HERE I GO AGAIN

HERE I GO AGAIN

I have completed the barista course at William Angliss TAFE, so I am now qualified to know why I make bad coffee. My car is serviced and I leave very early on Thursday morning to drive to Adelaide in time to make dinner with friends who go on holiday to NZ the next day. Then, on Friday the approach to the Nullarbor Plain crossing begins, taking in the longest coastal cliff lines in the world and enabling me to enter the far south of WA in early March.

What happens after that depends upon my Daemon and the winds of fortune but I will be generally tracking north with the Kimberley in the far NW as my ultimate destination, where I will walk, camp and possibly 4 wheel drive to see both the geophysical wonders of this ancient land and its early aboriginal rock art.

Why am I doing this?
I am continuing to pursue my doctorate inspired strategy of working more for love, working to put back and working less just to live.Many of my friends and readers of my GoingNorth2 blog have urged me to write more and so a main focus of the trip will be doing on the ground research (Perth in the 1920s and the Kimberley at that time and now) and seeking inspiration to complete two novels, one three quarters written and the other stalled after chapter one. One finishes in the Kimberley and the other is completely located there.

What will I do?
I will have all my camp gear aboard-big, longer-stay tent and swag for overnight stops,gas cooker and a mini Weber,table, chairs and my mountain bike and so I will be prepared for anything.Amazing what you can fit into a Honda Jazz. The first few days in WA will involve drifting up through the Kari forests and vineyard areas towards Perth.

Perth is not likely to hold me long, time enough for some historical research at the Battye library and from there I will go north, taking in the great mines that feed China and India’s economic miracles and bolster my superannuation coffers, on the way to the tropical north, Broome and the Kimberley.

So, here I go again. Should you be likely to cross my path-there is room and spare beds in my large tent, I cook a mean bush roast, there is always plenty of red wine and of course the coffee should be better.

See ya later or on the Songlines Road.

ADELAIDE IN A DAY

Uneventful first day out, driving the 800klms from Melbourne to Adelaide,if my Adelaide friend is right about the speed cameras, I may get one or more speeding ticket as I was unaware of being clocked on the final 200klms or so.Perhaps I will be on a fugitive run into the west.The countryside on the way across was fairly green in Victoria but dried out markedly in South Australia.Adelaide looked lovely-sunny and mild and about to go en-fete with the opening of their world famous arts festival.

Have had a delightfully luxurious night compared with where I am headed. Geoff is a leading business educator at Melbourne Business school and the Darden school in Virginia,USA.I have known him professionally for 20 years , he contributes to my Onesteel program and we have consulted to a number of organisations together and have become good, lasting friends.He and Mardi have a gorgeous federation house verging on to the grounds of St Peter's college.We dined at a very good Yakatori restaurant accompanied by their son who works at Dan Murphy's, when not studying Mandarin, and his visiting American girl friend.

ADELAIDE TO KIMBA 29 FEB 2008

GATEWAY TO THE OUTBACK
One has to run almost 300 klms north to the top of the Gulf before starting to go west. It was a much easier 400klm day than yesterday's dash.Went out through Adelaide's awful northern industrial wasteland-an aspect little known to the festival ravers of North Adelaide, but all too well remembered by me as I drove that way everyday in 2002 when working with the Michell company in Stirling.
Things start to pick up as one approaches Port Augusta(gateway to the outback)The foothills of the southern Flinders ranges march along beside the road and an accompanying trans continental freight train(or was it going to Darwin) with double decked shipping containers,made a fine contrast with the iron red cordillera alongside the tracks.


I had driven this road before on my way to Wilpena Pound in early 1999 under much less happy circumstances. It was 40c and as I had recently split with my wife,there were a few fractious phone calls along the way to settle the division of our assets.

Port Augusta hadn't changed much-one was immediately aware of an aboriginal presence such as one never encounters in Melbourne. Women and children were at most city centre street corners and extended family groups gathered under parkland trees. much as they do in Broome. It was cooler than last time but plagued with bush flies-one even accompanied me into the bank.

At a Coles supermarket I stocked up on unmentionably unhealthy canned food in case of emergencies in foodless locations.



The road west to Iron Knob was much more dramatic, with sweeping plains carpeted with salt bush which rucked up against iron stone outcrops. Iron Knob(Pop 200)was where BHP started the Australian steel industry and mine tours are still available



It was a ghost town on this Friday afternoon and in the deserted pub I only got service when a crawliing child howled for her parents (so much for my Santa Clause look) In conversation with the publican I gathered that the bowling and tennis clubs were the social hubs of the town and only available to those born there.Tourists and blow-ins not welcome.I asked him what he did, as well as running the far from busy pub. In response to which he sighed and said that keeping his cars going kept him flat out. Much Holden technical talk ensued, sufficient to glaze my eyes over. I looked at his worn-out wife, who had made me a toasted sandwich and who seemed to be doing all the bar restocking, said cheerio to the wild and unkempt child and left.



