Metung

   While Rob and Anna were visiting Helmy, Perran, Harvey and Theo in Denmark, they made their house at Metung available and we were lucky enough to be able to spend four nights there.  It's a beautiful house in a beautiful setting.

Rob has made extensive alterations to the original house.  The "bay windows" on the left of this pic, as well as the deck, have been extended to get the winter sun.

 From the inside, the same windows.  We had breakfast each morning in this space, with winter sun streaming in from the north-east.  The windows are all double-glazed.

Doortje is in the new kitchen, with beautiful old polished timber bench tops and lots of clever ideas that Rob came up with.  Note all the home grown fruit!

 I was very impressed that the original parts of the house still have their pressed metal ceilings, as seen in this pic taken in the main sitting room.

The main bedroom is almost all new with ensuite etc, but the original ceiling still features and it was very luxurious to wake up each morning to this view!

The original kitchen fireplace now used as a wine rack.  Rob's model Prius and boat can be seen on the shelf.

Rob has done an amazing amount of work in the garden, including these enclosures for berries and vegetables, and lots of citrus fruit which Doortje is sampling.

Here is a corner of the courtyard that overlooks the paddock and eucalyptus forest.

The courtyard fence incorporates this niche with cello - the house has several reminders that it's occupied by a serious cello player.

This wattle in the front yard was in full flower!

This is one of the major places outdoors to contemplate the view, a deck below the house having a view of the lake in the distance.

At the bottom of the hill is Box's Creek and Rob and Anna's boat mooring, a very tranquil place to be, with not another soul around.

We realised as soon as we got back to Frankston how quiet it had been for the previous five days and what a peaceful place to spend time.  Thanks, Rob and Anna, for the opportunity!

Commenters' Essential List

Anyone who reads the comments that accompany blogs, online news articles, etc, can not help noticing the recurring language that is the stock-in-trade of commenters.  I've decided to compile a list of the top 10 examples of expressions that the commenters use without having a clue what they mean but somehow the use bolsters the otherwise meagre argument.

* ironically

* elephant in the room (as in "That poor little elephant, Nuclear, is still standing around in the room going "Pick me, pick me".)

* emperor has no clothes  (do they know the Aesop's fable and its moral?)

* strawman

* ad hominem

* rusted-on (as in supporters of political parties)

* no brainer

* troll

* disingenuous (usually spelt wrong, but a current buzz word)

* luvvies (I think it means left-wing, as in latte etc)

* tribalism (new buzz word)

As is now iconically traditional with my top 10s, there are eleven.  Feel free to make contributions to the list, in the comments below!  Be a commenter!

Doortje

During the past couple of weeks I've been scanning lots of print photos from Doortje's collection of photos albums, to create slide shows we can watch on the TV, and disseminate among the kids etc.  Some of the albums had sticky pages and the photos were glued to them so needed to be rescued.  Many of the old photos were fragments which Doortje had reduced with scissors to fit them in, some as small as 20mm square - they were a challenge to scan, but in most cases the digital image is easier to view, although many are quite blurred.

Below is a selection of photos of Doortje, all taken in Gippsland in the 1960s and earlier, except for the last two, taken in the NT.

 Around two years old so taken about the time Doortje came to Australia in 1949.

 Doortje was seven when this was taken for her first communion in 1954.

 Dutch ribbon in her hair, very fashionable at the time, before hair clips.

 Uniform of St Joseph's convent in Maffra.

Taken at the Tinamba farm with Frank around 1958 or 59.

A bit later than the previous pic, again at Tinamba.

Taken in 1963 or a Year 11 school trip to Brisbane.

The height of winter fashion at the Tinamba farm.

Also taken at Tinamba, around seventeen years old.

In the school uniform of Our Lady of Sion, Sale, in year 12.

Done up to the nines for a nurses' dance in Melbourne around 1967.

 Possibly taken at the new house on the Pearsondale farm around 1967.

Doortje is the wild one in this nurses' graduation photo of 1968.

One of my favourites, taken in Ti Tree in 1978 when I was doing developing and printing.

 

Had to include myself!  Taken in Alice in 1981 with tripod and timer.

Atheism

   It occurs to me that someone in the future might ask how I came to be writing Christian "hymns" in the late 1980s but now profess to be an atheist.  It's not all that complicated.

   I was a callow youth of 22 when I became a Catholic in 1967.  I had lots of time on my hands, particularly in the evenings, first at Muloorina and then Hesso.  I also lacked self-confidence, felt like a round peg in a square hole in the macho world of the "bush", and had no-one to discuss such things with.  I studied religions - Buddhism, Hinduism and so on.  I guess I was looking for meaning in my life.  I remember reading T.Lobsang Rampa's "The Third Eye" but could make little sense of it.  I made copious notes from my Buddhist reading but didn't really get much out of it.  Then at Hesso, probably under the influence of a Catholic girlfriend, I did a correspondence course and became a Catholic, thinking, I suppose, that this satisfied my quest to arrive at the "meaning of life".

