... and three trees on the low sky

Nissen huts I have known

2012-01-15T09:58:00.000-08:00

As a child I was fascinated by these rather bizarre buildings randomly distributed around the landscape. I knew their original use was military as they regularly featured in movies set in World War II. They were used as aircraft hangars, as warehouses, as barracks and offices, and for many other military purposes.
My life has been peppered with brief liaisons with these elliptical wonders. I recall one wonderful visit to the former Royal Australian Navy Stores Depot on the Parramatta River at Rydalmere in the 1970s. Here were rows of enormous elliptical buildings stuffed full of aircraft spares and small watercraft. These buildings are now long gone, as are many of their compatriots from the 1940s.
Over a decade ago I was privileged to oversee the construction of a new building at the museum I manage. This building was constructed in the style of a Nissen Hut to replace a structure demolished in the 1960s. We found a builder who's normal business was the construction of grain silos. It made me realise that the Nissen Hut is basically just a water tank or silo cut in half and tipped on its side.
In my work as an archaeologist I have recorded structures of this type at Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport, Gilgandra Shire Council Depot and scrub blocks in the Pilliga Forest. Last week I was delighted to record near Lightning Ridge a large Nissen Hut converted into a shearing shed. These buildings always fascinate me.

Tam o' Shanter

2011-12-07T00:45:00.000-08:00

John Hampton Christison left his home in north east Scotland and migrated to New South Wales in 1878. Before he left home his older brother David gave him a copy of The Complete Works of Robert Burns. Like many 19th century travellers John had his photograph taken before he left home. This was taken in the town of Arbroath, not far from his parents' home in Brechin. The athletic young man, an accomplished highland dancer, cut quite a dashing figure in his travelling cloak and Tam o' Shanter.

Thinking of the twists and turns that were to occur in John's life, one wonders if he ever heeded the words of the great Rabbie:

"No, wha this tale o' truth shall read,
Ilk man and mother's son take heed;
Whene'er to drink you are inclin'd,
Or cutty-sarks run in your mind,
Think! ye may buy joys o'er dear -
Remember Tam o' Shanter's mare."
Tam o' Shanter, Robbie Burns,

The letter

2011-12-06T02:02:00.000-08:00

In late 1900 this letter was received at my Great-Great Grandparents' house in Mittagong. Their son had been wounded in far off South Africa. His injuries were received at a place they had probably never heard of. I sometimes reflect on the months of anguish they must have face until they saw their son again.

My Great Grandfather and the South African War

2011-12-06T01:18:00.000-08:00

My Great Grandfather was a complex man. He was a blatant self promoter, a womaniser, adulterer and serial bankrupt. In many ways he was a true Victorian man - a person who worked at multiple callings and in many ways made his own luck. A star dancer as a child, in adult life he taught dance and etiquette under the title Professor Christison. His Manual of Dancing and Etiquette was published in Maitland in the early 1880s. By 1884 he was operating his own vineyards and winery at Hinton. I have even heard that he trained champion boxer Les Darcy to dance. I just may begin blogging his biography.
When war broke out in Southern Africa in 1899 he was one of the many New South Welshmen who flocked to join the colony's mounted forces. Volunteers greatly outnumbered the available places in the NSW Mounted Rifles and the NSW MIlitary Forces were very choosy. High levels of physical fitness, horsemanship and firearms skills were demanded, yet despite his age (he was close to 45) he was accepted and sailed for South Africa in early 1900. In September 1900 he was wounded at Rhenoster Poort, near the Mozambique border, during one of the horse-killing hunts for Boer Kommandos following the cessation of conventional warfare. For the remainder of his life he had a steel plate in his skull.
This photo was taken in from of an African hut somewhere in the Orange Free State or Transvaal.

Memories of waiting

2011-12-01T13:14:00.000-08:00

My father's youngest brother was buried this week. Also in the last seven days I have reconnected with a cousin whom I admired greatly in my younger years. He and my oldest sister were the two people who most stimulated my imagination and my delight in history. Even today I treasure books given to me by my cousin almost fifty years ago. Books such as Roger Lancelyn Green's "Tales of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table" or Dorothy Sutcliffe's "Beowulf" with their wonderful re-telling of ancient tales were markers on the unique journey that has led me to my current place in life.
Today I tripped over a memory related to this cousin. I recall his mother, my aunt, being quite ill over many years. I have vague recollections from some time in the late 1950s or early 1960s when she was in Sydney Hospital. For me these early memories always consist of brief glimpses, almost like small strips of film cut from feature movies. When I ponder them I am reminded of the amazing end scenes of the movie "Cinema Paradiso".
One Saturday evening my father visited my aunt in Sydney Hospital as we waited outside in Macquarie Street, I remember it being dark and the dark was accentuated by the drab Victorian walls of the hospital. We waited for what seemed like an eternity with a cloud of sorrow hovering over all. As a small child I was painfully aware of the crawling pace of time spent in anticipation. Eventually my father emerged with another man - I think this was my Uncle Neil. He gave us a lift to Kogarah (or perhaps it was Rockdale) where we then waited for a bus, or something, to take us closer to home. In those days this would have probably meant a trolley bus ride to Sans Souci, a punt ride across the Georges River and then a two mile walk from Taren Point to Caringbah. We waited and waited and eventually got home. I have little recollection of how this was achieved.
The overwhelming memory from that evening is a memory of waiting. Waiting for my father, waiting for the bus and all else being well beyond my control. Like all of these glimpses it is a brief memory.

The old shower block

2011-10-08T14:57:00.000-07:00

The museum in which I am involved is currently developing a theatrette in space that was once used as a colliery shower block. The ambience of the space as grown on me as we have worked in it. It will be wonderful to interpret this aspect of the coalminers' lives.

A Light in the Vale

2011-09-29T15:30:00.000-07:00

I have recently published my latest coalmining history. I have become addicted to researching and writing on history of the New South Wales Western Coalfields. A Light in the Vale is my third publication to date.

This book records the development of trade unionism among the coal and shale miners of the New South Wales Western Coalfield between 1875 and 1900. Faced with what they regarded as intolerable working conditions the miners of the Vale of Clwydd Colliery formed an association for their mutual protection in 1878. They achieved some early successes but their union was forced out of existence by 1881. By the mid 1880s the region’s miners had formed a district union, which successfully weathered the economic and industrial storms of the 1890s. The organisation entered the 20th century ready to become an active player in a developing national miners’ union. The book charts the early struggles and successes of the union. It includes brief biographies of the union’s leaders, including Joseph Cook who became Prime Minister of Australia in 1913.

The empty hearth

2011-07-09T03:07:00.000-07:00

People once loved, laughed, ate and cried around this hearth. Now it sits cold and silent.

White Ants

2011-05-31T02:45:00.000-07:00

I was inspecting an old miner's cottage at Lightning Ridge a few weeks ago. The place has been attacked by white ants. This sideboard was really worked over!

Put a light in every country window

2011-04-26T22:55:00.000-07:00

This post tells its own story. It is part of the generator shed erected to serve a rural homestead in northern New South Wales during the 1920s. The post and adjoining wall are stained with fumes from the old generator. The light switches tell a story of isolation and connection. From the 1920s many pastoral properties had their own stand-alone generators capable of supplying electricity at 32volts. This was enough to light a house and banks of batteries provided power after the generator had been switched off. This was enough to undertake some late evening chores or read a book in bed.

After the Second World War the cry "put a light in every country window" went up all over the land. Isolated town and council electricity generation and supply systems were connected by newly-formed county councils and throughout the 1950s new feeders were sent out across the vast rural lands of the interior. Rural dwellers were able to access the marvels of agitator washing machines, refrigerators, electric sewing machines, mixmasters and vacuum cleaners. And there was a light in every country window.

The wooden disc on the post was a mounting plate for the 32volt light switch supplied by the building's own generator and the square bakelite switch served the new 240volt system powered by the fires of Wangi, Wallerawang or Lake Macquarie Power Stations.

Another woolshed

2011-04-25T05:05:00.000-07:00

We recently worked on Hunthawang, the former T.A. Field Estates Ltd station acquired by the NSW government in December 2010. The woolshed was orginally constructed for the Little Willandra run on the northern side of the Lachlan River in the 1880s. It is a delightful building clearly erected by craftsmen.

The artistry of spiders

2011-03-15T02:26:00.001-07:00

The spiders have made a home of this silent shearing gear in a woolshed on the Barwon River.

SIngle-Jian

2011-03-06T00:50:00.000-08:00

I have long been obsessed with the material footprint left on the Australian landscape by the Chinese who migrated here in the 19h century. Recently I had the privilege of recording the ruins of a single-jian dwelling in a valley near Young. These dwellings follow a pattern for vernacular residences that has been followed in China for 1,500 years. They are built in a standard pattern with low stone walls and one entry. My assumption is that this and a nearby dwelling were occupied by Chinese rural workers employed on nearby farms.

Stencils

2011-02-23T00:48:00.001-08:00

Wool bale stencils are one of the great little delights hiding in the wool rooms of abandoned woolsheds. These little joys are often left hanging or just discarded on the floor. The voice of the collector in me says: "Pick one up, nobody will miss it." The voice of the archaeologist says: "No, leave it!". The archaeologist always wins.

Happy Christmas!

2010-12-21T00:01:00.001-08:00

Expert's room, Nebea Woolshed

Old schoolhouse

2010-12-17T02:31:00.000-08:00

My work often takes me to derelict and unloved buildings. I recently recorded this old schoolhouse on a property in the valley of the Talbragar River. Many of these little supported schools dotted the rural landscape in the early 20th century. Their purpose long passed these buildings have stood vacant for decades. Many have succumbed to the ravages of time and season. A few still stand as a testament to a time when rural areas teemed with workers and their young families.