The road west is good and rolls up and down hills that afford great views across the barren bush.Cars and trucks coming east were never at less than half hour intervals and only one overtook me in 100+ Klms.

I had been advised to stop in Kimba(which claims to be the cross roads of Australia) and as road fatigue was setting in I gave up pushing on for three hours more to reach Ceduna.Dodging kangaroos at dusk is no fun and it's then the intimidating road trains come out to play in great numbers.

The smart town pub served excellent salt and pepper squid and I even entered the Lions club meat tray raffle-would have been pretty high steak by Perth if I had won.

The campsite ground was too hard for the swag's pegs and I had to pull up two wheelie bins to secure both ends, on a dusty dry windy night.Not had much rain here in a while.

SLEEPING WITH THE SOUTHERN CROSS

SLEEPING WITH THE SOUTHERN CROSS

All night and into the dawn, the Southern Cross star formation, a trusty guide to pioneer navigators, stood watch above my swag. It was comforting to look up at it through the insect screen before going to sleep and awaken to its steady gaze in the wee small hours of a Western Australian morning.

What scenes of human folly, triumph and tragedy it has seen. Early aboriginal nomads foraging the plains, Eyre losing his mate and himself striving almost unto death to establish the east-west route along the Great Australian Bight, he called the Nullarbor. Now it is largely the preserve of the lordly road trains and the lesser but increasing lines of grey nomads, proud in their spanking new Akubras, at the wheel of glossy four wheel drive monsters, motor homes or towing caravans and even the occasional car.

What could it make of a single, white, Honda bullet, dodging suicidal kangaroos and clean up teams of carrion crows, blistering west as though for its very life.
What might be the driver’s mission? Licence plates speak of where it has come from but where is its driver bound? To the stars it might readily seem no different from his forebears yet another, albeit 21st century, pioneer in search of a dream.

But yet there was something different about this latter day wanderer. He had found his dream and needed no guiding star for he was travelling his songlines road.


But still nice to sleep with the Southern Cross, just in case!

STREAKY BAY TO EUCLA (ACROSS INTO WA)-2 MARCH 2008

Set off in the dark for Ceduna-not a wise move as one is less alert so early and the last of the night road trains, festooned with their Christmas tree lights, sure were intimidating.As the light breaks the bush had a uniformly almost colourless grey look about it-like a zinc coated tableau.
Ceduna is just a bigger version of Streaky Bay and after a welcome truck stop breakfast I confronted the start of the real Nullarbor challenge.

Only 1053 Kilometres to go

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

I was soon distracted by the side road to the all but abandoned fishing village of Fowler's Bay, which turned out to be of surprising historical celebrity.
SO MANY EXPLORERS

The Dutch, Flinders and Eyre came by.Now there are just a few houses and a guest house.All is backed by sandhills of Arabian style and proportions. Very suitable for Foreign Legion movies.

Anybody seen Beau Geste?
IF THE ROAD DOESN'T GET YOU THEN THE WILDLIFE WILL


There were lots of wildlife warnings along the way, with good reason.The roadside was littered every few hundred metres by the night road trains toll of dead kangaroos.Missed a large one by about 50 metres and fortunately there was no companion animal following behind it. It's often the secondary one that gets you.I was surprised on two occasions to come upon wedge-tailed eagles squatting on kangaroo carcases surrounded by crows, all having a piece of the clean up action.I stopped and tried to creep up for a photo but the Eagles were too wary and canny to oblige and flew away as I crept up on them.

Whilst fairly featureless the landscape varied from treeless in places, to medium density bush in sandy soil and for a spell a ridge of sandy rock ran parallel to the road for about 50 Klms.

Covered about 700 Klms in the day and nobody overtook me.I was surprised by the number of people coming the other way who waved-must have been fellow Victorians because the farm truck types didn't.


A LONG AND LONELY ROAD


CROSSING THE BORDER

The quarantine check was more thorough than any I have encountered in Australia. I even had to surrender an unopened jar of honey. Well at least he didn't confiscate my nail scissors and Swiss army knife, like that hijab wearing security detail at Heathrow.Strange thing at the border was the fact that one didn't jump immediately to WA time-this only came into play a few hundred kilometres farther in. There is a sort of twilight zone between SA and WA time.

