Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Err, more pics
Sydney pics are posted here....

Just Rainbow Beach to go.

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Christmas pics posted
Pics from Christmas in Mount Tambourine are posted here....

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Sydney trip day 2: Blue Mountains
Our Thursday Sydney itinerary was similarly hectic (as the soon to b posted Day 1). We had booked a bus tour (oh my) into the Blue Mountains to savour an introduction to somewhere which demands at leasr a few weeks more attention than we gave it.

The tour included a drive through the Blue Mountains from the north west of Sydney, through Windsor, then back in to town along the Great Western Highway, taking in Govett’s Leap, Three Sisters and "Scenic World". Tacked-on the end was a walk through a wildlife park (Featherdale, which was actually quite well presented) and a ferry ride back to Sydney from Parramatta.

On seeing photographs of the Three Sisters, feelings of isolation and wilderness are conjured-up. You get the impression that a glimpse of them is only available to the most adventurous, after a fair hike, after a bone-rattling drive down a dirt track, off a series of rural roads, many kilometres from the highway.

The truth – I discovered - is quite different. The Three Sisters lies on the outskirts of a considerable town (Katoomba, population 30,000). They are flanked by gift shops, heritage centres, car parks and tea shops; suburbia! The lookout is 50 metre wide concrete protrusion of bustling hoards, daily coach trippers and mobile phone photographers.

‘The Camera Never Lies’ was an irksome ditty from the 80s, sung by UK Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz. Had they been judged on the integrity of their lyrics, they would have scored nil-points; the camera can lie every bit as well as John Howard. you never see photos of the Three Sisters that include the tacky, sprawling suburban context, nor the coach loads of visitors. In reality, Katoomba is one of Sydney’s western outreaches; albeit, 107km from the Opera House.

To be fair, the view is spectacular; and not merely because of three columns of rock which outcrop into the valley. From the lookout you do get a sense of the immensity of the Blue Mountains National Park. The forests stretch to the horizon, bigger than Belgium apparently; and certainly more interesting. It’s said there are still tribal bands of escaped convict descendants, roving the forests, unaware that New South Wales is no longer a penal colony for the British Empire.

Further around the valley from the Three Sisters, in another suburb of Katoomba, is Scenic World. Despite its name probably putting off every backpacker or traveller of hardy pretence, it is sensitively designed, hidden and perched on the edge of 250m cliff. I guess its about making this fabulous part of the Australian bush accessible to all, as it offers a number of ‘rides’ (they called them), including two to quickly speed you down the mountain and one that projects you out across the valley.

Two of the rides are relatively old. The mountain railway (steep, at 51º) was first constructed in the late 1800s to haul coal up the escarpment. The cable car was built in the 1950s. The latest addition is the cable car to nowhere, or Skyway, which plies its trade across the face of Katoomba Falls, was built in the last 5 years.

Despite all the hardware, the best way down the mountain is to walk down Furber’s steps, and through the rainforest. The steps probably have a rich history related to the coal mining in the early 20th century, but a rudimentary search reveals nothing. Regardless, there are about 800 of them down the escarpment, some carved into the sandstone and just a few inches wide, others made of steel, spanning the tricky bits.

From a variety of view points there are excellent lookouts to Katoomba Falls (in full flow after heavy rain), including access to a platform half way down. A warmer day would have warranted standing underneath the 80m water shower, but this day – decked in just shorts and light shirt, in the rain, mist and wind – I was more worried about dying of exposure.

The whole descent was outstanding, passing a number of waterfalls and often passing through and underneath ad hoc falls cascading over the cliffs, precipitated by the heavy rain.

Muddied and wet after the scramble down the hill, it’s then quite bizarre to meet Japanese tourists in suits and ties at the bottom and then dozens of other no less clean explorers. These are the folks conveyed down by the cable car and mountain train.

At the bottom is a kitschy ode to the areas past coal mining, involving a series of display boards, wax reconstructions and themed voiceover reconstructions, describing the jolly life of a 1920s coal miner.

Visitors walk across boardwalks, thus ensuring there is absolutely no contact whatsoever with mud.

