sound of an approaching vehicle coming from the
west, and this was a good sign that road conditions were at least trafficable
between here and Giles.
A brand new 4-WD filled
with locals pulled up and they were keen to try out their new electric winch.
They made good progress with the winching but were also getting themselves deep
into mud as well. It became necessary to chain their vehicle to a tree so that
it remained stable whilst winching. Two hours of winching, pulling and back breaking
pushing through the greasy mud, and we all the while wearing only thongs as our
preferred foot-ware. Our Germans friends were finally on 'solid' road again, flooded solid road... There was huge
gratitude to our incredibly generous indigenous friends and we bade them
farewell. When I think back now, everyone present was either barefoot or was wearing
thongs.
The next section
appeared very long and deep and even though the day was still young we decided
to stop early and wait for things to dry up a bit. We set up camp in a small, fairly
dry spot off the edge opposite to where we had spent all those recent hours.
After a while a 4-WD came through from the west; they stopped and we compared
our observations of road conditions in opposite directions. They recommended that
we continue because it might be quite some time before these flooded roads were
likely to dry.
So we changed our plan and off we all went feeling a little more
confident with our new German friends in their low-slung vehicle and us sitting
comfortably in the lofty heights of our Toyota van.
We decided to have the
Germans boys go first and we would follow just in case they needed assistance,
but this was a bad call because when they stalled in deep water we were stuck
behind and unable to help and likely to ourselves stall. Many hours of walking (by
Dee) and sliding and towing the Germans passed. Then when we thought we were
all doing well, the boys just stopped. They
were in about 400-mm of muddy water. We were in front at this point and managed
to slide through to a shallow part 300-mm deep, stop and then waded back to the
stranded Valiant. The rear of the vehicle appeared to be sitting very low in
the water, lower than usual. We joined all our combined towropes together
to make one long towrope. Maneuvering our van into position we gave it all we
had, spinning wheels and digging ourselves into the mud, but we couldn't budge
them. We asked had they had the car in gear or out of gear? Then we checked the
sunken rear of the old girl and discovered the cause of the problem: the Valiant
had a flat tyre and yes it was completely under muddy water. We set up the
jack, under the water, on a BBQ hotplate that the boys just happened to have
handy and we started on the wheel nuts, but none of us could budge any of them.
Dee suggested we try
turning the nuts in the opposite direction. We guys all pooh-poohed her idea,
but tried it anyway and were all dumbfounded because it worked! Dee now with a
grin as big as a split watermelon, resisted the temptation to say, "I told
you so..." We were able to complete the wheel/tyre change and get going
again.
Back in full swing
again with a deep section ahead, surprise, surprise, we saw a convoy
approaching from the rear. The Army who, we'd been warned might be out this way
were on desert maneuvers and just in time for a bit of 'mud play'. Dee, who was
wading through the muddy water was offered a lift to the other end, about 500-m
away, while I was slipping and sliding with the Germans. The Army waved us on
with big friendly smiles.
The rest of the
afternoon was spent passing or being passed by our uniformed friends. At times
they, with all their fancy 4-WDs and equipment, would be stuck in the mud, and
we would offer assistance and vice versa.
We were then 290-km
west of Uluru and just 40-km east of Giles, the sun was setting and it was time
to find a campsite, cook up a well-earned meal and call it a day. That night we
all reflected on a most eventful day and were rewarded with a spectacular lightning
show all around us together with the dingoes howling through the night. They
didn't keep us awake for long.
The next morning with
the rain holding off we arrived at the Giles Meteorological Station 1,746-km
northeast of Perth in time to chat with our Army friends. Giles is manned by
four people and is considered a very important weather and climate observatory
located mid-continent: the only manned weather station covering the huge area
of 2,500,000 square kilometers.
From Giles road conditions
gradually improved and we climbed up to the Warburton Range. We stopped to
offer assistance to a stranded truck driver, very much bogged. He was waiting
on some heavy equipment that was coming out from Giles. We had a great run
through to our next camp 260-km west of Warburton. Next day we followed a
series of waterholes and came across a burned-out truck. There were few difficulties
through to Warburton, an aboriginal settlement (population, 474). Fuel and
supplies were purchased and we continued on toward Laverton (656-km) via Cosmo
Newberry (population, 51), then to Leanora (124-km) where we once again joined
the bitumen road that we hadn't seen for more than six months. We drove onward
to Leanora (124-km) and then Kalgoorlie (227-km), and finally, we changed
direction southward to the ocean!
Ah! Those ocean
breezes, sand, and off with those red-mud-stained thongs!
Footnote: Petrichor.
The term was coined in 1964 by two Australian researchers,
Bear and Thomas, for an article in the journal Nature. In the
article the authors describe how the smell derives from oil exuded by certain plants during dry periods
prior to its being absorbed
by clay-based soils and rocks. During rain the oil
is released into the air together with another compound, geosmin, a metabolic
by-product of certain actinobacteria
emitted by wet soil and producing the distinctive scent. Ozone may also be present
if there is lightning. In a follow-up paper, Bear and Thomas (1965) showed that
the oil retards seed germination and early plant growth. This would indicate
that the plants exude the oil in order to safeguard the seeds from germination
under duress (Wikipedia).
petede61@yahoo.com.au
Peter and Dee Thompson
spent six years when in their early Twenties traveling and working around
Australia and the world; they now live on the Upper Bellinger River where they
continue exploring at every opportunity.
DON’S EBOOKS
For those readers
who browse for eBooks, here again are descriptions of the first of the online
books: they 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 20th
century Transvaal train story, road story, flying story, a caper story and also
a 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 portrayed as 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
(1899). 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 an unexpected new member of the family; Louis faints.
Joshua becomes a marimba player. Ruth Lerner, an American journalist plans to
film a fiesta and hundreds of tourists 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, apparently 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) in Cape Colony. 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; 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 at Earthrise in the not too distant future (about 80-k
words). Earthrise is again central to other themes.
(17) Bellinger; Along
The River is an anthology of personal essays relative to my home and the
property, Earthrise, and the river at my doorstep (aspects and descriptions of
the river, including flooding) (nonfiction, about 28-k words)
(18) Reflecting:
an anthology of personal essays about the gardens, butterflies, a caprice, and
other motivating factors at my home, Earthrise: mostly non-fiction (20,300
words)
(19) Idling: is a
collection of personal essays about seeing; a military history essay; a
speculation about lawns; a working visit to Griffith University; periods of
enforced idleness as “Don’s Days Out” in Coffs Harbour (mostly non-fiction;
about 35,600 words).
Finally: Thank
you to my guest writer, Peter Thompson.
Best wishes to all the Diary Readers. From Don,
