Out the Back

Well the votes were cast and the result is in. It surprises me that it was quite as firm as it is. Based on the count so far 100% of you want me to post about my Mum’s place. Although a few of you did have a “bet each way”.

I had a look through my piccies of my trip to Mum’s and they took me in a different direction to that I had originally intended when I thought about this post.

A couple of days into my visit Stan (Mum’s husband) and I set off “out the back”. I posted this piccie of Stan’s old Land Rover the other day because it was the vehicle we went out in. In case you wondered it’s a 1963 “series II” model (which means it’s around my vintage).

Mum and Stan’s holdings are divided in two: the front block where their house is; and about four miles away (and about 1000 feet higher) is the “back block”.

I took a piccie from inside the Land Rover.It’s not a great photo because I was bouncing around as the vehicle climbed the steep track. The scrub in this piccie is all regrowth from the past twenty years or so. Unlike most of Oz this north east corner of NSW is very wet and the forest begins reclaiming undisturbed country very quickly.

Out the back, we climbed into low clouds, so what is normally a beautiful view of mountain country all around was concealed.

Our destination was this little mill cottage (mill as in timber mill) that Stan relocated out the back in the 1970s. Deb, my three girls and I lived here for a few years when the kids were little. But in more ways than that this trip really was a trip into my memories.

Just beyond the wall of mist in this piccie lies a huge chunk of my childhood. As I mentioned once before Mum and Stan met because we were neighbours.

I say in my profile I am the child of Hippy parents, I’m not exaggerating. In the 1970s Mum, her then partner Johnny, my brother Ian and me moved onto the property next door to Stan’s.

Here I am at the age of about 14. These old photos were mostly taken by Ian and me on a very cheap Kodak 110 camera we had.

This is one of mine, from about 1976 or so. As you can see I am still taking photos with similar subject matter decades later, some things never change ;-)I like the above piccie of a huge tree fern because it hints at the view beyond. You might be able to see a track that comes out of the forest in the bottom left, in fact that is the track Stan and I followed to get out here on my recent trip.

It was a strange childhood I lived. At times incredibly poverty stricken, and lacking many of the comforts most of us take for granted.

Yet at the same time incredibly rich in experience. Here Johnny loads timber cut off our land.
Timber that was cut so we could build this shack. The old lady in the piccie is my Grandma, Mum’s Mum.

Here she is sitting on my lap in this family portrait. Grandma had come out from England to stay with us for a year or so. She came from a tidy neat little village in England.

I think she probably thought we were all mad, but she loved us and took it all in her stride. Like my mum, she was an amazing person.

In our shack we had no power, so no TV. Lighting was a 19th century mix of candles and lamps. Entertainment was playing cards or reading. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I guess my already strong love of books was set in concrete in that period.

It’s late now and I have to hit the sack for an early start. But tell me shall I go on with my little slice of a personal history when I next post?

Unwinding and a Vote

Well I have been away for the weekend.
Deb and I went south to Barwon Heads and Queenscliff, down at the south end of Port Phillip Bay for a night.

As is my wont I took quite a number of piccies, although not as many as usual. Yesterday was absolutely beautiful spring weather and I just unwound for the day and barely touched my camera.

It was not until the evening when we were sitting up on this bluff at Barwon Heads that I took any piccies. We went there to eat our dinner which was some beautiful fresh battered prawns, sea scallops, calamari and fish. This feast came from a local fish and chip shop called “Gilligan’s”. I haven’t had such fresh seafood for ages, if you’re down that way I recommend them.

A quick word about “prawns”. I believe: in the US they are called “shrimp" and in the UK the small ones are called “shrimp” and the larger ones “prawns”. Here they are all “prawns”, if we want to distinguish by size we call the smaller ones “school prawns” and the larger ones “king prawns”. Oh, and the calamari I am referring to here are rings of squid lightly battered and deep fried. All of this feast was cooked exactly right and was simply heavenly!

Now where was I? The evening and the bluff.

As we ate, the sun began setting so I interrupted our feast to shoot these piccies.These are taken out over Bass Straight which lies between the Australian mainland and Tasmania (although looking west rather than south towards Tassie).Now I did it once before, so I am trying it again.

A vote!

What would you like me to post about next:
More about my trip this weekend including Fort Queenscliff.Or more about my Mum’s place where I went a number of weeks ago.
The choice is yours!