Abandoned sawmill

2010-12-14T12:45:00.000-08:00

I've recorded a few sawmills over the years. This one is located in a beautiful position high in a small valley. The mill is virtually complete and almost appears as if everyone just knocked off and walked away. It hasn't worked for at least 40 years.

Another day, another woolshed

2010-11-16T02:20:00.000-08:00

I can never get enough of woolsheds. The glow of the timber, the special light and the smell of lanoline so ingrained into the structure that it is still present decades after shearing has ceased. This shed on the Gwydir Wetlands appears to have originally been constructed as a blade shed and later converted to machine shearing with Wolseley shearing gear.

A long-term love affair

2010-11-08T13:01:00.000-08:00

I attended meetings in Sydney last week. These meetings were at the harbourside areas of The Rocks and Woolloomooloo. What a treat it was! A cup of coffee at Circular Quay and lunch at Harry's Cafe de Wheels on Cowper Wharf Road at Woolloomooloo reminded me just how much I am in love with this beautiful city. The place is so pregnant with memories for me. Some of my earliest snatches of recollection relate to catching trams in George Street, the hundreds of steam engines around Eveleigh and delightful ferry rides on the harbour. I remember as a teenager being captivated by the almost forgotten histories of the place and recall exploring The Rocks with my friends during school holidays. The Anzac Memorial in Hyde Park is, and will always be, my favourite building in the world.
There were the years I worked in the City and revelled in its chaos and energy. It was always the city that never seemed to be finished and remains so.
I tip my hat to you my beautiful goddess of the South Pacific. The place from which Cargo comes. Always a place of immigrants. Always a place of change. Forever a place of contradictions and little conflicts that irritate the place like a flea bite or foot blister. Every decade seems to make the mix richer, although I do mourn what is lost along the way. So much architectural beauty and so many delightful little places that have been dragged into the slipstream of progress.
There are many things now that could cause me to say that this is no longer my city. This will never be so. In my heart I know that, like a lover hopelessly besotted by a wayward beauty, it is not a matter of me owning the city, but the city owning me.

The Glory of God

2010-10-22T16:24:00.000-07:00

King David's Psalm 19 begins with the words: "The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." I was reminded of these words the other day when I was recording cultural heritage sites on the the Marra Creek on the western side of the Macquarie Marshes. After a delightful little luncheon on the banks of the Marra I drove up to the little Church of St Mary the Virgin. This little Federation gem sits quietly in the paddocks of the Marra. The day I visited it was surrounded by a carpet of white native daisies. A storm was brewing and the clouds hung over the scene with such majesty and power.

The scene reminded me of the one who is all and in all. The "I am". The beginning and the end. I was reminded of the words of King David and the experience of the prophet Elijah. In desperation and loneliness he had laid down under a broom tree, wishing only to die. Twice God sent a ministering angel who gave him food and water, and the words: "Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you." This simple expression of God's love has comforted me many times on my own journey.

Coonamble waterhole

2010-10-07T17:28:00.000-07:00

I've just been finalising a heritage study of the Coonamble Shire and was reminded of the record I made of the Coonamble waterhole. Like many towns in the northwest of New South Wales Coonamble developed around a waterhole. These holes have been critical to the development of the cultural landscape of the northwest as they have provided a reliable source of water and a source of food. At this point the Castlereagh River (the upside down river) is joined by Warrena Creek and Eurimie Creek. The place has been special to Aboriginal people for thousands of years. In the 1830s it was identified by European stockmen travelling up from Wallerawang as an ideal place to establish the headquarters of pastoral runs. Over succeeding decades it witnessed the development of the town of Coonamble. As the town grew Aboriginal people continued to live along its banks, retaining their strong emotional and spiritual connection to the place.
One can drive through Coonamble and visit the shops and barely notice the waterhole sitting quietly nearby. The centre of town is just behind the trees on the far bank and every day hundreds of car and trucks cross the bridge in the background. I never spend much time taking photos as I'm usually in a rush to record numerous places. Sometimes I stop and ponder. This was a place that made me stop and ponder.

Any umberrrrelllaaaas

2010-09-25T02:44:00.000-07:00

I photographed this sales placard in Canberra a few months ago with a mixture of mirth and revulsion. What are they doing to my language!!! Umberellas, potatoe curry, tomatoe sandwich, the carnage seems almost endless. Then there's the dreaded apostrophe man and the havoc he wreaks on the written word. I'm not even going to start on the current craze to "customise" the spelling of baby names.

AAARRGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! (That was the closest I could come to an inarticulate cry.) My world, my world.

Reduced to clear - my language.

The end of the line

2010-09-19T22:07:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged for so long. In recent months my creative instincts have been directed into my work, landscaping around our new garage and writing my latest mining history. I feel compelled to blog as I love the concept of what I do and am captivated by the thought of throwing little tidbits out into the void.
Last week I recorded an abandoned railway station building at Belmont south of Newcastle. This station was once the terminus for a privately constructed railway line constructed to service collieries between Adamstown and Belmont. The railway and its stations were built on a budget and Belmont was no exception. It was constructed with timber and second-hand railway line. Over time the functional section of the platform was truncated.
The railway line is being converted into a walking and cycling track, and the stations are being interpreted as part of the landscaping. The whole project is a wonderful adventure in adaptive re-use. It has been exciting to be involved in it.

El pueblo unido

2010-06-04T01:01:00.000-07:00

Over 25 years ago we attended a concert at the Sydney Opera House featuring the legendary Chilean folk group Inti illimani with guitarists Paco Pena and John Williamson. It was a magical night in the Concert Hall of the Opera House and one of the best concerts I have attended in that excellent venue. The Andean sound of Inti Illimani was hypnotic and the night was wonderful.

Towards the end of the evening we witnessed a phenomenon that will stick with me for the rest of my life. This was the era of the ghastly Pinochet regime in Chile and many Chilean exiles had moved to Australia with heavy hearts and a longing for what Pablo Neruda described as their "elongated homeland". As the concert moved into encores Inti Illimani, themselves exiles from the military regime, began to sing protest songs. All were sung in Spanish.

At one point they commenced a song during which the audience stood. As the chorus started most of the crowd began to sing in animated Spanish and punch their fists in the air in time to the music. The air was electric. I turned to my wife and said: "I have no idea what is going on here, but it is something important." Years later I realised that they were singing the words to the song "The people united will never be defeated".

This was one of the most memorable moments of my life. To be an uncomprehending part of this powerful statement by people so full of passion and pain was an immense privilege. Years later I have downloaded the song by Inti Illimani and am moved each time I hear it.

Black Soil

2010-05-28T03:04:00.000-07:00

The other day I visited a property at Come-By-Chance. The Come-By-Chance district is located on the immense black soil plains that characterise the northwest of New South Wales. It had rained the night before and rained again while I was on the property. The farmers out that way say you should stick to the black soil in the dry because it will sure stick to you in the wet. It's like greasy chewing gum and just sticks and builds up in masses. The wheels pick it up and throw it all over the car body. One of the rear vision mirrors looked like it had acquired a mud wasp nest. The amazing thing with this mud is that it gradually dries out and drops off over a few days. Every time I hit a rough bit of road the car cast big lumps of dirt. Driving on greasy wet black soil is not fun.

The Autumn path

2010-05-03T04:53:00.000-07:00

I have been watching the leaves build up on our front path over the past two weeks. I love the leaf carpet so much that I am reluctant to sweep it until rain makes in necessary to move it away. I just love the colours of our Tupelo. Every Autumn it gives us the most wonderful show.

Light

2010-05-01T16:07:00.000-07:00

I know that I rave a lot about woolsheds. Please excuse me for this. They are such evocative buildings - the light, the smell, the texture of the timbers. Superlatives evade me.

These silent buildings are so full of the memory of men who worked and lived hard. They evoke in me the words of former shearer Duke Tritton who described a blade shearing shed in the early 20th century:

"After the noise of the machines it was very quiet. Contrary to general opinion and well known song, shears do not click. The gullets of the hand-grips are filled with soft wood or sometimes cork. This stops the heels of the blades from meeting, so the sound is a soft 'chop, chop' … The machines of the time were no faster than the blades but they cut closer and a fleece would weigh up to two pounds heavier…. There seemed to be more rhythm in a 'blade-shed', possibly because of the lack of noise. A big 'machine-shed' sounds like ten thousand locusts on a hot day, with the whirring of the machines and the hum of the overhead gear and friction wheels."

The Expert's Room

2010-04-30T15:35:00.000-07:00

While recording a huge 19th century woolshed the other day I was taken by the ambience of the expert's room. This shed. originally constructed in 1881 as a 32 stand blade shearing shed, was converted to machine shearing in the early 20th century. Typically a machine room was constructed as an annexe at one end of the mechanised shearing board and an expert's room separated off from the board. The expert was the man who kept the engine running during shearing and sharpened the shearers' blades. The expert had quite a respected status and was generally accommodated with the shearing contractor.

This room hasn't been used for 30 years and has a wonderful patina of neglect. I took this photo through the hatch used to pass the shears between the expert's room and shearing board. The light in woolsheds is always an absolute delight and the smell of lanolin never leaves.

Old fences

2010-04-29T14:29:00.000-07:00

Old fences are quite evocative. In one sense they are whisps of memory, like the spirits of people long-gone, still inhabiting a place although their time is long passed. They are also a partly inscrutable kind of calligraphy, a script that can only be read by the initiated. They speak of colonial legislation, land reform, land use, and battles against dingoes, kangaroos and rabbits. They also speak of European possession of the land and the displacement of those who had walked the country and harvested its bounty for millennia. There is a fascination in fences, the way the old split posts age, and the lines they create across the country.