It’s not that all this ruins it. Indeed the boardwalks actually protect the fragile forest from being trampled to a quagmire. It just raises questions of reward against accessibility.

I was reminded of a television programme on Yosemite (Valley?) National Park in which a wilderness ranger cliché in broad rimmed hat and National Park service uniform described the most stunning of views across the Yosemite Valley from atop a mountain. There are insufficient superlatives in the English language to describe the scene.

Every step of your long hard slog, your exhaustion, dehydration or serious physical injury would have been worth it, just to climb over the top and be greeted by that view.

The ranger smiled, knowing exactly what the viewer was thinking, only then to say “And the great thing about this view… any one can enjoy it.”

The camera panned round to show a choked up car park replete with overweight Americans, in over-sized cars, with wearing heels, wheeling pushchairs.

My point is, accessibility is important, but some things are so good, they should reveal their secrets to those who put in the effort.

Or is that I’m so selfish, I don’t want anyone else there to spoil my fun…. That said, by the time we got to the bottom, we were running out of time, our fellow tourists (none of which walked down with us) would be kept waiting. So we caught the train back up.

Again, photos will be published shortly.

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Monday, January 23, 2006
Rainbow Beach
Rainbow Beach was another of our recent trips, not previously mentioned. For this jounrey into the wilderness we borrowed a friend’s 4WD; allowing access to the more sandy parts of Great Sandy National Park.

This NP stretches north from Noosa Heads along 60km of beach to Inskip Point. From Inskip you can throw a rock across the channel to Fraser Island, where the wilderness continues another 175km. (Well you could if you could throw 1.5km, but it still seems very close.)

Rainbow Beach is a backpacker settlement at the northern end of the NP, facing a surf beach and backed by an amazing variety of vegetation types, from rainforest to paperbark swamp and sandy heath; rugged as you like.

That said, we stayed in a swanky apartment with a great view up the coast to Fraser. The apartment was the last developed block before you hit protected land and a short walk through forest to Carlow Sandblow.

Sandblows are what they sound like; huge expanses of sand, apparently blowing back from the ocean and piercing the forest. The sand islands and coasts of south east Queensland host many, including several giants on Fraser Island, and this one at Rainbow Beach.

The most plausible explanation is that they have resulted from human forest clearing, back from the beach, many thousands of years ago. Once the protective forest front has been pierced, the sand is simply blown inland, inundating everything in its path by incessant winds.

How they stop, if they stop, as yet to be witnessed. Either way, they are now part of the protected landscape and no effort is made to artificially arrest their spread. (Purists could argue that such human induced environments should be stabilised, yet they are now part of the ‘cultural’ landscape and, as such, left mostly alone. Another example is the cleared pastures of the Bunya Mountains; so long have they been artificially cleared by Aborigines that a number of species which inhabit the pasture would disappear if the rainforest was allowed to grow back.)

Carlow Sandblow provides a dramatic foreground to the wonderful coastline around to Double Island Point. It also a great place to watch various wind related activities (hang gliding, model gliding and paragliding) and indulge in champagne whilst watching the sun go down.

On the second day we ventured along a dirt road inland, the “Freshwater Track”, talking in a walk to the exquisite Poona Lake.

Poona Lake is flanked by rainforest, has white sand and is perched. That is, is sits below the water table, and the water is hence beautifully clear. It is quite the most idyllic spot, almost cliche.

Later, we ventured further into the forest and deeper into the sand until I got the car stuck, bottled out and turned back. We would have to make do with seeing postcards of the wrecked Cherry Venture, a rusted hulk, sat on the beach beyond our reach.

The beaches in this part of the world commonly resemble a motorway, with the Landcrusier and Tin boat set bashing the beaches in their droves. Three weeks ago a British tourist was seriously injured when he was run over on Fraser Island, whilst he was having a nap in the sand dunes.

Inskip Point is the jumping off point to Fraser Island, via a barge that simply drops its ramp on the beach. It's like a Piccadilly Circus in the wilderness, with trucks and cars pounding through the soft sand, whilst kids attempt to play on the beach and avoid being run over.