Stopped the night in a very hot and dusty camp site at Eucla-a very forgettable place.First encounter with WA police in the bar there. Big affable country boys of a rather pedantic disposition. No wonder when one reads signs like this about their responsibilities.
WIDE AWAKE IN WA

So what do they do? Tuck lonely travellers into cell bunks for the night. strange state this.
In SA on the way across, the road safety focus was intense. Instead of white crosses and individual shrines to road death victims,they erected black and red posts to indicate a fatality or serious injury.They really impact you, especially when you come upon a cluster meaning multiple death and mutilation.A large roadside poster showed a young man flying over the front seat of a car (No seat belt)about to collide, head first, with the female driver. The caption read-The last thing to enter her mind was her boy friend.The more conventional white crosses beside otherwise benign spots on the Nullarbor also served to remind me to stop and sleep at intervals.

EUCLA TO KALGOORLIE-3 MARCH 2008

NO DEVIANTS ALLOWED HERE
The sign said it all.It really felt as though one could lock the wheel and read a book. But you have to be careful of that strange feeling of wanting to drift into the path of rare oncoming vehicles which you can see coming from far away.
Up at 5:30am-wonderful crescent moon and super star display. Big drive today to get through the Nullarbor-800klms to kalgoorlie.

At an all night road house, the trucker's breakfast was welcome-the sausage component was even a decent bratwurst, unlike those dreadful Aussie beef snags that just cry out to be burnt on a barbie.It was as well I had brought my West coast eagles cap as this turned out to be an entrenched Eagles lair.The toilet sign intrigued. They usually say-keep door closed to stop insects getting in. This one added a caution about snakes!!Made one sit on the seat rather carefully and only after thorough reconnaissance.Ladies seemed to contemplate this caution with studied interest.

KALGOORLIE, LEGENDARY HEART OF THE GOLDEN WEST

After a very long hot day’s driving,I was glad to find a pitch on grass in a caravan park, in Boulder, sister city to kalgoorlie whose gold finds in the 1800s, as with the discoveries in Victoria’s Ballarat and Bendigo, secured the colony's economic future and influenced WA’s decision to grant the early enfranchisement of women and eventually opt for membership of the Commonwealth of Australia.

So I entered the city with high hopes which were satisfied ,at an architectural level, by the fine hotels and civic buildings of the gold rush period but somehow the existence of contemporary mining in the city seemed to have encouraged a lowering of social tone that did nothing for its image. I refer to the surprise of entering what I perceived to be a superb example of a goldfields pub only to find myself surrounded by a group of even dirtier old men, who were purving at the “skimpies”, barmaids whose attire left nothing to the imagination and who when they bent down (which they did frequently) revealed a profile likely to put even the reddest blooded man off his beer. I was called darling 5 times in the course of having one beer served and I must say I missed the gruff demeanour of some of the English barmen who recently served me pints of real ale.

On the other hand there was something amusing about the brothels in Hay street with their stable doors-which offer tours for tourists at $20 a session (no sampling of the wares)-and which were rammed, recently, by a disturbed female motorist.

HAY STREET BROTHEL

YOU'RE BETTER OFF IN VIC
My advice for tourists seeking to see the best of Australian gold fields history is go to Victoria where the visual, presentational and story telling is handled with style and wonderful interactive opportunities for adults and kids.

KALGOORLIE TO ESPERANCE-4 MARCH 2008

Rose at 5am. Everywhere on the dark streets, men in reflector working clothing were either going to or returning from their shifts at the mine.You can appreciate the high demand for labour when you see female window cleaning contractors working early on the main street shops.Traffic is almost exclusively of the tray backed four wheel drive style and despite so many men on the streets it was hard to get a cooked breakfast before 7am.There was lots of pre-cooked take away food sitting in its congealing grease under warming lights but no sign of the Australian newspaper( a national paper printed in Perth) until after 9am.

I had been persuaded by a friend to go to see the theatre in the town hall and killed time, before it opened, on a park bench in the suburbs until I realised its proximity to a child care centre might make me a suspect person if I loitered there too long.

Again, the theatre was a bit tawdry and not like the one in Ballarat where I saw a performance of the fortunes of Richard Mahoney.At least I got some necessary banking done and international mail away.
THE SEA! THE SEA!

It was almost 500, hot and boring kilometres to Esperance where I would again be reunited with the sea. I had expected road trains to disappear after the Norseman junction with the Eyre Highway but not so, they were even harder to overtake on this narrower road and raised alarm when the third trailer started to drift to the right just as one was shaping up to overtake.A little welcome rain fell to settle the dust and alleviate the heat and it was a relief to enter Esperance and once more be by the sea.