The Three Corner Waterhole

2010-04-29T01:01:00.001-07:00

I have recently been undertaking some field survey work in the former Goonoo State Forest. During preliminary research I pored over old parish maps to discover clues to historic land use patterns. One map showed old tracks leading from Wellington to Breelong and from Dubbo to Breelong. These tracks met at the confluence of two creeks on the eastern side of the forest then headed towards the Castlereagh River. The confluence of the two creeks was identified on the maps as Three Corner Waterhole. During the 19th century this must have been a permanent waterhole. Nearby we located a site that I believe to be an inn. The two creeks and the waterhole now have the sand beds typical of watercourses in this part of the country and there is little evidence of the waterhole. Everybody knows of course that the water is under the sand and can be obtained by digging. It is a lovely spot and I can imagine it being a small haven of rest after a journey through the rough country of the Goonoo.

That cypress patina

2010-04-27T02:42:00.000-07:00

The village of Blackville sits on ridge above the southern side of the Liverpool Plains. The place has a great ambience. Today I visited the village and recorded a few buildings. Among them was this church which featured in the move "Beneath Clouds". Like many buildings in the northwest this church is clad in native cypress. Many of these buildings were never painted and the cypress was left to weather. The cypress weatherboards age to a dark shade. When we entered the building a large native owl exited through one of the broken windows.

The old pianola

2010-04-25T01:03:00.000-07:00

Today was ANZAC Day. We have a long weekend and the family has all come home. We are fortunate enough to own a vintage pianola and an old tin trunk full of pianola rolls. This wondrous instrument has been the source of much enjoyment over the years. This evening as a baked dinner was cooking we opened up the old beast and took turns in playing a medley of foxtrots followed by Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata. The pianola is a wonderful lumbering old thing that evokes another era - an Australia in which Saturday night often meant rolling up the carpet rugs and dancing on the living room floor. I thought this was a fitting way to end our nation's day of remembrance.

Yaminbah Creek

2010-04-17T04:21:00.000-07:00

Yaminbah Creek in the Pilliga Forest is a typical inland waterway with a bed of sand. The water flows below the bed and occasionally surfaces in little soaks or waterholes.

Woolsheds

2010-04-15T01:35:00.001-07:00

I never cease to be amazed at the wonderful ambience of woolsheds. I was privileged to inspect a few today.

Abandonment

2010-04-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

This cupboard is mounted on the wall of an abandoned generator shed in the Pilliga Forest. It speaks eloquently of the absence of human life. The cupboard sits half open, mostly empty, waiting for the return of an owner who will not return. I find it both beautiful and poignant.

A lonely grave on the Castlereagh

2010-04-04T02:36:00.000-07:00

This photo shows the headstone of an 11 month old girl who died in 1861. It is located on the bank of the Castlereagh River just outside the fence of a cultivation paddock. I was shown the grave by a local man who had first discovered it as a child. It has previously been unrecorded. A few slumps in the ground next to the grave suggested to me that other people had also been buried on this site. The little cemetery is associated with some of the earliest settlers in this area. The old parish maps show river crossings and a dam nearby. It was wonderful to have been able to record this place and ensure that it is not completely forgotten.

Water tank

2010-03-15T04:12:00.000-07:00

In the middle of the Pilliga Forest. A galvanised iron water tank on a hardwood stand. A vision of my country.

Make sure you get my good side

2010-02-16T17:51:00.000-08:00

I have been assessing the Cathedral of Saints Michael and John in Bathurst as part of the task of preparing a Conservation Management Plan. The original cathedral was built in 1860-1861 and has been extended a number of times over the past 150 years. When we were photographing the hood moulding details on the northern clerestory of the nave this cheeky pigeon decided to get into the shot. I like the heroic pose. I'm not sure the venerated saints are amused.

A hamburger with a view

2010-02-06T21:57:00.000-08:00

Every now and then when we are driving home from Sydney in summer we stop in at Blackheath to buy hamburgers and chips for tea. The hamburgers from the takeaway at Blackheath are fantastic but even better still is the view at the place where we eat them. We drive straight down to Govetts Leap and sit on a little wooden bench overlooking the valley while we consume our delectable fare. Govetts Leap is breathtaking on any day but on a summer evening it takes on a sense of magic. The place is always quiet at this time of day. It is one of the great privileges of living where we do.

Storm over the Warrumbungles

2009-12-20T20:51:00.000-08:00

A rainy Friday in September 2009. We were on National Park Road at Gumin Gumin on the southern side of the Warrumbungles. A severe thunder storm was coming in. Gumin Gumin Homestead was lost to a grass fire in December 2009.

Texture

2009-11-26T21:14:00.000-08:00

We recently recorded this old workshop building near a homestead on the plans of northwest New South Wales. I am always fascinated at the way in which the native cypress timbers weather, creating the most amazing textures.

Meat houses

2009-11-24T23:36:00.000-08:00

Near the homestead of every station and rural property in Australia is a meat house. Prior to the days of refrigeration these buildings were constructed to store and butcher freshly killed meat. Often set amongst sheltering trees the meat houses contained an inner screened room designed to keep flies out. This enclosure was sheltered by a low roof providing total shade. The meat house roofs were often pyramid-shaped. Unused now, many have fallen into ruin. They are elegant reminders of a time before the ready availability of refrigeration.

Slavs in old cars welcome

2009-11-23T13:05:00.000-08:00

I am in Lightning Ridge at the moment. Lightning Ridge styles itself as "Home of the Black Opal". Men have tunnelled beneath the ridge for over 100 years searching for the rare and precious opal. Sections of the opal field resemble a moonscape with a bare and tortured landscape bearing testimony to the violence of the small scale mining practices. The place attracts lots of prospectors and many people come here wanting to forget or be forgotten.

As I was waiting for breakfast at a cafe on Opal Street I was musing on the place and what alternate subtexts could be attached to the name. Watching the people walking around I thought perhaps it could be called "Lightning Ridge - Home of weird men with beards", 'Home of crappy old cars" or "We celebrate mental illness".

As I pondered other likely labels my reverie was broken as yet another crappy old car pulled up outside the cafe. Out of it popped a man wearing only sandals, a t-shirt and silk boxer shorts. I was was a little taken aback at this but said g'day anyway, hiding my discomposure. He and his family took a table and began to converse in a slavic language. as they talked I pondered on the numbers of former citizens of the former Kingdom of the South Slavs who seem to be drawn to places like this.

Jugoslavia (Europe's answer to Iraq) a country that was not a country, torn apart from its beginnings by ethnic conflict, exported hundreds of thousands of people during the mid to late 20th century. Many came to Australia and made a living doing whatever they could. They worked in road gangs, in the steelworks, in large construction projects, and many sought riches in the small prospecting fields of the opal districts. Lightning Ridge is one of the few towns in Western New South Wales with a Serbian Orthodox church.

So I thought perhaps the ideal subtext for Lightning Ridge could be: "Slavs in old cars welcome".

Christmas started yesterday!

2009-11-21T19:46:00.000-08:00

It's Christmas already. All our family was home this weekend so yesterday we put up our tree, decorated it and have been listening to Christmas music! Last night we at salt and pepper squid with chips and salad and watched "Love Actually" just to complete the mood.

It's perfect Christmas weather here - stinking hot (so hot you don't want to go outside), high winds, total fire bans, the occasional whiff of burning eucalyptus and the general malaise that comes with heat waves. Who would be anywhere else at Christmas?

I pity you poor northern hemisphere people who have nothing to look forward to but snow and sleigh rides, big coats, roaring fires and egg nog. I wouldn't swap for quids!

Tiger Bay Wetland

2009-11-15T15:45:00.000-08:00

I have been slack with blogging lately. I guess I have been pre-occupied with other things - life, the universe, everything. I recorded this place at Warren the other week and while I was there I thought of all kinds of poetic things to say. Those thoughts have now flown like small birds on a spring day so I'll have to substitute some others.

It's wonderful to see a cowal like this preserved so close to a town. The birdlife around the cowal is amazing. So many native ducks and other creatures. I did tread warily in case snakes were in the grass but saw none. I was in quite a reverie when I stopped here early in the day.

Why is the place called Tiger Bay? I have no idea. The ocean is hundreds of kilometres away and it doesn't look like any bay I've seen elsewhere. It is beautiful because water is so precious in the inland.

The brewer's door

2009-10-30T18:36:00.000-07:00

All old pubs in New South Wales have a cellar door through which kegs of beer are loaded. These cellar doors are located in the footpath outside the pub. Most of the ones I have seen are wooden. Traditionally the kegs were lowered down temporary ramps using ropes and hooks. I photographed these steel doors outside the Captain Cook Hotel at Moore Park in Sydney, a hotel that was built in 1914. I love the patterns of wear on the steel plates.

Little surprises

2009-10-19T16:08:00.000-07:00

One of the things I love about cities is that they are constantly full of little joyful surprises. I have been driving through Annandale on Parramatta Road in Sydney for well over 30 years. I know a lot of the buildings that form the elongated shopping strip along the old tram route yet I am still discovering things.

The other week I was driving home on a Sunday afternoon and was stopped at a set of traffic lights. I glanced out of the car and saw a little delight. Here before my eyes was a little shop front built in a Federation Free Classical style with an amazing tiles facade. I just had to take a snap with my mobile phone. It was a quick shot as the lights were changing - hence the angle and dumb alignment of the image.

But then, that's part of the joy of the surprise!