Nothing epitomises the seeming arrogance of 4WD drivers than their antics on the beach, not stopping for anyone through fear of getting bogged or washed away, only half in control of a three tonne vehicle, all the while there being a perfectly serviceable road just back from the beach. My militant pedestrian attitude could do nothing to get these dickheads to slow down, short of lying in front of their truck.

We also took in the dolphin feeding at Tunkenbah (aka Tin Can Bay). Here a café owner feeds two dolphins in a now well-established (and officially sanctioned) exercise. After the café owner’s recent run in with Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service over the applicability of feeding wild dolphins, this daily ritual has become even more popular; commonly 150-200 people turn-up at this quiet fishing village to line up and hand out fish to the dolphins.

About 3kg of fish, just 10% of their daily intake, is fed to them daily, thus meaning that the dolphins never become dependent on humans. James and Matthew got their turn too, and duly dropped a whiting in front of the dolphin which then kept it’s side of the bargain.

Photos at this page.

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Friday, January 13, 2006
Burning coal answer to global warming, apparently
My generally optimistic outlook on life has taken something of a battering of late, particularly following this week’s AP6 climate meeting.

We’re screwed.

Thinking selfishly, the best course of action for any individual is now to throw your lot in with the polluters and spend your time travelling to exotic places to see habitats that will soon be destroyed.

In their vision statement, the AP6 expressly declares that economic growth is fundamentally grounded on the continued utilisation of fossil fuels (ie theft from our children). The unambiguous message from this week’s meeting in Sydney is that use of fossil fuels to drive economic growth will not be curbed to alleviate something as trivial as anthropogenic global warming. Alternative routes to prosperity will not be entertained. They are too hard, I guess.

This is a fairly frank admission; essentially indicating the Howard government’s vision for Australia is long term unsustainablity. Presumably, therefore, it will be scrubbing all references to sustainabilty ambitions from its literature…..

The outcomes of the meeting have hardly been astounding. Our PM, Honest John, has pledged just an extra $20m per year (on top of the subsidies already lavished on the coal industry) to fund research into burning coal more efficiently and then burying the evidence in geosequestration.

(Last year John Howard spent more than twice that amount ($55m) on political advertising campaign to break the workforce’s will, prior to legislating WorkChoices industrial relations reforms.)

The AP6 have agreed to no cuts, no ‘arbitrary’ targets and no sanctions for not achieving any emissions reductions. Instead, somehow the government will foster technological innovation and transfer. It will work with industry to find emissions reductions.

The regime will be so unambitious that it will undermine progress made by other nations through the Kyoto process. Australian Environment minister, Ian Campbell stated it would reduce emissions by 30% by 2050. But that is 30% below the ‘business as usual’ model, not in fact a reduction at all. Indeed for Australia this may represent a 35-40% increase on 1990 levels. This should be contrasted with climate scientists’ assertions that to avoid damaging climate change we should reduce emissions to 40% of our current rate by 2050.

And the mechanism for achieving reductions (increases, actually) in industry? Err…. Goodwill? Altruism? Quiet word down at the club?

Businesses are ‘expected to accept much of the responsibility and cost of cleaning up emissions’ the reports say. How exactly will this be done, without a regulatory framework, is not explained. Are we going to leave it to industry – and then when they choose to protect shareholder value (like they are legally obliged to do) – we just shrug our shoulders and say “oh well, we asked…”

While the public sector buckles under the weight of federal target setting, Howard assumes emissions reductions, perhaps the most important environmental issue facing the planet, will be achieved with a nod and wink and whopping great big refund to his mining industry political benefactors.

The AP6 has signed away any prospect of global CO2 emissions reductions. It is now a case of battening down the hatches and paying the cost in other ways.

(Although I am not in immediate danger of inundation, my home lies just a few metres above sea level. I should keep it longer than those poor sods in the Maldives, but there is still trouble ahead.)

The Kyoto Protocol is far from perfect (and much of this has to do with the involvement of Australia and USA in the negotiations (see footnote) and their non-involvement in its operation), and will not achieve significant reductions in CO2 before 2012. However, I believe it is the first and best step towards establishing a globally acceptable strategy to cut emissions.