At this moment-several days later at my former brother-in-law's house in Perth, some of his former Vietnam war comrades arrived, armed with a copious selection of red wines and ready to do damage to a spiced lamb roast(cajun powder and Rosemary) that was sizzling away in the Weber and they determined,unanimously, that I had to cease blogging for the night.As last night had not been the best in my life, I was happy to surrender and join in. To be continued to-morrow.

It was a very good night, both lamb and wine excellent and as only veteran diggers could dare to, they determined to critique and advise me on my love life.Fortunately I can't remember much of it and although the wine didn't react badly on me, because of its quality, I had a pretty sleepless night and deternined to return to the journey over to the west and get my blog up to date.

The town was nothing to write home about-a port city not unlike Portland in Victoria but similarly blessed with great scenery outside it-super white sand beaches and interesting rock formations.

Everything seemed to shut early in town and so having secured a tent spot for $20 I went in search of a chinese meal, only to find that even they were shut.
So,I fell back on the pub where,at least,I got NZ mussels in a chilli sauce and watched Australia lose to India.A tough looking character with tatoos like wallpaper on his upper torso, engaged me in bantering conversation, as Aussie blokes are wont to do with strangers.He became even more pally when he heard I was from Victoria as he was from Mordialloc (a Melbourne bayside suburb)

A much cooler night and my snow-line sleeping bag was welcome with swag's outer flap down.Cloudy night-no Southern cross to be seen.

ESPERANCE TO ALBANY-5MARCH 2008

Hopefully the last long haul drive before Perth.As I had to wait until 7am to get the deposit back on my gate key, I used the time to paddle in the shallows along the fine white city beach.

More road trains and more small towns with fairly unhelpful, unfriendly natives and only take away food at service stations.Not even a MacCafe with decent coffee and clean toilets.In many such stopping points they just point you to a water boiler and the nescafe-"make it yourself mate!"

More drizzle but not enough to clean the car and windscreen.At last a suggestion of some more interesting scenery after the endless tracts of mallee in what is known as The Great Southern.

At first glance albany lived up to its reputation-being the first point of European settlement in WA.A fine Anglican church, whose sign announcing mass suggested a "spikey" leaning, and cafes with outdoor settings-although the one I chose for lunch had a demented woman amongst the alfresco diners, determined to pick a verbal stoush with anyone game enough to take her on-somehow didn't think she was a Liberal voter.

ORIGINAL SETTLEMENT DWELLINGS FROM WATERFRONT OVERPASS.
the library came good again as a source of coolness and email access-yet despite the govenment wealth in WA they charged $3 per half hour.Suddenly I decided to leave touring the town until the morrow and drove out about 50 klms to a national park campsite at Cheney's Beach.

CHENEY'S BEACH
What a wise choice-after a long walk on an isolated surf beach, I realised that I needed to slow down and let the residual sludge of the rat babble in my head, accumulated through hours of fast solo driving, sink to the bottom of my head's tank.Barely had I settled to write my blog notes,when a local told me he was setting a trap for a wild cat.I suggested that to put it near my swag would scare it away. To which he replied, displaying his country humour,"Don't like some pussie in the night?"He deserved and got the obvious retort from me-"The wilder the better!". Having spied my Victorian number plate either he decided discretion was the better part of valour or that male honours were even and as one does in Australia, we parted as "mates"

FRIENDLY LOCAL GOANNA
Then a much more welcome encounter with a young father and his kids as I was photographing a passing Goanna.

Just had to break from posting the blog, here in Perth, as Peter's( mine host)wife, Srey, has just fed us the most delectable Cambodian clear soup,rich in coriander and other spices for lunch.

He must have taken pity on a lone old man on the road-especially when he saw my swag and invited me to dinner with his family and friends as they had plenty of steak and onions to spare.His name is Kevin!-no relation I hope.

Drat those march flies-they really bite and I must have killed 40 whilst recording my day's adventures.Must get trousers on before mosquito squadrons arrive at dusk. Birds are squawking goodnight and settling down in all the surrounding trees.

LAST LANDFALL FOR THE ANZACS-6 MARCH 2008

LAST LANDFALL FOR THE ANZACS
Walked along the bay where, in Ataturk channel, the ships carrying the first AIF gathered to form into a convoy and pick up warship escorts to take them to Egypt and eventually Gallipoli.I was so pleased and moved to be at the starting point of the journey of so many men, for whom this was their last sight of Australia, having stood on the beach where they landed at Anzac cove, in Turkey in November, last year.

SEAWAY THROUGH WHICH ANZACS DEPARTED

ALBANY'S NEWLY DEVELOPING WATERFRONT
Albany grows on you as you discover more and more little pockets. I liked the streets and old buildings that look down on the waterfront.Relaxed in a cafe bookshop and bought Ben Okri's Starbook to post to a friend who is reviewing her future.