A whisper of yesterday

2009-10-04T00:51:00.000-07:00

Last week we were up on the Barwon River in northern New South Wales inspecting the buildings on an old sheep run. The homestead was abandoned after the 1975 floods and has not been lived in since. At that time the owners were trapped for six months as the roads on the blacksoil plains were rendered impassible. When I roam through these empty homesteads I am often haunted by whispers of an imagined past. I sense cakes baking in a wood-fired oven and the birds singing as washing is hung on the line. In my head I hear the sounds of ABC radio - perhaps a news bulletin or an episode of Blue Hills. And sometimes in the corner of my mind I see woman in a polkadot dress sweeping or preparing for the evening meal.

These whispers in my mind leave me warm and content.

ghosts in the landscape

2009-10-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

ghosts in the ...

some empty and aba...

By Ray Christison

Book Preview

Dust

2009-09-22T19:51:00.000-07:00

The main street of Coonabarabran at noon on 23 September 2009. Dust everywhere and a chilling westerly wind. The whole of New South Wales seems to be covered in dust today. Walking around one feels the dust invading the airways. I read about big dust storms in the past but never seen in one this big.

Springtime promises ...

2009-09-20T14:25:00.000-07:00

For weeks now our garden has been radiant with colour as the exotic plants compete to be noticed in a symphony of blossom and bloom. The air is warm and fresh and the ground moist enough to foster luxuriant growth. And spring promises so many things. It promises a fresh start and a new birth of life after the slumber of winter. With vigour it promises new life and cleansing.

It's a time to get out and do things. To start walking again. To get into that gardening that was neglected in winter. This year we have building projects planned and so may things we want to do. The spring encourages us to start these.

This year spring is also promising an El Nino. Hot dry summer, failed crops, suffering animals. I like the idea of a hot summer, but dread the other stuff.

Treasures in my street

2009-09-06T00:22:00.000-07:00

This afternoon we were walking up our back lane after visiting friends. Whether it was the light, the position of the sun or just serendipity I happened to notice this amazing concrete shed. We've lived here for 17 years and this is the first time I have actually noticed this structure. It is rustic, wonderful and, in my mind, ever so romantic. I can imagine this being built over a period of weeks or months using small batches of concrete and a slip mould. Life is full of sweet surprises.

Arches are divine

2009-08-19T17:02:00.001-07:00

I never cease to be amazed by arches. I was fooling around under an historic bridge yesterday (as one does) and, as always, I was transported by the sheer simplicity and grace of the arch form. This 19th century bridge, built just the way the Romans built bridges thousands of years ago, is so simple and so elegant.

Arches are ingenious. Compression makes them stronger so the more weight they carry the tougher they are. The beautiful curves of arches remind one of perfection and infinity ....

Vintage wind power

2009-08-13T15:41:00.000-07:00

It's a commonly known axiom that nothing really changes. A few years ago when I was recording a wonderful homestead complex in the hills between Murringo and Harden I was shown the station's battery shed. I've seen lots of these buildings, mostly constructed in the 1920s to hold batteries for the homesteads' 32 volt electricity systems. In the wool boom of the 1920s many cockies invested in the new fangled electric lighting systems so they could read or listen to the radio at night.

While generators were often powered by diesel engines located near the battery room many farms installed wind turbines to generate electricity that was stored in the battery sheds. I was delighted to find the old Windlite turbine still in place on its steel tower at this property. It is a lovely example of 1920s design and manufacture. I've since seen other similar installations.

Riverina cool

2009-08-05T14:37:00.001-07:00

The Riverina is the name given by early settlers to the vast plains that lie between the southwestern slopes of the Great Dividing Range and the Darling River in southern New South Wales. This rich country is watered by some of Australia's legendary rivers, including The Murray, The Murrumbidgee and the Lachlan. Before European occupation the area either side of the Murray was the most heavily populated part of the Australian continent, supporting large numbers of Aboriginal people from many nations.

When European settlers moved in from the 1820s they brought sheep and cattle and changed the land forever. In early days bullock teams could take months to reach outlying stations on tracks made dusty by heat and treacherously boggy after rain. The rivers and plains supported huge flocks of sheep and massive woolsheds were built on the plains. Enormous fortunes were made by pastoralists and entrepreneurs supply beef and mutton to the Victorian goldfields.

As railways snaked out across the country wheat growing was introduced. With irrigation schemes parts of the basin were used to grow rice, fruits and vegetables. The area is now one of Australia's great food bowls.

At the isolated homesteads of the 19th century families ruling over expansive pastoral empires struggled to maintain a civilized and comfortable life. Battling the oppressive heat of summer was part of this struggle. Many of the homesteads verandahs looked out onto well maintained gardens with flower beds and shady trees. The arbor was one particular device employed by the squatters to provide a cool retreat in summer. Long shady walks were created with wooden frames festooned by vines. Few of these remain.

Yanga Station in the western Riverina has a lovely old arbor walk. It also has this marvellous arbor with its facing bench seats. The arbor sits at the bottom of a garden walk directly opposite the front doors of the homestead. It looks east across the old vegetable garden and across Yanga Lake. Until the mid 1990s Yanga Lake was full of water. It has been dry for over 10 years and one wonders if it will ever fill again.

Tap sites

2009-08-04T17:06:00.001-07:00

Strange thing about my country. Water can be a scarce commodity. It is interesting to find various places where a spring or a small watercourse was used to create a 'tap site'. Landowners or local authorities would install some pipework and a tap for use by travellers. The photo shows the tap that was put next to the Oxley Highway north of Tooraweenah on the climb into the edge of the Warrumbungle Range in the 1950s. In the old days trucks and cars would stop here to fill up overheating radiators. A nice place for a tap!

There is a lovely spring site on Cherry Tree Hill which we visited once years ago. That site creeped us out a bit becasue just as we got to the spring a black snake crossed our path. Apart from that it felt weird. This place was near the spot where I have encountered my ghost (see earlier post).

Tap sites sometimes became gathering places for fringe-dwellers such as Aboriginal people who were not living on missions or in government settlements. Showgrounds often became living places for these people. The former stockyards at Coonabarabran was another place remembered by Aboriginal people as a tap site at which they congregated.

I love these little unassuming places that dot the landscape.

The grief of separation

2009-08-03T15:50:00.000-07:00

The other week I was checking out the town of Warren on the Macquarie River as I am just starting a study there. I crossed the levee banks and, as is my usual thing, I drove around looking for landmarks and the usual places that country towns have. Driving out past the railway yards I turned on to the very imaginatively named Industrial Access Road and discovered the cemetery. Here was a neatly laid out Victorian cemetery with the Catholics and Anglicans jostling for the prime spots on the eastern side and each trying to overwhelm the other with big gravestones. The staid Presbyterians were near the entrance with their neat graves and robust monuments. What caught my eye was the fact that in one corner of the cemetery was a small group of very simple headstones located well away from all the others. I thought to myself: "These people were persona non grata - even in death."

Curious I visited the cemetery the next day to discover who these outcasts were. I had assumed that they were not Christian or they would have been closer to the others. Imagine the thrill I had when I confirmed that this was a group of Chinese graves - the first I had seen in New South Wales. These were graves of the lonely legion, the men who had come to New South Wales in the 1850s and 1860s seeking gold. They had left family behind in southern China and, for various reasons, had never returned. Many finished their days as gardeners on rural properties or running small market gardens near the region's towns.

I had read by chance the night before that, during the early 20th century a funeral director in Gulargambone had arranged burials of Chinese nationals in Warren Cemetery. In accordance with Chinese custom rice was sprinkled on the road as the coffin travelled all the way from Gulargambone to Warren (about 80km).

It is very important for Chinese people to be buried with their ancestors and it is particularly sad that these men, having been separated from family in life, were still also separated from family in death. Most Chinese graves were marked with the person's name, the region they came from, town and clan so that one day their remains could be returned to China. After the 1911 Revolution the Chinese Government commenced a programme of funding gravestones. I suspect the ones in Warren were funded under this scheme.

The fact that the gravestones are still in place shows that the remains are still there as well. It is sad to think that the remains were not returned to China, causing the families of these men to suffer a double grief.

As my coffin leaves the church ....

2009-08-02T21:13:00.000-07:00

For years I have been in a few minds about what song I would like to have playing as my coffin leaves the church. This is assuming that I have a coffin and get to have a funeral! (I'd better make sure I don't fly Air France any time soon.)

Once I was adamant that the song I wanted was Gladys Knight and The Pips "Midnight Train to Georgia" - still one of my favourite songs, but it seems to be too sombre for the occasion.

I toyed with Louis Prima's "I'm Just a Gigolo" for a while but thought that people might misunderstand my intentions.

Then I thought of having the reggae version of the theme from the movie "The Guns of Navarone". I had suggested that we put 50 bucks up for a "name that tune" competition. This is still an option, however, now that I have named the tune in a blog, it may be pointless to put up the money.

Lately I have been thinking about Queen's "Don't Stop me Now". Now this one has possibilities.

Oh! Choices, choices, choices. So many possibilities. So many tunes. What is a boy to do?

Hmmmmmm. I'm just listening to BeauSoleil playing "Zydeco Gris Gris". Now there is a tune .......

As a postscript: I was listening to Midnight Oil the other day and thought: "US Forces, that might make a good swansong. :-)

Lock me up in a yum cha restaurant and throw away the key

2009-08-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

Food is an important component in the relationship fabric of my family. We share a love for food and social eating. Food and conversation and conversations about food are a big item in the way we communicate and share love. We particularly love meals where the food is shared around the table and passed from hand to hand.