   I can say that, as a "convert" and without benefit of the indoctrination of Catholic schooling, I was quite able to ignore any doctrine that I disagreed with or thought was patently absurd.  That this included some of the cornerstones of Catholic dogma such as trans-substantiation, probably fore-shadowed that I would not be a Catholic forever.  From way back at childhood Sunday school, I held the believe that it was nonsense to condemn people to Hell who had never even heard of Jesus, let alone rejected him.

   Anyway, the family arrived in Bairnsdale and Doortje and I resumed weekly Mass attendance, this being part of the kids' education.  It was soon obvious to me that the liturgy was so devoid of language with any sensible modern meaning that it might as well have still been in Latin.  The centuries-old hymns were sung with no enthusiasm by a congregation of blank faces.  I resolved that it was within my power to produce some modern songs with uplifting tunes and sentiments that might appeal to modern thinkers.  The reaction among at least some of the congregation was positive.  Hence the song-writing.

   However, while that was going on we suffered from being newcomers who didn't fit into the norms of a country town.  We were offside with the older establishment because Doortje worked with the Aboriginal community.  People our own age had their in-group as parents of Catholic college kids while ours went to the state schools.  We concluded that the Catholic scene was a social club of which we were not accepted members.

   When we left Bairnsdale we were no longer motivated to be part of organised religion.  This has been followed on my part by a lot of reading which led to discovery of the things that are wrong with organised religion.  For some time I have been satisfied that there is no after-life following death, and everything flows from this because much of the raison d'etre of religion is lost when this belief is discarded.  I think there is no justification for thinking that humans will have "everlasting" life but worms or bullocks won't.  It's much simpler to see humans as animals who suffer the same as other animals.  Otherwise, at what point in the evolution of humans, as they became differentiated from other animals, did everlasting life kick in?  And why?  (I want a natural reason, not mumbo-jumbo).

   I discovered all the prejudices that exist about atheists, mostly held by people who are threatened by any questioning of their beliefs, or by clerics with vested interests in keeping the flock faithful.

   Apparently, many people believe that atheists are awful people.  They have no morals, or they have simply substituted one set of beliefs for another without gain, or their lives have no meaning or purpose. Atheism in fact is a negative construct and no generalisations can be made about atheists except the one fact that they don't believe in supernatural god(s).  As someone said, Christians don't believe in Hindu or Islam gods,  atheists simply believe in one less god than Christians.

   The notion that morals or ethics can only come from Christian teaching is patently false and blatant propaganda.  Morals pre-date Christians by many generations.  I happen to believe now that religion has in fact stymied the evolution of humans morally and ethically.  The natural evolution of human moral behaviour has been at a standstill because the mass of people don't think for themselves and simply accept that they should do what religious doctrine demands to avoid supposedly dire consequences.  It is quite possible altruism among humans would be more fully developed were it not for the stifling nature of religion.

   The other issue is the one of meaning.  Christians maintain that life has no meaning without belief in the supernatural.  I fully accept the premise by Christopher Hitchens and others that life has no meaning, full stop.  The concept that all life and existence has been in the service of humans (and God) has been an extremely destructive force and detrimental to human development, and is now thoroughly discredited, given the state of the world.  "What is the meaning of life?" is not a valid question, like asking "What is the purpose of a stone?"  The only possible answer is that it has no purpose, it simply exists, or is.  I am perfectly happy with that position.  This does not mean that my own life has no purpose(s).  It is whatever I choose to make it- my life and future are in my hands, as they say, and not subject to the rules of some imaginary supernatural being.

   I have to say it has taken a lifetime to reach this position, where I have the self-confidence to accept the way things are, without having to find some supernatural (non-existent) deeper meaning.  I believe I'm just as happy or happier than I've ever been.  

   I also have to say that the good thing about being a Catholic was that without it I wouldn't have gone to New Guinea and met Doortje- the best thing that could have happened to me!

Broome Safari

   I've been looking at my collection of 35mm slides, which are generally 20 to 40 years old and haven't been viewed by anyone including me for at least twenty years, instead languishing in cupboards in various abodes.  Anyway, I've now completed converting them into digital images.

   Naturally, there's a lot of nostalgia involved in the exercise and I'm prompted to concoct the following photo essay for no other reason than to relive the experience of a great road trip.