Quite simply, Howard must be stopped. He is putting many people’s lives, and the environment as we know it, in imminent danger. The man is dangerous.

Footnote

Actually, both the USA and Australia pushed heavily for the inclusion of land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF) in carbon accounting at Kyoto. This effectively made it possible for Australia to meet its Kyoto target of an 8% increase (see post here).

But now it seems that the concept of forestry sinks, which Australia is banking on, and was controversial at Kyoto anyway, is being undermined, as forests are thought to be huge contributors to atmospheric methane – a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. It could therefore mean that the only solution to prevent excess anthropogenic global warming is real CO2 emissions reductions from reducing fossil fuel combustion and economic growth (if you are using AP6 logic).

Back to the stone age then……

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Who bashed who?
The conflab in the Antarctic Ocean between the Japanese whale meat processing ship Nisshin Maru and the Greenpeace monitoring/demonstration vessel Artic Sunrise has again got us chattering classes, well chattering.

The video evidence (available from both sides [ICR][Greenpeace]) is inconclusive, particularly when it has edited to not portray the whole incident (as is the case with the Japanese footage), or to not begin until a point minutes before the incident (as in the Greenpeace footage). Maritime ‘experts’ suggest that both vessels probably contravened ocean rules at some point; the Japanese perhaps more flagrantly than Greenpeace.

For me, the Japanese appeared to be playing a rather dangerous game of chicken on the high seas (with five thousand tone ships) and illegally (?) turned to starboard at speed across the bow of Artic Sunrise in an attempt to draw alongside another whaling vessel. The correct course of action should have been to slow down and turn behind the Arctic Sunrise, which was maintaining course at slow speed.

However, if a skipper deems that a collision will occur due to the incorrect actions of another ship, s/he is then bound to take action herself/himself to avoid such collision. From the video footage, the Greenpeace skipper only belatedly (and obviously too late) reversed the engines and turn hard to port.

But the Japanese weren’t done yet; just to make sure that the Arctic Sunrise had got the message, the Japanese ship then turned (wrongly) hard to port itself, enabling a second glancing blow off its stern.

Some analysis here:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/search/story.cfm?storyid=000AB29A-F71A-13C4-81BC83027AF1023A

In this knock-for-knock scenario, I guess it comes down to who you think occupies the moral high ground. Is it the Japanese whaler, collecting its ‘scientific’ catch in a whale sanctuary in Australian Antarctic waters, or is it Greenpeace, whose sole purpose out there is to harass, torment, peacefully obstruct and generally publicise the cynical and unsustainable antics of the Japanese whalers; something our own government is too spineless to do itself. (I guess it’s easy to interpret what I think.)

For me, regardless of who was at fault in this incident, I say go for it Greenpeace, ram them if you have to. Many brave and intelligent individuals have acted illegally to secure a change in law for the better….

The incident has also spurned discussion on media bias, the role of opinion in ‘news’ reporting and spin.

Pinko liberal media outlets, such as the ABC and Australian non-Murdoch owned papers, have been hammered by government and the less critical press for running stories which suggested that it was not clear from the evidence who rammed who. (‘Greenpeace accuses Japan over collision’)

Other reporters – dare I say those on the right – accuse Greenpeace of distributing misinformation. They are sure that Greenpeace is lying, for no other reason than it is Greenpeace.

Further, self-confessed commentators are also sure than Greenpeace is lying. Like all big organisations, Greenpeace has an interest in devising a narrative that supports their goals. Indeed, commentators of a certain persuasion [Jennifer Marohasy, Michael Crichton, Bob Carter] make no teleological distinction between Greenpeace, an organisation with no shareholders funded entirely by charitable donations, from any other multi-national corporation. Of course, profit-seeking corporations have totally benign reasons for maintaining expensive public relations units. Greenpeace has one to perpetrate lies.

While Greenpeace now employs advertisers every bit as slick as any other transnational organisation or government, to suggest that it shares similar motivations to a shareholder-owned, profit seeking corporation seems, at least, grossly disingenuous.