Yum cha is one of our most favoured food experiences. For well over 25 years we have been visiting the Marigold Restaurant in Sydney for yum cha. Our yum cha experiences are generally linked to birthdays or other important celebrations. We went again yesterday and I was reminded of the divine inspiration behind this very Cantonese, very Hong Kong way of eating. The popularity of yum cha in Sydney is partly a testament to Sydney's strong links to southern China that were forged in the 19th century. Yum cha is also popular because it is such a social way to enjoy food.

I love the steamed dishes, the variety, the delicate and complex flavours. I also love the buzz, the absolute frenzy of the yum cha restaurant and the apparent chaos that works in a perfectly ordered way. There are few delights on earth as good (or as affordable) as a great yum cha.

I am in love

2009-07-24T00:28:00.000-07:00

I have had a big week. I've driven over 3,000 kilometres across the northwest plains of New South Wales working with various communities. On my way home I called in at Coonabarabran. This was the place in which I undertook my first regional heritage study. The countryside around there is majestic with its rolling hills and ridges that stretch between the Warrumbungle Mountains and the Liverpool Plains. I always feel quite refreshed when I drive through this landscape and see the native cypress trees that crowd the poor soils of the sandy ridges and big gums that grow along the rivers and creeks.Coonabarabran has a special charm with its friendly main street and wonderful Victorian Regency Court House.

Today I was overtaken by a strange sensation. I drove into Coonabarabran this morning and felt like I was home, then later something really special happened. I drove east, out through Purlewaugh and joined the road that runs between Coolah and Mullaley on the western rim of the Liverpool Plains. As I turned onto that road I glimpsed the old woolshed at Bomera Station. I was overwhelmed by a sensation like the rush of emotions one feels when one is in love. I thought to myself: "I love this place." I felt at once at peace and exhilarated. It was a sweet moment.

I hate killing birds

2009-07-23T04:58:00.000-07:00

I have done a lot of country driving this week. I drive at times of day when I can best avoid kangaroos and I have only had a few brushes with these unwitting ruffians of the road. A few times kangaroos have jumped across the path of my car and fortunately the closest I came to hitting one was when the bullbar just clipped a roo's tail. I remember a hilarious evening near Bugaldie when a kangaroo jumped straight out of the Pilliga Scrub and across my path. I was shocked and the roo was clearly shocked too. It jumped out of the way of my car, did a full circle on the road behind me and jumped straight back into the bush from whence it had come!

The thing that makes me cringe is when I hit birds. So many birds hang around the roads. after rain they cavort in puddles, crows and magpies pick at roadkill and parrots pick seeds off the asphalt. Most birds are canny enough to get out of the way but often parrots hang around until it is too late. Today on the road between Gilgandra and Coonamble I came across two massive flocks of Sulphur Crested Cockatoos eating wheat that had spilled out of road transports. As I drove towards the first mob a great white cloud lifted off the road. One bird was a little slower than the others. It flew up and slammed into my windscreen. It exploded like a down pillow in a Hollywood bedroom fight and my stomach turned.

As I approached the second mob I blew my horn continually. The gluten groggy birds lifted off the road and again one slow bird flew up into my path. It slammed into my bullbar, bending my number plate and exploding like another white down pillow.

I always feel sick when these things happen.

Verandahs

2009-07-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

I am amused when I discover that the standard spellcheck that comes with MS Word does not recognise the word verandah. How could this not be? It's been in my lexicon for as long as I can remember. I'd guess that it's has been in the Australian language for well over 150 years.

Anyway , that's a side issue. I can't remember a time when I was not in love with verandahs. My earliest verandah memories involve my mother's parent's Federation era house in Beaufort Street, Croydon Park. I remember this wide place with a magnificent tesselated tile floor. It was a wondrous place. Then there was the wide, airy and cool verandah sleepout on my Auntie Beth and Uncle Bob's Californian Bungalow at Sans Souci.

Verandahs always carried a promise of lazy afternoons, cool drinks, beds with breezes and summer. I have always wanted a house with a verandah wide enough for lounges and a bed or two. To me that would be the ultimate indulgence. To sit in a big comfy lounge on a verandah and just read, or watch the stars blazing in a black sky. I visit so many houses with great verandahs and I love them all.

Perhaps my next house will have a lovely wide verandah .....

Lost in Print

2009-07-08T20:59:00.000-07:00

I was just browsing through old posts on one of my favourite blogs - Built Environment Blog. This is a wonderful exploration of urban landscapes guided by the eye of a professional town planner. much of it involves investigation of the built environment of Brooklyn New York. I feel a real resonance to this blog and its contents.

While reading one post I noticed that the author had published an expanded version of the post on the Lost Magazine website. Accordingly I checked it out. What an amazing concept. I've bookmarked this and now I'm sharing it. I might even submit something of my own to this magazine.

Public art - One and Other

2009-07-06T16:13:00.000-07:00

I have an ambivalent view of modern art. I generally find it meaningless and pretentious. I figure any supposed visual medium that needs words to explain itself has failed in its aims before it begins. So much of modern art is like this.

Public art on the other hand is often a wonder and a joy. The sheer spontaneity of much public art gives it a depth that one often does not find in over-funded galleries of contemporary art. The One and Other project currently underway in Trafalgar Square, London is one such expression of public art. The empty plinth in Trafalgar Square, hundreds of ordinary people given one hour each to become a public sculpture. Great idea!

I will watch this website with interest.

http://www.oneandother.co.uk/

for the touch of a hand now vanished, for the sound of a voice now still

2009-07-01T03:17:00.000-07:00

Today I was out on the edge of the Macquarie Marshes. This is the place that the early European explorers thought was the edge of a great inland sea. They never found the sea. Instead they found hundreds of square kilometres of rich grazing country. The landscape is strange, dead flat, and as one approaches the marshes the trees become more common. The air is alive with the calls of native birds.

On my way back to Coonamble a cemetery caught my eye. An open, dedicated area in which the different Christian denominations maintain a respectful if not combative distance. A relict of the gross sectarianism that once characterised our society. The Aboriginal graves are pushed to one side, along the fence.

The poor and the wealthy are segregated in death as in life. Large marble monuments note those whose families had money. The imagery of these monuments captivates me. The urn shrouded in a cloth denotes a life ended. The garland represents eternal life. One monument in this group carried the plaintive wish:

"for the touch of a hand now vanished, for the sound of a voice now still."

I have seen this lament before and its poignancy always touches me. I see the loved one sitting at home, yearning with breaking heart for a brief reminder of the loved one taken by death. It is our fate to mourn ... and to be mourned.

So Frenchy so chic

2009-06-28T05:12:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I'm just filling up space on my blog. Sue me.

I took this photo a few years ago on a visit to Montreal. We were down in the old part of the city near the St Lawrence River one morning just as the day was starting. I snapped this view as we were waiting for coffee in a small cafe. I'm no photographer and any good image that I come up with is more than likely an accident. I like this one. It captured something of the atmosphere of that morning and created a very nice memory.

We had walked from our B&B in Mont Royal, through Parc La Fontayn, dodging the legions of cyclists, and caught the Metro to the city. Strolling through the old cobbled streets we had chanced upon a wonderful Christmas Shop and had then wandered down to this little cafe.

There is something evocative about the image. A bit like Montreal I guess. It was nice to feel a little European in North America. And one could be guaranteed a good coffee.

Privilege

2009-06-20T22:27:00.001-07:00

Work puts me in so many privileged places. Sometimes I almost have to pinch myself to make sure I am not dreaming. Well, that's if you consider sitting on your bottom in a damp drain, making a sketch of rocks, on a cold morning a privilege. I do. I was called out this week to make an emergency record of a 19th century drain that had been unearthed during roadworks. Ahhhhh. Life is good.

Visions in my coffee

2009-06-20T21:48:00.000-07:00

I enjoy my long black coffee each morning. A nice shot of espresso with hot water. A great way to get the day going. Last Sunday I had put down my empty cup and my wife noticed that the residue had formed a picture. It looks to me like an oak tree. I see in this image illustrations from A.A. Milne's Winnie the Pooh books and am transported to the Hundred Acre Wood. I also see the magnificent oak tree that stood atop Razorback Mountain as a symbol of the Sydney retail giant Anthony Hordern and Sons. - "WHILE I LIVE I'LL GROW".

I also see the big oak tree in the park near us that occasionally makes a baby in our yard. There's one near the front fence right now. I'll have to remember to take it out before it grows too much!

Slow means bloody slow

2009-05-21T03:07:00.000-07:00

I love this sign. It is at the entrance to the office of the motel I stay in at Walgeee. It's a great place on the banks of the Barwon Rive. It's peaceful with great hosts and lots of wildlife. But the sign says it all!

Cantonese please

2009-05-07T05:25:00.000-07:00

My daughter has asked me to start photographing Chinese restaurant signs on my travels. I thought I would start by photographing perhaps the most famous Chinese restaurant in our region, the Hang Sing at Blayney. In the 19th century and early 20th century most of the migration from China to Australia came from the southern provinces, particularly from around Canton (Guangzhou). Cantonese restaurants became a feature of every country town and every suburb in Australia and the capital cities each have their own Chinatown. Sydney's is the largest and it has been argued that Sydney has the best Cantonese food in the world outside of China.

Chinese business people were great supporters of the Kuomintang and the Chinese republican movement in the 20th century. But who cares about that!. Thye have given us a a legacy of unique signage all over the countryside. I'll start blogging these signs myself!

The quiet anarchy of the countryside

2009-05-04T04:50:00.001-07:00

There is a strange anarchy at work in the rural landscape. It makes sense that buildings without purpose are left to fall apart. Places that have stood for more time than most people live. Places that once provided shelter, a bed, a meal, a warm fire are left, empty and forlorn. Their fabric gradually decays. The native cypress of New South Wales, so frequently milled and used as cladding, disintegrates over time and gradually erodes. The fixings that held their elements together work loose and eventually the structure begins to separate. Timber buildings lean, their backs break and their frames, too weary to support the whole, head for the ground. The process can take decades but it is as certain as night following day. In time - with the action of wind, insects, fire and water - there will be nothing left.

