Am deleting the original post - which I put in the wrong location, in favour of a profuse apology to lovely friend who had to read about my planned changes to our arrangements on here, before I had actually got to discuss it with her. So I hereby publicly apologise to her, and thank my lucky stars that she has generously forgiven me.
Archive for Uncategorized
Dispatches from Coober Pedy
Going down to camp at Coober Pedy - no, not the middle east
Our cave
Loved Coober Pedy. Total end-of-the-world stuff. As P said, the apocalypse could come, and these people wouldn’t notice. Camped underground at “World’s Only Underground Campsite”. Also “World’s Most Inconvenient Campsite” as our whole rig is based around the car, which of course can’t go underground. It was worth it though. It’s very peaceful in the burrow.
We took the boys noodling for opals. J was *particularly* keen to do this. After a few minutes he advised me that “I haven’t found any noodles”. Met some great characters – it seems everyone there doesn’t really want to be there – they’ve either got opal fever or they’re trying to get out. I’ve realised again that if I ever want to resurrect my public service career I can apply for postings at these locations. I can be an office drone and P and the boys can seek our opal fortune.
We’re currently having an audio-visual crisis. At a Tasmanian op-shop we bought car speakers for $1, which P installed in the back, so we didn’t have to have our eardrums blown out in the front in order for the kids to “hear”. Have worked perfectly, until now. So no music. We bought our *third* inverter of the trip in Clare – we use these to run movies on the laptop on long trips. Each time one has died we’ve bought a more expensive one. This one, an Engel, “a legend in reliability”, lasted one day. So no movies.
We’re now strictly old-school. I Spy all the way.
J noodles hard
Dispatches from Lake Eyre
Farina ruins
Kept travelling north. Through Leigh Creek, Copley to Farina for an overnight stop. Then on through Marree. Asked Bob at the Lake Eyre Yacht Club what we would see if we went out to Lake Eyre. He advised that there was no water…. but being a true enthusiast he said it was “definitely” worth going out there, and then provided some obtuse (to me) detail on the posts that we would be able to look at. OK. So we camped up at Mulroonie Station, and later in the day set off for the Lake. Only 20kms in we could see the Lake shimmering on our left. P was of the view that we had now seen it. I was of the view that we hadn’t – there was another 30kms to get to the posts. Hmmm. Was it that broken fence? Was it that star picket? On we travelled, and eventually came to the end of the road. Bob was vindicated. It was defiinitely worth going there. (Though it was only days later that someone revealed to me that those four posts must have been the sea level markers) At 15m below sea level we were at the lowest point in Australia – always good news for T, who likes to be at the extremes of things.
Later that night the station owner said we should come back next year – there’ll definitely be water then.
Road out to Mulroonie
Through the Dog Fence. Longest fence in the world - another hit
J. Fun at Lake Eyre.
Dispatches from the Flinders Ranges
Flinders Ranges
We camped at Wilpena Pound, despite lots of outback types recommending other, “better” camping spots. P thinks I’ve gone soft, but if the nearest campspot for 30km offers flushing toilets, hot showers, kids activities, shop and pool…. I am SO THERE!! I took T along to a “Junior Rangers” event – there was only one other participant, a boy a few years older than T. I was sort of heart-in-mouth when I realised that it was one of those events where the leader asks a rhetorical question and looks to a child to answer it. Not that my child is going to be exposed as somehow imperfect, but that *I* am going to be exposed as the neglectful “home ed” parent. Fortunately, on this occasion, I was able to glow with pride as T blitzed the field on bush-related questions!! Phew!!
Dispatches from South South Australia
Salubrious Robe
Little Dip Conservation Park
Went through Robe – very Seachange. Gorgeous seas and limstone buildings. Obviously the beautiful people discovered it a while ago, as evidenced by numerous tasteful homewares shops and cafes. We found one great place, essentially outdoors with one pavillion opening right up (complete with chess sets) which re-inspired us on the indoor/outdoor home – first seen in Freo at an Open Garden. Maybe this will be our next project.