                    *                    *                   *                 *

   In June 1983, we set off from Areyonga to drive to Broome in the Landcruiser.  The "direct" route took us around the north-west of Tnorala (Gosse's Bluff), through Tyler's Pass and via Papunya to the Tanami Road near Yuendumu.  We left Areyonga immediately after school on the last day of term and reached the Tanami Road after sunset.

   Around 10 o'clock we reached Rabbit Flat and because the place was dark, crept down to the camping area and set up camp.  Bruce Farrands duly arrived with his shot gun demanding to know what the hell we were doing on his property.  After a fright, and smoothing ruffled feathers (we'd been there before and could explain what we were doing), we had a good night's sleep.

   Next day, we pushed on across the WA border to Balgo.

  From  Balgo we drove north to Bililuna, past the Wolf Creek NP, and hit the bitumen west of Hall's Creek.  We turned west and spent that night at Fitzroy Crossing.

   On Sunday afternoon, we were in the main street of Broome.

 

   We camped at the Roebuck Bay caravan park for a bit more than a week and it was great to be by the sea.

   The kids had great fun in the water and sand.  The huge tide variation was a source of wonder.

   Daniel and Andrew on the edge of the bay.

   We decided to drive back to the NT via the Gibb River road, which runs north of the main road from Broome, roughly connecting Derby and Wyndham.  After checking out Derby we backtracked to spend the night at Windjana Gorge and sit around a camp fire.

   This campsite  was near the lagoon at Manning Gorge, which I think was on Mt Barnett station.

   At the turnoff to travel east along the Gibb River road.  We only saw one or two vehicles between here and Wyndham, one of which had a lawnmower on the roof rack!

   Some typical road conditions.  At the next stop after this one, the tyre came off the roof and bounced onto the bonnet but no harm done.

   

   We were lucky enough to see a pair of courting brolgas strutting their stuff in the middle of the road before we got too close.

   This spot was towards the end of the Gibb River road before turning north to Wyndham.

   This is the main street of Wyndham on a busy day, our car being the only one!

   We spent a few nights in Kununurra on the banks of the Ord River.  Here the kids are checking out the northern causeway across the river.  We took a boat tour on Lake Argyle which is huge.

   Finally, we crossed back into the NT and spent a couple of nights in Katherine at the Springvale Homestead.

   However, there's a postscript.  Instead of driving down the highway and then straight back to Areyonga, we met Helmy and Gavin in Alice Springs and drove them down to Uluru to sit around a camp fire! 

   What a great holiday!  We travelled more than 5,000km.  It's not possible to be accurate because I don't remember if we drove from Uluru to King's Canyon and on the Mereenie Loop back to Areyonga, or if we went back through Alice!

VW Story (cont)

Chapter Three

    When we went to live in Bairnsdale in 1984, it wasn't long before we decided a 4-wheel drive vehicle was surplus to requirements and sold the Landcruiser, to be replaced by a Holden Kingswood ex-taxi with front bench seat.  This lasted a couple of months before we could no longer stand it.  It wallowed on the road, causing car sickness, there wasn't really room for six people, and the front bench was worn out and sagging.  

    When we saw an ex-Army khaki green VW Microbus in a local car yard, we couldn't swap the Holden quick enough.  (After the deal, the salesman made a show of being incensed that we hadn't told him the Holden was an ex-taxi!  Incompetence on his part, I thought, and as if he would have told us!).  The Microbus had seating for eight, full headlining and wall lining, and heating to the rear.  It was a 1973 model, same as our new one in 1973, but would have been a bit more expensive than the Kombi.  It had obviously been well maintained by the Army.

    There was plenty of room for the kids to spread out and to carry our gear.  We went camping at Easter time in 1985 to Mt Buffalo and made plenty of trips to Sale and back.

    By this time we had two boats, the larger being a 16' Hartley trailer-sailer with full cabin.  We used the VW to tow it to the Gippsland lakes, sometimes to Paynesville, sometimes Metung.  On one such trip, we were almost home when the motor went bang and emitted a cloud of blue smoke.  We were forced to limp home in low gear still towing the boat.  This resulted in an engine overhaul - from memory, the engine overheated and a welsh plug melted, putting oil where it shouldn't have been.

    However, as the result of having a "new" motor, we decided to make a trip to the Territory.  When we left Areyonga at the end of 1983, we agreed to return by road when sealing of the Stuart Highway was completed, possibly in 1988.  But having a nice touring wagon like the Microbus, with an overhauled motor, was too much of a temptation.

    We spent a few weeks on the trip and went as far north as Ti Tree to stay with Mick and Karen.  The bitumen road was completed north of  the NT border, while in South Australia, Kingoonya and Tarcoola had been bypassed (the upgraded road went through Glendambo) and the new road was being formed up south of Coober Pedy.  We all enjoyed the trip and the Microbus took the corrugations in its stride.