Empty board

2009-05-04T04:40:00.000-07:00

I know I've blogged woolsheds before but I am constantly amazed and delighted by the sheer beauty of these utilitarian structures that dot the Australian landscape. I photographed this empty board recently and, as always, I find the light and the tones of the timber just wonderful. The board is the place where the sheep are shorn. They are taken out of catching pens, shorn and then put through little doors on the outside of the building to be counted in the counting pens. The machinery drives the shears. This board was full of umbrella weed seeds that had been carried into the building by the wind. They made a strange furry carpet, almost like a low morning mist.

It's amazing that these places can be the scene of such frantic activity during shearing time and then sit empty and silent for much of the rest of the year.

Breathtaking!

2009-03-03T22:32:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was on a property located near the Talbragar River. I was looking at some old buildings and the owner was keen to show me an old hay shed. This building was absolutely breathtaking. The brand of corrugated iron in the roof suggests it was built in the 1880s. This brand is "Globe" and I've just discovered that it hasn't been recorded in Australia before!!!! WOW! How lucky am I!

The shed itself is amazing. The posts are unmilled logs at least 7 metres high. The structure is located on some high ground above a billabong. This makes it seem even higher than it is. The posts support a gable roof with skillion sides. One end has collapsed. This just adds to the character of the site.

I LOVE MY JOB!

Yearning

2009-03-01T22:38:00.000-08:00

I feel quite privileged in my work. Often I am granted access to places that are rarely seen. I see many wonderful things, some breathtakingly beautiful, some heartbreakingly sad.

Sometimes, just sometimes, I see something that hits straight at the yearning within me. My heart has a voice that seeks for something I don't fully understand. It expresses a sense of a void that has yet to be filled. Perhaps it is just boyish romanticism, perhaps something else. The voice is wakened when I see an image of the beauty of the Taj Mahal or the Mosque at Samarkand. It thrills at the Pibroch - the great music of the bagpipes, and it rejoices in mountain mist. It cried inside me when I stood at the top of the Empire State Building. It rejoiced on the Brooklyn Bridge and sighs admiringly when confronted by all beauty.

Occasionally something simple gives the little voice expression. This scene did. I was recording a beautiful homestead located within sight of the Warrumbungle Range. The homestead was surrounded by a beautiful garden - a little unkempt as its creator had passed away some ears ago. It turned a corner and was presented with the prospect of this little gazebo. It looked forlorn and at the same time very romantic. It spoke of India and the British Empire and of something that links so much of the world together. It spoke to me of tranquility and cups of tea and peace, and love. I adored it.

Perception and the popcorn girl

2009-02-28T02:23:00.001-08:00

Ten years ago I was working in India. Early one Sunday morning we were treated to a tour of Todoba National Park in the east of Maharashtra State. The park and its teak forests contain tigers. We arrived just after dawn and spent some time looking for the tigers. We saw monkeys, deer and fresh tiger tracks, but no tigers. As we left the park our small bus stopped briefly near the park gates.

Typically on Sunday many families visit recreation places such as Todoba. In other busy places I had seen children selling small items at picnic spots. As we stopped I noticed this girl, immaculate in her yellow dress and pigtails, sitting with her wares waiting for the visitors to arrive at the park. In the seconds that the bus was stopped I snapped this photograph. I thought it was sweet to see the girl sitting erect among her neatly arranged popcorn and snacks. She looked so much better off and better loved than the poor children I had seen in the streets of Mumbai and Nagpur.

When I arrived back in Australia I proudly showed my photographs to my family. My daughters were horrified at this shot. They called me heartless and castigated me for not buying something from the girl (not that I had the time to) or at least throwing her some money (she wasn't begging).

Years later one of my daughters decided to sponsor a child. She explained that, when shown photographs of children to sponsor, she chose a little Indian girl in a yellow dress. She said that the little one reminded her of the popcorn girl. She couldn't do anything but sponsor the little girl in the yellow dress.

Dereliction

2009-02-24T13:13:00.000-08:00

I am currently reading Christopher Payne's book "New York's Forgotten Substations". In this work he chronicles the decline and destruction of the myriad electricity substations that once powered New York's elevated railways and subways. Reading this work has led me to remember the numerous large and small substations that dot the landscape of Sydney and the inter-urban rail lines connecting the city to Lithgow and Gosford. Over years I had seen these places change, decay and in some cases be converted to other uses.

Like many I have an eye and a fondness for places such as these. I remember the numerous little foundries and engineering works that once proliferated along Sydney's rail lines. Places of heat and fire and noise. Many of these are gone. Some lie neglected and vandalised. Most have been converted to other purposes.

In my work I come across many places that once served a useful industrial purpose and which now lie empty. Some are fortunate to be given another use. Others sit empty and forlorn in the landscape. Often this is because they were constructed to house a specific process or because their location precludes other uses.

Universally these places have a lugubrious presence. Forlorn, neglected and almost ghostly. Once they were the epicentre of people's lives, the beating heart of their existence and their reason for getting out of bed in the morning. Now they seem to sit like an abandoned lover - desolate, inconsolable and desperately lonely.

The screen door

2009-02-23T13:30:00.001-08:00

After almost 17 years we finally have a front screen door. There is something quintessentially Australian about a screen door. And it looks so sweet on the front of our 1920s house. Granted the door is a steel-framed modern door with triple locking and burglar-proof mesh, but it does look sweet. It's just wonderful now to open the front door on a summer day and feel the air breezing down the hallway.

Perhaps I have finally arrived .......

Obedience

2009-02-23T12:05:00.000-08:00

Not long ago I set off to drive the 6 hours it takes to get to Walgett. To get to Walgett I follow the Castlereagh Highway almost all the way from my place to the little war memorial in the centre of the town. It's kind of poignant as I live very close to the war memorial in Lithgow, so my journey is almost memorial to memorial!

Anyway, early in the journey I pass through the hamlet of Ben Bullen. Like many places Ben Bullen was something once but isn't much now. The most memorable feature of the place is that the Castlereagh Highway makes a double dog-leg across the Wallerawang-Gwabegar Branchline Railway here. There are flashing lights on the level crossing as the line takes coal and cement trains. The crossing is controlled by lights only. There are no barriers or boom gates.

My journey this day was on a Sunday so there was a reasonable amount of traffic on the road. As I approached Ben Bullen I noticed a few cars stopped at the crossing, the lights flashing and the bells ringing. I stopped and waited patiently with the other drivers on either side of the level crossing. There was no sign of a train and nothing came through so after about what seemed like 10 minutes one of the drivers left his car to look up and down the railway line. He looked across at us and shrugged his shoulders. We all smiled and everyone just sat there, obedient to the lights and bells.

We sat for a little longer until a utility marked for the Australian Rail Track Corporation pulled up. A man got out, waved to everyone then unlocked the control box for the lights and re-set them. We all drove off quite contentedly and waved back to him.

I was amused by this little incident, by the 'ghost train' and by the good nature displayed by everyone involved. As I drove off I pondered how our world is governed by the fact that we choose to obey the rules. Physically nothing was stopping us from driving through the crossing. What kept us waiting was obedience to the lights and obedience to the law. I found the whole thing quite comforting in a way. I'm not ready yet for anarchy. Or maybe I'm just too old.

Whatever happened to retail?

2008-12-01T01:46:00.000-08:00

I spent today in Sydney. First day of the silly season and the city was full of shoppers. As I strolled through the busy department stores I reflected on how much retail has changed in the past 20 years. I began to wonder: "When did the mentally ill start making decisions about the nature of retail?" The term retail therapy once meant something. One could stroll through a fantasy world of opulent stores, breathtaking window displays and be transported to places of peace and joy and beauty. Not so long ago department stores were quiet, magical places where one could reflect on a sale and take joy in the transaction.

Now one strolls into a crowded, angry world full of blazng light and blaring noise. For years I have enjoyed a trip to the floor of the Sydney Myer store that had books, music and movies. It was peaceful and quiet. The bookstore cafe was a city haven often frequented by my family. It has now been replaced by polished concrete floor, a Virgin music and movie store run by gender-confused metros who seemed intent on converting the world to their ecstasy-fuelled rave dance scene, and a bookstore that looked like a cheap publisher's bargain hall. Within metres of the thumping dance music are three clothing departments, each playing its own loud sound track. The whole scene just seemed totally psychotic. Was this a retail space or just some form of Bedlam? Thoughts of Hollywood depictions of paranoid schizophrenia and LSD trips passed through my mind.

Predictably I spent as little time as possible in that madhouse. I couldn't be bothered trying to sort through the Virgin store's "genre" classified DVD's and CD's. I once shopped for music and movies based on a primary school understanding of the English alphabet. This apparently all too basic a level of understanding is no longer sufficient in a retail store. This Christmas I'll just shop online.

Traditional retail is slowing down - I wonder why?

Donga Dan book!

2008-10-24T14:34:00.001-07:00

Nice Day! A ch...

Over thirty years o...

By Jose the travelli...

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Sydney+winter=heaven

2008-08-14T02:54:00.000-07:00

I spent today in Sydney's holy land, the Sutherland Shire, painting my daughter's new home unit. The sunny August winter day reminded me just how beautiful the harbour city is in the middle of the year. Even with the current cool weather conditions (maximum 17 degrees Celsius) it was t-shirt weather. The sky glowed a lovely bright blue, the birds sang, Botany Bay and the Georges River glittered and the sunshine was so warm.