OLD PIONEER AND MODERN APARTMENT HOUSING
Middleton beach wasvery impressive and nearby I found a whacky guest house with internet access.At Emu point was an old English style tea shop and in the milky waters of the sheltered beaches, ladies of a certain age paddled and wallowed to their hearts content.
It began to rain and I finished a perfect day in a micro-brewery where, in addition to fine beer, they served good Greek food.Albany was the best experience so far

ALBANY TO MARGARET RIVER

I left early and on the way to town sprang two kangaroos which crossed the road, in line astern, some 30 metres ahead of me-so no collision.
I was beginning to feel road weary now and wanting to get the driving done with. Pete and Srey had dcided not to join me at Parry's beach and it was my intention to settle at Pemberton for a couple of nights.
But then the weather took a hand-it became much cooler and began to rain with a will. It held off sufficiently for me to traverse the tree top walk way in the valley of the Giants.Good, but not as impressive as its Tasmanian rival.

A GIANT INDEED

HOW ARE THE MIGHTY FALLEN
Then it really began to rain. Pemberton was misty, wet and cool-no place to throw down a swag. Fortunately I had been before and climbed the look out tree and all that and so I set off for Nannup, where Rae's family vineyard is and managed to visit the winery that bottles their wine and chat with the English owner whilst sampling his wares.Nannup looked quaint and could have been fun but it was very quiet and all the cafes were closed.It was not yet primed for the weekend visitors.
Margaret river on the other hand was crowded and brash and but for the late hour I could have preferred a better overnight stop. But at least the weather had improved offering late sunshine and a sunset.

MARGARET RIVER TO ROCKINGHAM-8 MARCH 2008

I got both the Australian and a 6:30 breakfast in Margaret River which somewhat compensated for its Gold Coast(the same sort of clientel) feel. The aim then was to get within an easy morning's drive of Perth and spend a couple of nights unwinding by the sea.
The day was perfect and I made stops in Bunbury and Busselton, the modernity of which surprised me compared with my last visit in the early 80s. Mandurah was to be the stopping point but I hadn't counted on their crab festival and the huge crowds blocking the streets and diverting traffic-so I made a last dash to find a camp spot near Point Peron which Rae had recommended as a beauty spot and fortunately talked my way into an RSL caravan park for two nights, on the water front, close to the Stirling naval base.
VIEW ACROSS BAY FROM RSL CAMP SITE

This was an inspired choice-the folks were friendly, intrigued with my swag and seeing me typing emails in the night, under the light on the barbecue awning, with the backdrop of twinkling chemical plant lights across the bay.
The beach front location allowed me to walk and wade from the camp along some surprisingly fine strands and food at the Rockingham foreshore restaurants was more than acceptable. This was a good way to prepare to enter the big city and my first major destination.
POINT PERON BEACHES



Really enjoyed arriving before parking meters had activated in Fremantle, which is by far Perth's best asset.Had breakfast at an Italian restaurant on the main drag. Food great but again service bizarre. Had to get my own coffee at a separate counter and whilst there a waitress cleared my table and threw my newspapers away. I was not best pleased and said so.
The entry to Perth was uneventful-sunny, bright and almost clinically clean, it hadn't changed since Sandra and I visited almost two years ago.I had read a Financial Review magazine article that spoke of its mining driven wealth but also revealed a dark underside of social deprivation and youth suicide-but no sign of this that day.

MADE IT TO PERTH-MONDAY 10TH MARCH 2008
It was relatively easy to get to Peter's place at Padbury,via the coastal highway, despite intending to use the more direct freeway but I fell victim to Perth's errant traffic and street signage.I was greeted most warmly by Peter and his wife Srey and we immediately began to relieve the car of its unreasonable burden. As Peter is by profession an aircraft engineer-he soon fixed my loose bike brake cable and so removed one excuse for avoiding exercise.

So ended the great Nullarbor trek-some 5000 kilometres in eleven days.

BUMMING AROUND IN PERTH-14 MARCH 2008

VIEW FROM KINGS PARK

have been in Perth a few days now. Made initial reconnaisance visit to the Battye library where WA historical records are held and dipped lightly into the microfiched editions of the 1920s in Western Australian, a hard job as it's layout resembled the pictureless original London Times layout.There were no obvious themes and items were confined to columns rather than newspaper sections and supplements, as in today's papers. I reacquainted my self with my novel after a year away from it and to my eye it still read well-so the juices of enthusiasm and inspiration were stirring again.

THEY REMEMBER THEIR ANZACS HERE TOO
In other respects I felt a bit listless and briefly "down" must have been the release and stopping after such a long and intense solo car trip.