    At around the same time, I'd seen an old VW Beetle for sale outside a house in Bairnsdale for about a hundred dollars, and couldn't resist buying it for a hobby.  This was to become our 1964 Black Beetle.  The car was in running order, and registered for use, but was in need of some TLC.

    By watching used-car ads,  I bought another complete car from a farmer at Mt Taylor for about $60 and a third without a motor from Lakes Entrance for $40.  What this meant was that for a total of $200, I had no need to buy any new spare parts.  The bonnet hinges of the original car were rusted enough to cause problems opening and closing it, so I was able to replace it completely with one from the other cars.  I stripped the body off the Mt Taylor car and stored the detachable panels, lights, glass and other parts behind the shed as spare parts.  The rolling floor pan, in going order, complete with front seats, went to school friends of Jac and Daniel to use as a "bush basher" on their farm.

    I had three sets of brake shoes, drums, cylinders and lines, and was able to set up the car with the best of these.  When it became necessary, I swapped the clutch in the Black Beetle.  It was a simple matter to undo the engine mount bolts, put blocks under the motor and then jack the car up until it was free of the motor, which could then be slid out from under the car.  This meant the clutch was accessible with all the transmission components still in place.

   I learnt a lot about VWs by playing with the Black Beetle.  Everything from windscreen wiper motor to king pins were cleaned, overhauled or replaced.  I came to appreciate what a great design Ferdinand Porsche and his team had come up with, and how simple most things were.  There were the odd annoyances, like the necessity to have one arm and spanner under the car and another arm and spanner in the engine compartment to remove the starter motor - not possible so lateral thinking was required!

    I bought a paint spray gun, pulled the body apart, stripped off all the bright work and lights, masked the glass, and sprayed on undercoats and gloss black.  The only modification I made from the original car was to eliminated the chrome strips along the waist on each side of the body.  The fittings were wrecked by rust and most of the rubber grommets missing.  From the inside of the body I superglued patches of plastic over the holes and then bogged them from the outside to leave a smooth finish.  If I did it again I would restore the strips properly, but it did look good!

    We kept the Black Beetle for quite a few years.  Many times, all six of us crammed into it for short trips around town, sometimes with one child in the luggage compartment behind the back seat, and with a guitar case on the laps of those in the back seat!

    We still had the car when we moved to Wiseleigh in 1994, and for some time Doortje used it to commute to work in Bairnsdale.  Often on weekends we went off exploring the back roads around the district, especially the dirt tracks and fire trails up in the hills behind Bruthen.

    It grieves me to have to report that after we came back from the NT trip in 1985, my neck was so sore from the trip that I was convinced I could no longer drive the Microbus.  It was common practice in the 1970s to travel non-stop from Alice Springs to Papunya, about three hours of concentration on corrugations, washaways, or bulldust and sand.  By the end of the trip, my neck would be stiff and tense.  I now know that the damage was ongoing and permanent and that at least some of this must have been due to the "cab-over" design of the Kombi, with the driver sitting directly over the front wheels and subject to every bump and jolt.  Leaning over the steering wheel which was slightly more horizontally "bus-like" than a normal sedan, probably didn't help either.

    I know this partly because we got rid of the Kombi in 1986 and bought a Chrysler Valiant station wagon, which was much gentler on the body.  We had it for twelve years and made many long trips without the same detriment to my neck. 

    My regret now is that I didn't take proper evasive action during those years which would have enabled us to keep the Microbus without the suffering.  In all respects except the driving position, (and even that gave great visibility) it was a superior versatile vehicle, capable of carrying loads on any terrain and covering large lumps of country.

    As it was, we gave the Microbus away (along with the Hartley boat) to a group in Melbourne who looked after disadvantaged youth and were able to put it to good use.

    When Doortje and I moved back to the NT in 1998 we sold the Black Beetle to someone in Melbourne, along with a trailer load of spare parts, including doors and panels and a gearbox.  I can't remember how much they paid us, but not much.  I only hope it's still going.  Thus the VW story comes to an end.

    In total, I've owned or part-owned, nine Volkswagens - five Beetles, three vans and a type 3.  It would be great to get to double figures.

    I wonder what I could do to achieve that?  Here's a short list, probably in order of desirability:

 1.  1964 Karmann Ghia

 All the same mechanicals as the 1964 Beetle but very nice body.

2.   1985 "Type 3" Kombi camper, 3-speed auto

As I write, this vehicle is for sale for $13,000, and this model is fast becoming a collector's item as earlier models become rarer.


3.  2010 Golf Wagon, TDI with DSG gearbox 

Low mileage versions are about $25,000, very desirable, but hard to justify replacing the Honda!  End of dreaming!