I imagined, as I often have at this time of year, that heaven will be something like this. There is nothing on earth better than Sydney on a fine winter day. The whole place just glows and life seems beautiful in all respects.

On days like this my mind wanders back to so many wonderful winter afternoons. Foremost are memories from the 1980s of glasses of chilled white wine next to a swimming pool near the Tasman Sea at Vaucluse. Light, fresh food, crisp tasting Chardonnay (Australian of course), great conversation, and the sunshine - the glorious glorious sunshine. I could probably handle that for much of eternity.

Cast iron treasures

2008-07-20T03:16:00.000-07:00

Oh joy! Oh wonder! We caught the ferry from Williamstown to South Bank in Melbourne the other day. The trip follows part of Port Philip then up the Yarra River to Melbourne's CBD. It was a pleasant enough journey through the edge of Melbourne's old industrial suburbs and into its docklands. I saw a side of that city I had never before encountered and was led to muse on the changes in Melbourne and in my own beloved city of Sydney. These cities were once working cities where men and women toiled in thousands of large and small factories to make things. Little foundries and engineering works made bits and pieces for the large industries and there was a pulse and rhythm of grime and creativity. Much of that has been swept away as these two great cities have become more 'global' and service oriented.

In its maniacal quest to create something greater than Sydney Melbourne is managing to create a unique grey and black form of ugliness. The ominous and deathly coloured tower blocks that cover the former industrial and commercial areas of Melbourne's docklands stand like enormous headstones to forgotten relatives. The unique, grey-hued lumps of buildings such as Federation Square resemble the petrified turds of some grotesquely destructive monster that has squatted over the city.

BUT ... in unexpected places glimpses of beauty and style still exist. I was elated to travel under some of the low-level bridges that straddle the Yarra, tying the Melbourne's affluent suburbs to its commercial heart. Some of these bridges date back to the 19th century and reflect that century's love affair with iron. Pictures tell more than words.

A link to the Triads

2008-07-20T02:59:00.000-07:00

I spent last week in Melbourne with my family. We shopped and ate and rode the trams. I love just roaming aimlessly around cities. They are full of adventure, full of little secrets and little vignettes just there waiting to be discovered.

Imagine my sense of excitement when I strolled up this lane off Little Bourke Street (Melbourne's Chinatown). Here, at the top of this bluestone cobbled lane, was a simple terrace building containing a Hong Kong cafe. A plaque on the building announced that it had been built by the Yee Hing Society. This South China based secret society managed one of the most complex and successful assisted immigration and credit transfer systems in the South Pacific during the 19th century.

Here was a tangible link to Australia's wonderful Chinese past, and to the societies that helped to create an ideal of democracy in China. The Australian triads became strong and influential supporters of the Kuomintang and it is understood that Australian democratic ideals helped form the seed bed of a modern Chinese republic and democracy.

That discovery made my day.

Be careful where you wear a grey hat

2008-06-26T00:44:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I was recording buildings in the main street of Gilgandra in Western New South Wales. This involved walking down both sides of the street to photograph and check the location of each building. I had to carry a camera, pad and clipboard. I also have a very nice Akubra felt hat that I enjoy wearing and I wore it that day.

In New South Wales Parking Police wear grey, broad-brimmed hats. I was amused as I walked down the street as people came scurrying out of shops to their cars, saying to me: "Sorry, I was just about to move it" or "This isn't my car" or "I'm only staying a few minutes".

I reassured them that I was not the parking police. It gave me a chance to get to know the locals!

War Memorials

2008-06-21T16:02:00.000-07:00

The Australian landscape is dotted with sacred places. In every town, village and locality across this land is at least one memorial honouring those who served and died in Australia's wars. This country was scarred deeply by the experience of the Great War and most of the memorials and memorial halls were erected as part of the national outpouring of grief that followed that conflict. Some are grand affairs yet others are simple - the humble expression of small communities with few resouces. I photographed the simple memorial at Armatree the other day.

At the Verailles conferences of 1919 there was much discussion about the division of Germany's former empire. American President Woodrow Wilson wanted to give Germany's former colonies in New Guinea to Japan. Australia had long been suspicious of Japanese expansionism. The Australian Prime Minister, William Morris Hughes, vigorously opposed this proposal to give to Japan a holding on Australia's doorstep. In the face of this seeming intransigence an exasperated Wilson tried to downplay Australia's status in the world, saying: " After all, you speak for only five million people'. Hughes retorted: "I speak for 60,000 dead. For how many do you speak?"

60,000 dead from a population of five million. As a result of vigorous elan and British incompetence Australia lost more men per head of population in that war than any other country. The landscape we live in softly recounts the tears, the broken lives and the loved ones left to mourn. As the nation gets older these little spaces all around us call us to remember with the words 'LEST WE FORGET'.

Eye candy

2008-05-29T22:59:00.000-07:00

It's a been a while since my last blog and I've been thinking of lots of things, but haven't managed to put any down. I'm currently researching buildings in Broken Hill and thought I'd take some mental time out. The massively wealthy silver, lead and zinc ore bodies at Broken Hill were discovered at the height of Austalia's long boom in the early 1880s. It was a time of massive investment and easy capital and the town grew quickly on the back of the incredible wealth dug from the earth of the Broken Hill on the Barrier Range.
This photo (from the Rasp Memorial Library) shows the original Church of England church building in Broken Hill (built in 1886) being moved by the Methodists to a new site in Blende Street in 1887. The Church of England guys couldn't meet their mortgage payments so the bank foreclosed and sold the building. The Methodists, whose numbers in Broken Hill were huge, snavelled it up and made it one of their churches. In 1926 it was moved again to another site in Thomas Street to become part of the Thomas Street Methodist Church. (The colour photograph shows a similar building at Thomas Street in 2008.)

That's all interesting, but what intrigues me most is the thing that intrigues me with all of these old photographs - the people. I can see the workers who were managing the horse team and the blokes who were keeping an eye on the building. Then there's the man in the suit - maybe the minister or the contractor, and the kids. There's always kids in these photos, standing staight and still, and probably feeling very important because they are being photographed. But the woman - the woman in the white Gibson Girl dress standing right in the line of site to the building. She seems young, no doubt attractive and she holds a quite fetching stance - left leg foreward, right hip out, right arm held straight and one hand to her mouth. I guess the concept of 'eye candy' has been around since the birth of the camera.

I am intrigued by her. I wonder - who was she? What happened in her life? Was she happy? Buildings like the one she is standing in front of still exist, but I imagine her remains mouldering away in the ground somewhere. Despite that she speaks to me in a way I can't explain - across 120 years and 700 kilometres, she speaks to me. Photographs are strange and powerful things.

Leaps and Bounds

2008-04-07T01:32:00.000-07:00

The title of this post is taken from the title of the Paul Kelly song of the same name. In it he sings: "I'm high on a hill, looking over the edge into the MCG and up on the side the clock on the wall says 11 degrees. I remember, I remember. I go leaps and bounds. I go leaps and bounds."

Yesterday I did one of these those things one can tick off the "1,ooo things to do before you die" list. I attended a game of Australian Rules Football (Victorian Football League) at the Melbourne Cricket Ground (The MCG or "THE G"). The atmosphere was great: two Melbourne teams - Richmond (the Tigers) and Collingwood (the Magpies, or 'pies') - and 70,000 fans. Black and orange and black and white everywhere!

All the shouting and chanting and razzamattazz were electric. The Carlton fans are mad and the atmosphere was just firendship and fun. Great venue, great game and the almost overwhelming smell of Melbourne's own Four'n'Twenty meat pies and tomato sauce. We went to get pies but they were sold out so we had to settle for lousy hot dogs and a few watered down cups of Carlton Draught. Great weather, great crowd and a fantastic afternoon!

There's another tick off the list.

Dog-proof fence

2008-03-02T21:20:00.000-08:00

I spent last week recording the dog-proof fence on the fringes of the Pilliga Forest. This fence, or more properly - these fences, was built from about the 1880s to exclude dingoes and wild dogs from pasture land where sheep were run. Large sections of the fence were either extended or constructed in the 1930s under Depression labour schemes. The government sent many 'susso' workers out from Sydney and other places, issued them with a billycan, frypan, tents and rations, and set them to work building roads through the forest or improving the fence. Subsequently neighbouring landholders maintained the fences to keep wild pigs and kangaroos out of their wheat crops. The earliest sections of fence are made with wire that has been laced together by hand. Some sections of this still sruvive.

The fence is fascinating, acting as a barrier between the sand country of the vast Pilliga Forest and the rich blacksoil farming land of the Liverpool Plains and the Northwest Plains. The change from forest to pastureland is quite abrupt in most places. I love the Pilliga Forest. It is a place o great beauty and wonderful birdlife. A Water Dragon kindly posed on top of a fence post for me!

The scars of World War II

2008-02-02T13:08:00.000-08:00

I met a woman the other day. Her father was killed in a plane crash in October 1945 - right at the end of the war. She grew up a war orphan.

In a way I was a war orphan. The shadow of the war dominated my family as I grew up. My father was embittered by the war and never really got beyond the disappointment he felt about his own experience of war. He was a young, active man who was one of the first to try to enlist for the airforce when the war started. He was rejected because of his eyesight. His best friend was accepted and went on to fly fighters in Britain. Dad was later conscripted into the infantry and, when his unit was training in Queensland to go to New Guinea, at one time they were laying railway track. It's such heavy labour and, as he worked, a childhood illness that had scarred the tissue of his heart caused him to have heart attack. He was shipped back to Sydney and medicalled into a desk job. The only action he had seen was fistfights with American servicemen during the Battle of Brisbane. The scarring on his heart was nothing to his wounded sense of self and scarring of his spirit.