My bike would help.I managed one run to the coast against a head wind from the sea in the early morning and puffing like a steam engine uphill on the way back.At first my stomach seemd to get in the way of my pumping knees and balance and gear changing needed caution, but the familiar rythm soon came back.

Took a car drive down the coast towards Perth where at 20klms were Floriat and City beaches. This made for a 40k round trip-about the most I dared cycle in that state of unfitness,perhaps even too far.But I intended to tackle it early on either Saturday or Sunday morning, even though rain was forecast.Pete had a bath so my seized up buttocks would get a good remedial soaking before rigor set in.

SATURDAY IN WANNEROO WITH THE MAFIA-15 MARCH 2008

BARRY AND PETE NEAR GRAEME'S HOUSE

After two challenging nights of red wine drinking with former 9th Squadron mates, Peter and Graeme I was starting to settle into a Perth rhythm. Graeme was particularly interesting in that ,like me, he excelled in geography, English lit and history at school, graduated from the University of WA,then counter-intuitively served as an aircraft mechanic with the RAAF in Vietnam and retired a few years ago from a teaching post in state schools. Clearly a man who could operate satisfactorily in both hemispheres of his brain. This wasborne out by the diverse and sparkling nature of our red wine-fuelled post-prandial debates.

SREY, PETER, AND GRAEME

It was another sparkling, cooler but sunny morning in Perth and I was seduced from my intention to cycle to the sea by an invitation to go to Wanneroo fruit and vegetable market to get the week’s supplies. Although nothing like Prahran and Victoria markets ( my regular Melbourne haunts) it had a nice community feel and was very quiet for 9am on a Saturday morning.We settled for coffee in a cafe where it took more than 20 minutes to serve what William Angliss TAFE certainly would not have certified as coffee.

Gradually others began to join us some, Anglo Australian,others Cambodian and even the next generation of Eurasian grand kids.When I discovered that the third male of the party was an ex Vietnam vet from 9th squadron. I realised that I was gradually getting to know the airforce's Vietnam veterans mafia of Perth. It seemed there were 20 former squadron mates around the Perth suburbs-almost all with some personal issues emanating from their service in that unpopular and debilitating war.It was good to see how comradely and caring they were towards each other.Peter and Graeme used to work on aircraft that dropped agent orange and had undiluted doses contact their skin.

What really confirmed the special situation I was being initiated into was when I wondered when we would go to buy the produce, poor deluded bachelor that I am. Suddenly the women appeared having shopped for everything.I began to realise these guys had something going here that I was missing out on.

It transpired that Graeme was engaged on fitting out a former squadron helicopter which they had used in supporting the SAS in Vietnam and he was to take me into Swanbourne barracks, Australian SAS HQ,on Wednesday to see their museum, the helicopter and he suggested that I couldget to see the "killing room" where they trained with live ammunition to break hostage sieges without killing the innocent captives and their comrades.This was a special privilege and might provide valuable contacts and information to background the thriller I have set in the Kimberley, which revolves around a special forces action.
VIEW FROM GRAEME'S HOUSE

After this we went to see Graeme's house, meet his wife and then go to Jindaloop for an excellent curry Laksa lunch.On the way back I had a first hand guided tour of the new housing developments spreading out to the north of Perth-amazing how quickly sandy wastes get turned into green garden suburbs with amazing houses.The bars and cafes at the waterside marinas were like private clubs and there sure was some wealth tied up in boats.
LOCAL MARINA

Setting is much like Queensland/Northern NSW canal estates, but much quieter and perhaps a little less brash( but not much)

ON ME BIKE-SORRENTO TO CITY BEACH-16 MARCH 2008

I set off at 8am suitably suncreamed and with a full water bottle, to try my longest bicycle jaunt so far-40klm round trip from Padbury via Sorrento marina to City beach and back.The combined road and footpath cycling took me up and down dale and gave a perfect view of beach after beach, very little patronised considering the quality of the day, and it a Sunday.At Scarborough beach the state surf life saving championship was in full swing and I made it to City beach (20k) in 55 minutes and celebrated with a good breakfast at an Italian style restaurant above Floriat Beach.

Very noticeable preponderance of families at these beaches and all around were picnic groups and even the parked bicycles had devices for carrying surf boards.
The heat was a bit of a problem returning after 1pm, I could feel the radiation off the concrete paths.Despite this I was pleased to feel my legs starting to remember the strength I had worked into them at the Richmond gym, almost 12 months ago when at my peak I could do squats shouldering over 100 kilos and without going too embarrassingly low on the gear ratios, I was able to maintain a respectable uphill pace throughout and was back in Padbury in an hour.