Without a thorough discourse on personal and professional motivation within a bureaucracy, I would hazard a guess that the primary goal of the organisational heads of Greenpeace is its disestablishment; as in job done, let’s go home.

This cannot be the case for a profit making corporation, whose managers’ legally binding duty is to protect shareholder wealth in perpetuity. And if this means muddying the waters on a potentially damaging incident, through the good offices of friendly media barons, think-tank Directors or political office, then so be it. Big Tobacco has been doing this for years, just as the asbestos industry did before them.

Debate over such issues inevitably degenerates into ‘who funds you’ cat-fights, which is the worst kind of cat-fight ‘environmentalists’ should get into, as it logically undermines their own position of (allegedly) passively sucking up the misinformation distributed by Greenpeace. Instead, those who care about whales or anthropogenic global warming should base their arguments on ‘values’ (not just evidence, which is far too utilitarian for my liking). Then we can start to change people’s voting habits.

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Tuesday, January 10, 2006
Christmas week
The house (“Yurnga”)

Yurnga is an Aboriginal term for ‘big views’. And they were big. From the deck, some of the bedrooms and bathrooms, there was a wonderful view north east to Southport and the Stradbroke Islands. Of the 0.97 hectares or so of land, some was a (fairly) well manicured garden, some was rainforest and a valley of pasture, most likely a disused orchard.
But most strange was the architect’s liberal attitude towards bathroom privacy. You couldn’t shower without being in full view of whoever happened to be in the garden at the time.

Itinerary

Fri 23rd Dec – Drive to Tambourine Mountain, unpack, put up Christmas tree, etc

Sat 24th Dec, Christmas Eve – Walk at the magnificent Cedar Creek Falls/Gorge section of the National Park. Alas, the park was absolutely chocka-block with like-minded people, cowering from the heat. Later walked through the cool rainforest at the Curtis Fall section, right in the middle of town, but so well hidden, you could be in the middle of Lamington NP. Saw a sleepy Carpet Python, digesting something large, basking by a creek.

Sun 25th Dec, Christmas Day – Did usual stuff; joined by father and Kay for the afternoon/evening. A lively electrical storm hit late afternoon to provide great entertainment for the evening. Actually being in the storm, rather than below it, was quite impressive. One or two strikes must have gone remarkably close to the house, judging by how much the ground shook. The storm was visible for hours as it drifted northwards over Moreton Bay.

Mon 26th, Boxing Day – Walk at Binna Burra in Lamington National Park to base of the 150m high Ballunjui Falls. Poor rain meant it was a mere trickle coming over the top. Walked back along the Lower Bellbird circuit to complete about a 13½ km walk. Some wildlife of note: a couple of green tree snakes, a land mullet (skink that looks like a fish), and a yabbi (freshwater crayfish). The walk takes you through varied terrain, open schlerophyll, heath and rainforest, with some great views and precipice walks. Prefer O’Reiley’s though.

Tue 27th Dec – Swimming at the beach at Burleigh Head, Gold Coast. Walked around the headland for some fish and chips, then returned to the mountain.

Wed 28th Dec – Took a short walk in the morning out over The Knoll; a nice circuit through a rainforested valley to a waterfall. Almost trod on another snake, this one unidentified, though impressively big. Later on the wine trail: Visited a couple of Tambourine’s wineries and vineyards, including one that is more famous for its $1m man-made glow worm cave. Drying conditions in SEQ’s mountainous rainforests are restricting glow worm habitat. Therefore this artificial cave was created (in part) to keep a colony thriving. The tour was conduct by non other than Queensland’s pre-eminent entomologist (or is that etymologist?) in glow worm research (not much competition, by a feat non-the-less). Glow worms are a wonder of evolution, en masse emulating the night sky to attract insects to their lure. (Insects, when trapped in a cave, fly towards what they think are the stars of the outside world.) In the afternoon we took another walk to Curtis Falls, though the carpet python had gone this time.