He carried this most of his life and it fuelled his alcoholism, that also fed on other disappointments and emotional hurts associated with the disruption of the war. In a way my youth was vandalised by the scars both my father and mother carried from the war. Hers were different but together they were a potent cocktail for a stormy and disrupted family life.

They say World War II lasted six years. In our house it lasted 43 years.

Airport - change and growth

2008-02-02T12:47:00.000-08:00

We get some very interesting jobs. The other week we recorded two old hangars at Sydney Airport. One was built by the Royal Air Force towards the end of World War II when Britain was shifting its strategic effort from Europe to the Asia-Pacific theatre of war. It's a lovely unassuming little building that was once big enough to house transport planes but long ago just became a storehouse as the planes grew bigger and bigger. It's virtually encased in a group of larger buildings and now it is planned to demolish all of them.

The airport is a place to experience the pace of change. As we worked all day plane after plane taxied past the buildings we were working in. Activity at the airport is constant and traffic keeps growing. I remember as a child in the Sutherland Shire watching the planes fly away from the airport and make their approach runs. In those days the turbo-props ruled the sky - the classical gorgeous and sensual Lockheed Constellation (undoubtedly the most beautiful aeroplane ever built), the Vickers Viscount (I remember flying to Canberra in one of these - large windows and a cup of tea served on a pillow) and the Lockheed Electra. There were Boeing 707's two (I can still picture LBJ's Airforce One flying over our suburbs as he left Australia) and later the 727's (whispering T jets).

The skies were quieter then, and so was the world in many ways. As we ponder global warming it frightens me that aircraft traffic has increased so much. Does everyone who buys a discount airline ticket understand that the real price of their trip is possibly their children's future?

Pumpkins

2008-02-02T12:35:00.000-08:00

The other week, while driving home from Mungindi, we stopped in a rest area in the Pilliga Forest between Narrabri and Coonabarabran. We pulled up and set up lunch in the picnic shelter. Nobody else was using the rest area apart from a long distance truckie who was taking a rest break in his sleeper and a Willy Wagtail jumping from puddle to puddle. The bush around was silent. The Newell Highway was busy and it was raining lightly, so the cars and trucks made big whooshing sounds as they hurtled by 50 metres away at 110km per hour. We made sandwiches and had a thermos of tea, and just relaxed for a few minutes.

While eating my sandwich I noticed a pumpkin sitting in the grass not far from us. I went over to have a look and found two more. They appeared perfect, freshly picked and not marked in any way. We tossed up about whether to take them home and decided: "You never know where they have been." So we left them there.

I'm left with the questions: "Why were they there?" "Where did they come from?" hmmmmm. The mysteries of the universe.

Woolsheds

2008-01-26T04:09:00.000-08:00

As a child Ihad a romantic notion that I wanted to be a shearer. Woolsheds and shearings are two of the quintessential Australian things. Woolsheds are such iconic places, their great, grey corrugated clad forms dotting the landscape. In many places now they are falling into disrepair. I have been in some sheds that haven't seen a wool clip since the Wool Crisis of the early 1970s. The amazing thing is that these sheds still retain the smell of lanoline from sheep wool. The skeletons of these big buildings are made of hardwood and the movement of tens of thousands of sheep through them for crutching and shearing and dipping leaves a strong memory of sheep dung and lanoline. The timbers are worn and rounded and glow gently. They are great places to photograph and great places to remember the bustle and hard labour of the men who went tigering in the 19th and 20th centuries. The wool indsutry is making a comeback but it will never be as big or as iconic as in the years when Australia 'rode on the sheep's back'. But the old sheds sit, silent testimony to a life now past and the memory of a country now changing so quickly.

Boomi River

2008-01-26T03:53:00.000-08:00

This week we were working on a property located between the Barwon and Boomi Rivers, right up on the Queensland border. This is part of the vast country that gives birth to the Darling River. It's rich, blacksoil country that floods when there's a big flow coming down from Queensland. We stayed in fairly basic construction style accommodation near the Boomi River. It was lovely. The country has greened up a little with all the recent rain and the Boomi actually had water in it for the first time in years.

The most wonderful thing about the place was the amazing wildlife. Every evening the white cockatoos would come down to the water in droves, screeching with their voices that sound like someone filing sheet metal. This chorus continued until dark when it was replaced by the bellowing of the frogs. I guess the frogs were keen to mate. There was so much other birdlife and the kangaroos also came up to where we were. One morning I walked outside to go to the shower and was confronted by a grey kangaroo who just watched me as he scratched his chest and flicked his ears.

Everything felt good and we felt so privileged to be able to work in such a lovely place.

Field Work - sunsafe!

2008-01-05T13:05:00.000-08:00

Back into it after Christmas - and lots to do!! We have jobs everwhere at the moment. The intrepid archaeologists spent Friday recording some features of an abandoned railway line in Newcastle. It was nice to be working near the sea. Quite hot and humid but a lovely breeze off the Tasman Sea kept us cool (except when we were working in old railway cuttings). Here is me kitted out the sunsafe way. With the hole in the ozone layer and Australia's high skin cancer rates workplace safety has to include sunsafe policies. The client on this job is insistent, so here I am! Note the wide brimmed, lightweight hat with shabraque and the long-sleeved, lighweight polo. The polo is great - it breathes. It has been my good friend on a number of field excavations and construction site jobs. I love my cammo pants. They are cool and comfortable and make it easy for an old man to bend down! The big yellow pouch is for the range pole.

The Living Desert

2008-01-05T12:46:00.000-08:00

At the end of November we were working in Broken Hill. One of the amazing things about Broken Hill, apart from its isolation, is the fact that at the edges of the town the town's streets and yards give way to desert. The desert is just there, prowling around the outskirts of the town like a wild animal.

On the evening of our last day we drove out to the Living Desert. This is a reserve that includes a hill on which large stone sculptures have been placed. It was amazing to wander around there at sunset and just feel the night starting to creep over the wild landscape. And, yes! There's finally a picture of me!

The Ghost

2007-12-06T22:55:00.000-08:00

Twice now, on my way home from Coonabarabran, I have encountered a ghost. It was the same ghost and the experience has chilled me to the core.

It happened on the Castlereagh Highway around Cherry Tree Hill. Both times were at night and both times I felt the malevolence of this apparition. It floated up off the road under the bonnet of my car. I felt it go through me and the hair on the back of my head stood on end. Even writing this sends a chill through me. I have been told by friends that there once was a gruesome murder near the place.

Each time I prayed, knowing I was protected by a greater power. I try not to drive that road alone at night now.

Sowing wheat by starlight at Thuddungra

2007-06-06T23:38:00.000-07:00

We are in the middle of the biggest drought in a century and I managed to bog a car in a mud hole the other day! There has been good rain in recent months and this week I was in the South-West Slopes of NSW. The rain has brought soil moisture levels up to a point where farmers can plant wheat. We had a period of dry weather this week and the farmers have been keen to sow.

The other night I was at a place called Thuddungra. In a clear, cold starlit night the tractors were out in the paddocks, taking advantage of the fine weather to sow before the next rain, expected at the weekend. In the pitch darkness the massive lights of the tractors glowed in the distance like insect eyes or the lights of alien space craft as they circled the flat dark spaces of the tilled fields. Hopefully they'll get the follow-up rain and get a better crop than last year.

I was inspecting the wheat silos at Milvale the following day and needed to record an old railway watering tank (for steam locomotives). Access was along a little sunken roadway. I drove a short way in and got stuck! After a few futile attempts to shift the car I walked across the railway tracks and over to the silos. The grain facility manager was most helpful. He towed me out and sent me on my way. All in all it was a good day, although my good R.M. Williams boots got more than a little muddy!

Inadequate

2007-05-30T02:52:00.000-07:00

Do you ever feel just - inadequate? I've been working today on a complex management plan. I know lots of people will want to review this document and there are many many issues that need to be covered. Have I adequately presented my argument? Have I covered all the issues? Is the plan robust? Is it readable? Is it undestandable?

In the middle of all this I had a phone call. A nice, pleasant voice questioning my application of criteria on a different document. My heart sank. I felt like a child. I felt small and inadequate.

How does this happen? I do good work. People tell me I do good work. Clients like me - they get me back! I have a successful business, but still I feel inadequate.

Maybe I want too much. Maybe I want perfection when perfection just isn't there to be had. I guess I should just be thankful. Focus on the good side and listen to the people who respect me. I'll try.

Only the dead remain

2007-05-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

In the 1860s this was a thriving town. Developed on the back of a big gold rush in the 1850s it grew until a rush developed in another locality nearby. The town slowly died and the houses made of wooden slabs, bark, wattle and daub, shingles and flattened kerosene tins slowly mouldered away. Today there's a few old fruit trees, the occasional stone or brick-lined well, piles of stones and little flattened benches in the hillsides where the town once was. The cemetery is still there. Only the dead remain. They became one with the earth and the earth still holds them in a block of ground once surrounded by streets. The streets are eroding away. Maybe the cemetery will erode away. And even the dead will leave - carried down the once gold laden streams that brought them here.

Down a hole

2006-11-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

We went down an old gold mine last week. It's set up for tourists so its pretty safe. We had to inspect the place so we went beyond the areas set up for the public . It was amazing to be in a place where men had worked their guts out and found nothing. Hard rock mining is hard work - especially when it's all done by hand with hammers and hand drills: One tap - turn, one tap - turn, one tap - turn. Imagine that for 8 hours. Then you set the charges and blow the rocks down. What a life. The poor bastards probably died of dust diseases or developed partial blindness from working with candles.