The Mystery is Solved

Well we had a few guesses at what the mystery industrial fixture was.
The three themes were: A Brewery Tower; A Smokestack and a Grain Silo.
At first glance it appears like an old smokestack, and to be honest I had passed it for years barely looking at it and assuming it was a smokestack from some old demolished factory. If I thought about it, it was usually along the lines of: “isn’t the sunset shining beautifully on those lovely old bricks”.
Then a while ago I looked a bit closer and noticed (which I guess those of you who said brewery tower also noticed) that there are windows at several layers all the way up.
A smokestack with windows? That didn’t make sense.
Then I noticed something which increased my puzzlement . Right on top of what I had thought was a smokestack is a chimney. A chimney on a smokestack? Surely that really doesn’t make any kind of sense
So I hit the internet and quickly solved the puzzle. This rather tall piece of gear is a shot tower.
I have actually posted pictures of another old shot tower in Melbourne here.Interestingly, this larger tower was built by the same company that built the tower that eventually became a fixture in a modern CBD shopping centre. Now a quick apology, Sharon asked in her comment back then what was a shot tower? Somehow I missed that comment and never posted an answer, so sorry Sharon.

In answer to your question a shot tower was where shot for muzzle loading guns and shot-guns was made in the old days. If you drop molten lead through a sieve and let it fall far enough it forms into near perfect spheres. If it is allowed to continue falling far enough it solidifies as it cools. So a shot tower had many floors at different levels so shot of varying sizes could be made. The chimney at the top was to carry away the smoke from the stove that was used to melt the lead. Lead has such a low melting point that it will melt on an ordinary kitchen stove.
So there you go that is the mystery solved.

Words on Wednesday (and a Challenge)

Well I have started catching the train to work now. I used to drive, but I have changed my working hours from a very early start to normal business hours. So now it is quicker to commute by train.

It takes me an hour each way into the city and back. At the moment I am reading each way, but I hope to soon get a new laptop (I had one but the screen died) so I can work on my WIP. I don’t use laptops much so it hasn’t been a high priority till now.
The idea of gaining two hours each day to work on the book that follows Veiled in Shadows (working title Veiled in Storms) seems positively enticing.

Now for a piccie of one of the significant landmarks the train passes on the way into the city.
At 80 metres (262 feet) it towers over the houses in the surrounding suburb.
I wonder would anybody be game to give me an opinion? What is this towering structure?

Now to the title of my blog tonight I have had the urge to post another section of Veiled in Shadows, so if you’d like to read Chapter One (I posted the Prologue last week) click on the “Chapter One” tab above.

Hope you enjoy it!

Mark Twain, A Race and a Footy Match

Well today is a Public holiday in Melbourne. There is an event that happens here every year on the first Tuesday in November. A horse race called the Melbourne Cup.

I guess it is somehow typical of Aussies that one of our biggest public holidays, a spectacle that brings the state to a halt, is a horse race.
And I really mean to a halt. Today is an official public holiday which means employers are obliged by law to pay anyone working today two and a half times their normal pay. Not surprisingly most businesses shut up shop for the day.

To be fair “The Cup” has a long tradition as a big event, this year sees its 150th Anniversary.
Mark Twain was in Melbourne in 1895 and he said of the day:“Cup Day, and Cup Day only, commands an attention, an interest, and an enthusiasm which are universal—and spontaneous, not perfunctory. Cup Day is supreme it has no rival.”

Now that is all I have to say about The Cup. I enjoyed the day off but I didn’t go to the Flemington Racecourse to watch the race run.

Instead I will talk about another sporting event that would arguably be even more important to Melburnians. The Aussie Rules Grand Final which happens at the end of September.

In Victoria there are two sports that really grab the public attention. Cricket in the summer and Australian Rules Football (or footy) in winter. Footy would be the closest thing there is to a universal passion in Melbourne. If you want to have a conversation with a Victorian a good starting point is almost always footy. The passion for the sport somewhat bewilders me as I am from Queensland where Rugby is the local "footy" and I have to admit I am not much interested in that either. I maintain I am the quiet writer type :-)

However this year Deb and I went to the Grand Final.
Deb is a big fan of The Saint Kilda Football Club and they were playing. More to the point Deb was given a pair of corporate tickets worth… Well I dread to think what they were worth, the face vale was $345 each but I know they always sell for $700 - $1500. Safe to say we wouldn’t have gone unless we had been gifted the tickets.