Thurs 29th Dec, Matthew’s 5th birthday – Visited Thunderbird Park; a campsite cum conference centre cum adventure centre cum tourist attraction. Either way, you can ‘fossick’ for ‘thunder eggs’, small crystalline volcanic formations, which have nothing to do with either eggs, nor thunder. Very hot, sat in an exposed quarry clawing at the ground. That said, it is surprisingly rewarding when your benign little rock is sawed open to reveal a core of crystalline treasure. Laced agate apparently.

Fri 30th Dec – Left Mount Tambourine and drove home, relatively exhausted.

Pics to be posted soon.

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Mount Glorious
Having both the topographical map and the proverbial bible (“Bushwalking in South East Queensland”, currently out of print) allows you to explore some of the more obscure (and off-track) parts of Brisbane Forest Park.

Most are a delight (the scramble up Cedar Creek to Love Creek Falls), but some are a little disappointing (the walk to a dry Enoggera Creek).

On New Year’s day we explored the upper reaches of Cedar Creek, from the top of the mountain down, from Mount Glorious, through wet sclerophyll forest and patches of rainforest.

The route is a long abandoned logging track, now just about kept distinguishable from the surrounding jungle by the odd reader of the aforementioned book passing through. At the end of the track you appear at the bottom of Greene’s Falls, and short walk back along a maintained path to the car park.

The majority of the walk was OK, the track could be followed well enough, and when it did disappear, various way-markers, small cairns or a marked tree would be your guide.

It was interesting to see the tree stumps from the areas that had been logged in the past, before it was declared National Park. Some areas are devoid of any trees greater than 3 or 4 feet in diameter, providing dendrochronological evidence of when logging ceased.

Before the final hurdle and down an ever-steepening ridge, the path ultimately disappeared completely. The last section was a little hairy for the kids, edging down a scree/dirt/forested bank at a 50-degree angle, through an assortment of plants keen to sting you.

In the creek bed at the bottom it was clear that our (my) navigation had gone a little wrong and the ridge at the creek confluence – where we should have emerged - was some hundred metres further downstream. Little worry, as the scramble up the creek bed and the climb up Greene’s Falls was wonderful and not only for the rather surprised looks from workaday walkers at the top of the hill on seeing young children and grandparents appearing dishevelled, sweaty and exhausted from the impenetrable jungle.

A great trip for the future, sans les enfants, would be to park a car at the top of the mountain and another at the bottom and navigate the entire stretch of the Greene’s Falls and Love Creek sections downwards.

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How to avoid being eaten

Many of Queensland’s popular beaches are either netted or ‘drum-lined’, to prevent sharks from coming into close contact with recreational swimmers.

However, there are no such measures at Amity Point on North Stradbroke Island (near Brisbane), where last weekend a young woman was mauled and killed by a pack of bull sharks.

Like most catastrophes of this kind, the woman decided to swim at a time, place and in a manner where a number of contributory factors converge.

• She was swimming with her dog;
• The [Moreton Bay] water was very murky from run-off, following recent heavy rain;
• It is the early mating season for bull sharks, which commonly swim into estuarine waters or their vicinity and become [more] aggressive;
• She was swimming early in the morning;
• She was swimming in a busy fishing area.

Her death was not a result of these reasons, but rather her chances of being attacked were heightened by these factors. However, until the recent coverage in the papers, I – who would like to think knows a little bit about dangerous marine life – had little idea that swimming with a dog was more dangerous, or that January is the time of year that bull sharks get frisky.

Protecting swimmers from sharks will always be a balancing act between creating barriers, which kill many hundreds of there magnificent [-ly dangerous] creatures each year and providing ample information warning of factors which increase the chances of attack.

Queensland should not simply net more beaches and kill more sharks. The ocean is their environment and we must respect that. But then conversely, people are not inherently equipped with the knowledge to avoid attack.

As government will be expected to ‘do something’, money would be better spent on publicity promoting safe swimming, even if it reduces the opportunities for recreation. Infrastructure is not answer to every public issue.

That said, this is the first life lost to sharks in Queensland for over 40 years, suggesting that so far, the aforementioned balancing act is set about right.

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