I was perspiring so much on return that I dripped onto the kitchen floor and after Srey had offered me a noodle powered lunch to restore my depleted energies, a hot bath with salts was organised, in the hope that it would prevent my seizing up.
Post mortem would occur when I tried to get out of bed in the morning.

THE MILK OF HUMAN KINDNESS

Pete, Srey and I have just been to Bunnings and Spotlight-she to buy a zip fastner and other materials to repair and alter some of my garments and he to check out pieces of Jarrah for a chopping board he is to make for one of his airforce mates. As if this alone were not testimony enough to their generosity ( although I shall pay Srey)as Peter and I came through the pay point at Bunnings we heard the sad tale of a recently widowed lady ( her husband had died last week)whose lawn edge trimmer (made of Chinese steel)would not cut and which Bunnings could not sharpen.

In a flash,having ascertained she knew where Padbury was, he gave her his address told her to come and pick the trimmer up any time from this afternoon, and set off home with it.It is done and sitting by the door for her collection.A weapon that would serve Miss Marples and the homicidal villagers of Midsomer Murders fame.

If it's anything like as sharp as his kitchen knives (he keeps up to the mark with a diamond coated steel)she will have to watch her toes.Such is the spirit of my former brother in law and why people in the English village where my first boss (Howard-see Going north2 blog)lived with his wife Eileen,greeted with delight news of a visit by the Aussie fix it man and lined up with requested repairs to ancient garden gates etc.All of which he did for no recompense and with the skill and ingenuity of a man trained to get helicopters back in the air damn quickly, as his army mates out there were fighting the Viet Cong and he too was sometimes under fire.

Better stop writing and get into town to find fresh pasta in Perth, I'm cooking to night.

AT SWANBOURNE WITH THE SAS

LAWN TRIMMER SEQUEL
The elderly widow turned up at Pete's, collected the sharpened edge trimmer and left him something else to sharpen and her address. He duly complied and he took it to her house and she gave him a lottery ticket. We all await Saturday's draw with hopeful anticipation. We also warned him that her husband may not be deceased and that she is about to do him in with the edge trimmer which has Pete's DNA all over it???
SWANBOURNE FIASCO
Bit of a disaster at Swanbourne-got through SAS security all right but found museum contents( including very large helicopter) dispersed because a new better museum was being built. Despite much inter-service enquiry and trying many places and keys, the helicopter might as well have been lost. Tempers got very frayed and I heard as much Vietnam reminiscence as a poor bloody civilian could absorb.The only bit of excitement, in what otherwise looked for all the world like an abandoned school campus-maybe because 300 troopers weree in Afghanistan-required some imagination.

As we passed the "killing house" where the SAS guys train to carry out hostage rescues a volley of very loud shots were heard followed by bursts of automatic fire.Red flags were up and flashing red lights warned against unauthorised entry.Signs outlawed rapelling down the wall of the house because two troopers did this and scared Bob Hawke when he was making a speech to open the facility.
Otherwise a morning of frustration management training,spiced with coffee at a Cottesloe beach-side cafe.

ON THE MOVE AGAIN
I will be back in Melbourne from very early 8/4 until 21/4. Main purpose-to fix up venue and entertainment, refreshments etc for 40th anniversary celebrations of my arrival in Sydney on 4 JUly 1968 (celebration will be on Saturday 5 July at time and venue to be announced),pick up light weight tent for Kimberley trekking from sea freight, if arrived by then. Have break from this beautiful, affluent but soulless city called Perth, before going north (maybe even feel some rain).

So open to social invitations in Australia's fastest growing and most livable/lovable city.

Will leave my car at Pete's house-they will be in Mildura all April and soon after I fly back on 21st will start my journey north. Now about to book kimberley activities. Have date in Darwin with friend on leave from a mine in PNG who will show me around in first week in June and lunch friday 13 June with former wife, Bronwyn ( Director of nursing-clinical at Alice Springs Hospital)in Alice Springs.

From Easter Tues for a week will be by the sea in friend's beach shack-still in email/sms/phone range -(lots of writing and exercise) then a final week with Pete's house to myself before coming to Melbourne. That should give me time to consolidate the writing research I have begun and get supplies etc ready for the north so there will be minimal delay after my return before departing northwards.

So, on the move again before I drowned in nightly red wine and became an honourary member of 9th Squadron RAAF Vietnam vets!!!

PERTH AT EASTER

PERTH AT EASTER.
No wind-blown leaves here and never a hint of frost.
Trees refused to shed their canopies and relentless sunshine so scorched the lawns and foliage that sand seeped out to reclaim the once grass-covered space.