So the big day came Deb and I arrived very early to avoid the worst of the crowd. We walked from Flinders Street Railway Station towards the Melbourne Cricket Ground the home of footy (the MCG also affectionately known as ‘The Gee’). We used a footbridge to cross the lines running into Flinders Street.
The view from the footbridge back to the Melbourne CBD

As you get close you realise just how big the stadium is.When we arrived the stands were fairly empty.The teams came out on to the ground to warm up.Deb snapped this shot of me to prove I was there.

“Entertainment” was provided like this ‘footy’ shaped hot air balloon.One of the coaches discussed kicking with Nick Riewoldt the St Kilda Captain.
Who then had a go himself.INXS played their hit “Suicide Blonde” as the ground continued to fill.They are starting to look like old rockers.
QANTAS did a flyby with their latest Super Jumbo.And the players (who had disappeared as INXS played) made their formal entry to the field.
The first ball up was held by one of the referees (there are four on the ground plus two goal keeping umpires) and the game was on.I won’t even try to explain the rules, the game is very different to any other form of football (the closet is Gaelic Football played in Ireland). If you want to get some idea of the rules you can go here.

Probably the most important thing to understand is the game is fast, very fast. Often scores of 130 or 150 are achieved by both teams.It is also very intense as you can see by the face of this St Kilda player.The ball flies high and the players leap high into the air to try to ‘take a mark’ which gives them a free kick.The whole crowd scream their heads off. Deb screamed (so much she lost her voice that night), and even me, the least football minded person on the ground, ended up screaming my lungs out.

The writer in me has filed this experience away. The atmosphere is amazing, very much as I imagine the feel at a Roman spectacle must have been.

The result a draw!

Collingwood kicked 9 goals and 14 behinds for a score of 68, while St Kilda kicked 10 goals and 8 behinds for a score of 68.Under AFL rules the teams would have to come back to play again the next week. This is only the second time this has happened in over 100 years!

A word about Aussie crowds, as you can see when the ground is at its fullest fans of both teams are intermingled. There seems to be little or no ill will between the supporters of each team.
I think this has two causes: first Aussies tend to be relatively laid back, we aren’t generally aggressive to each other; and with such high scores the supporters of both teams get plenty of outlet for their passions!

So that was the (first) Grand Final of 2010.

The day had a final treat in store. As we walked back towards Flinders Street the evening light and a rapidly approaching storm did wonders for the light over the city.The Eureka Tower in particular looked spectacular.The colours of the building have some symbolism. The gold face represents the gold of the 19th century rushes. The red represents the shed blood of the Eureka rebels and the blue and white stand for the colours of the Southern Cross flag they fought (and died) under. I may say more about the Eureka Rebellion around the anniversary later in the year.


Ps. In the replay St Kilda were defeated by Collingwood (but as Deb is still smarting I won’t say any more).

Swan Watch XII: Another Wet Weekend

The wet weather continues down this way. In fact it has poured on and off all weekend. Not to be deterred Deb and I went for drives on both days. Although I have to say with all the rain and mud there was no hiking this weekend.

On Saturday we headed up the Yarra valley. I had to pause near Yarra Glen to catch these piccies as the storm clouds swallowed up the distant mountains.Today we headed out again this time down to Port Phillip Bay.For a brief moment we had a glimpse of blue sky. But the muddy colour of the water is a direct result of all the runoff flowing into the bay with the continued rain.We attempted to go for a short walk but just a little way down the coast the sky got so dark again we beat a hasty retreat back in the direction of the car.
I was amazed by just how black the sea was below the clouds.

No wonder with all this rain local rivers like the Plenty River are threatening to break their banks.Now to the Swans.
On our way home we paused briefly to catch a couple of photos. And I mean a couple, it was raining again and my camera is simply not waterproof. When I have a spare $2500 I’ll buy a new one :-)
As you can see from these hastily snapped shots Mother and baby are still well.

Baby is starting to look a bit more handsome again as its scrappy down is covered by a fresh coat of feathers. He/She won’t get that glossy adult black until after a couple more moults.

Now a final word about Veiled in Shadows, thank you all for your kind words. Also thank you for those of you who have offered to review it for me.

For those of you who missed Friday’s post my book is available on Amazon and you can read an extract here .

I am thinking of posting additional extracts over coming weeks, what do you think?