Then the Coorong, complete with a collection of Storm Boy-worthy shacks. Over the (sort of) mighty Murray and down to the tip of the Fleurieu Peninsular. We didn’t go to Kangaroo Island, as we have already spent a fortune ferrying to islands. We camped at Deep Creek Conservation Park – for longer than anticipated as P lost a filling and we had to wait for a dental appointment.
From Maclaren Vale we went to the Adelaide Zoo for a panda viewing, then through the Adelaide Hills and out to the Barossa – industrial scale wine production.
Granite Island, off Victor Harbour
Under Canvas. Prepared for rain at Deep Creek
Musings: How to change the world
Where should the modern revolutionary be positioned? If you seek to radically change “the system” should you work from within the system, or outside the system? It seems to me that history shows a fair share of both approaches…. but ultimately if you are seeking radical change, if you start from within the system, the system is likely to expel you…. so you’re going to end up outside anyway. Martin Luther, for example, the monk who took on the corrupt pope, and in the process broke the catholic church’s monopoly on the christian God. By the time he was excommunicated it was meaningless to him and his followers, as they realised that the actions of the pope had nothing to do with an individual’s relationship with God.
The problem with being – or staying – *in* the system, is that you legitimise the system by your very participation. And generally systems are tremendous as self-perpetuation… that is the goal. For example the legal system. Does procedural fairness deliver substantive fairness? Well sometimes….. almost randomly. But the legal system can’t acknowledge this problem, as it smashes the legitimacy of the system. So it is set up so that you can’t appeal a decision on substantive grounds….. you can only appeal on procedural grounds. So if you like the substantive outcome, you don’t care about the process, and if you don’t like the outcome you have to go digging around for an issue in the process.
Peter Garrett is a nice modern example. Presumably he thought he could “make a difference” through participating in the parliamentary process. Maybe that was his most idealistic act yet. In fact, he was subsumed by the process, and was subsequently unable to achieve anything other than what most droids in that position could have done. Far better to have continued to use his public profile to agitate for change from outside that system. It would be like me sending my kids to a school and joining the P&C… or becoming a teacher….. or even a principal… thinking that I was going to radically alter the system AT ALL – let alone in time for my kids to benefit.
The Green Party is an interesting case. Formed in the devastating aftermath of the flooding of Lake Pedder in Tasmania, green activists decided that their view was not represented by either the Labor or Liberal parties (true) and that they might have more luck in preventing environmental vandalism by having a voice in Parliament. Here in Tasmania they formed the first “green” political party in the world. Not to diminish the parliamentary achievements of Green parties, I do wonder if the environment movement has become somewhat castrated by buying into the parliamentary system. Some people ‘vote green’ and think that is all that is required, and some people with environmental concerns *won’t* vote green to express this value, because they are put off by other policies. In the meantime, activism for fundamental reform of how our economy interfaces with the environment seems….. sporadic.
Of course, this is all a potentially self-serving rationale. It takes an *enormous* amount of energy and investment of self to fight the system, be it on the inside, or the outside. That’s something that I don’t have at present. Be the change you want to see in the world. That’s my mantra, and whenever I feel powerless or useless, I return to it.
Just came across this great quote:
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” Buckminster Fuller
More words to live by.
Final Dispatches from Tasmania
Waiting for the barge to take us across Pieman River at Corinna
After leaving St Marys (broken-hearted) we did a token tour through the north & west of the state, incorporating Tamar Valley, LaTrobe, Penguin, Burnie, Waratah, Corinna, Zeehan, Strahan, Cradle Mountain, Sheffield, and culminating in hours at a park in Devonport waiting for the boat to the mainland.
We’re back in the tent, which produces mixed feelings in me. I love the liberation of the tent. It truly is simple living, and it’s amazing how relaxed I can feel in this mental space (particularly when I didn’t experience life in St Marys as particularly stressful!) Equally though, the tenting challenges of the essentials of life…. going to the toilet, being clean, producing healthful meals…. when you are used to taking these things for granted can be, well, *challenging*. Luckily the weather held for us, so we didn’t have to achieve these in freezing rain.