Out in suburbia, nothing and nobody moved.
Neat, well-appointed houses promised all and sumptuous creature comforts.
But surrounding land and nature strips seemed all but defeated by relentless solar assault.

Voices carrie over high garden fences on the barbecue-scented breeze. They told of laughter, social camaraderie and sometimes domestic strife.
A large, car and trailered-boat impeded the roadway, as husband and wife disputed the best reversing technique to avoid collision with her garaged car.

There was only me walking.Where was everyone? Gone away for the Easter weekend? Out on Perth’s fine and frequent surf lapped beaches? Or sheltering indoors with packs of stubbies and pizzas, before the giant plasma screen?

Radio disc jockeys burbled bonhomie, dispensing effusive Happy Easter greetings, blissfully unaware that Good Friday is the day of sacrifice and agony and that only on Sunday, does suffering resurrect into universal Christian happiness.

When might a cloud appear? Just a rippling shadow across the sun would do and maybe even a brief refreshing shower or two?
Far to the state’s south was cool and wet, whilst far to the north, monsoonal storms and deluges still held sway.

But, Perth, incarcerated in its bubble of unrelenting warmth, guarded by a sun that knows but to rise and set, and not to go away.
Football had started on concrete-hard grounds, played with no taking of prisoners in temps often higher than 30°C.

Surely autumn must be on us, but winter must be very, very, far behind.

HERE'S TO THE BRAVE OLD PIONEERS

On Easter Saturday I decided to re-acquaint myself with the Avon valley pioneer towns of Toodyay and York.The latter was the first inland town in WA, established in 1830 and Toodyay in its original incarnation was known as Newcastle but had to have a name change because its mail kept going to Newcastle NSW by mistake.

This tree in Toodyay was over 370 years old

Toodyay was for a time the home of Moondyne Joe a famous larrikin horse thief who won his freedom fom imprisonment by escaping from what was believed to be an escape proof lock up.He appeared to be WA's answer to Ned Kelley. He is immortalised for Children in Randolph Stow's delight spoof called Midnite

A Toodyay hotel

On the way between the towns I took a small, flood prone side road and chanced upon evidence of the early settlers in the graveyard of a small Anglican church, alone in the bush, near the river.

Despite it's isolation, the church had many modern and international connections-there were memorials to the memory of a second world war commando who perished fighting the Japaneses on the island of Timor and a high ranking officer in the Girl Guide movement of Australia.

Even more fascinating and poignant were the inscriptions on the gravestones in the nearby cemetery.

LIEUT.FREDERICK SLADE R.N.BORN-ASTON-UP-THORPE ENGLAND 1787 AND HIS WIFE JANE FROM SCOTLAND

He was born two years before the French Revolution and as his naval career would have had to begin with his enlisting on a man-of-war as a young midshipman, he was likely to have seen action with the Royal Navy,under the command of Admiral Horatio Nelson, against Napoleon's maritime defences.He died in 1849 when Europe,once more,was in turmoil with violent revolutionary uprisings in several countries-but not in Britain, thanks to the service of men like Slade and developing parliamentary democracy.(Better watch it-I have been told this blog is a bit softer in tone than my previous one with all its martial and gory accounts of European history and here in a lonely and quiet Avon valley church yard I have left my mind's gate open and allowed the dogs of war to sneak in.)Such a comparatively quiet and peaceful spot to have ended his days. Both he and his wife died at the same age of 62.

His duty done

On another headstone, as well as recording the death of a loved husband,tribute was paid also to their dear son who had died in France in 1917-"His duty Done" Scratch a corner of Australia and up pops an ANZAC.

AUSTRALIAN MEMORIAL TO AN ANZAC ACT OF COURAGE (COBBERS) AT FROMELLES

I noticed in the Australian the other day that there was an expectation of finding a previously undetected mass grave of Australian troops at Fromelles in France, the first action involving Anzac troops newly arrived from Gallipoli,which could identify many whose only previous memorial was a stone saying-a "soldier known to God" All these cemetery headstones commemorated Wilkerson family members.


This otherwise plain headstone stated that Jane Elizabeth Wilkerson "Departed this life in Christian confidence." A nice way to go.


Abandoned pioneer homestead.

York is charming and like Fremantle demonstrated how towns that evolved developed a lived in atmosphere that Perth has singularly failed to achieve.Now the planners aim to make it like Dohar or other of those Middle Eastern "carpet-bagger" cities.

A YORK WATERING HOLE.

POLICE TROOPERS HOUSE, YORK.

MOTOR MUSEUM,YORK.



THE MINSTER IN ANOTHER YORK
A picture taken in the other, somewhat older York, taken on my Motor home tour of England Scotland and Wales in December, 2007