We lost our shower tent in Victoria. Not sure what to do about this. Without a shower tent I am reluctant to free camp, as no sooner do you set up, than another group arrives and then you have to march off miles away in order to go to the toilet (if the terrain allows any privacy) and wait for darkness – and the cold – before washing. But to buy another one is sort of expensive….. and are we really going to use this a lot once we’re home? But without a shower tent you either have to be *far* from the beaten track or pay for the privilege of participating in caravan park culture.
I have to say it was a rude shock to be suddenly reintroduced to caravan park culture. It’s hard to discuss it without sounding like an incurable snob. (See www.stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/ for evidence that I am not completely oblivous to the ridiculous nature of our quest.) At one stage we had a list going: “Things Overheard at the Caravan Park”. I’ll have to see if I can find this.
Anyway, now that we’ve hit the mainland I feel this overwhelming urge to bolt for home. Crazy, for many reasons, the main one being that our “home” isn’t actually available, and the earlier we get to Perth, the more weeks we’ll be squatting in my brother’s spare room.
Lake Plimsoll
Bountiful fruit
We have an *apple* tree in our garden…… with apples! People have hedges of blueberries and raspberries. Yesterday the man over the road brought us a bag of plums from his garden. For a Perth gardener, it is like the garden of Eden. I mean, we just can’t grow this fruit! To be self-sufficient in fruit is like the holy grail of gardening (I hope you appreciate my biblical similes……they just rolled off the keyboard…. the bounty of nature as a pathway to God)
In Perth I have to focus on mediterranean fruit. I have had success with olives and mulberries, and that’s about it. I have had multiple attempts at citrus, but could just never bring myself to pour on the amount of water that they need. I’ve *wanted* to plant figs but was brought up that they were a menace to the neighbourhood. I’ve never really contemplated dates…. but that does sound decadent.
Brain drain
I’m currently reading The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge. So many things in this book – you should definitely read it – support for attachment theory, cogent theory on the reasons for the current autism epidemic, why pornography is addictive, why psychotherapy works and what a giant Freud was in his thinking on the brain……. but I’ll just focus on one, namely the brain as a “use it or lose it” continuously learning entity, combined with further confirmation of the 10000 hour rule (previously posted) that to achieve expert status in anything takes around 10 years of practice….. to get stuff into long term memory, as opposed to short term memory, takes a lot of time, but once you achieve this, then you have that learned stuff forever, and you keep building on it.
The book recommends that if older people want to maintain maximum use of their brain, they have to keep learning. *Not* just repeatedly doing stuff they already know, which a lot of older people do, even if these might be “high level” tasks, eg cryptic crosswords, or senior work-type tasks. Specifically, one of the absolute best things you can do for your brain as you get older is to learn a new language. And the benefits to your brain of this new learning “spill over” into all areas, because you are literally growing your brain.
So, I realise, that despite lots of “busy work” I am not really learning anything new. Even my baby steps into yoga study are not really “new* for me – with the exception of anatomy, which I haven’t started yet. I am currently in one of my voracious reading periods – (courtesy of the library next door - moment of silence to THANK the Tasmanian library system which is FANTASTIC) everything that interests me – philosophy, theology, Western culture - the enlightenment, capitalism, sociology, education – and of course neuroscience – with a particular focus on brain development/learning.
BUT (*huge* but) none of this “learning” is actually moving from short term memory to long term memory…. I often feel that insights are “just out of reach” as memories of previous readings are not fully retrievable, and I feel as though connections that I *could* be making in all this material in order to more fully develop my understanding of the world, are not happening. I’ve felt this frustration before, and have thought that in my ideal world I would have a mentor, who would provide some direction to my reading, and through discussion and perhaps assigned written work of some kind, would assist me in building “expertise” in my area(s) of interest. Of course, the obvious answer is to enrol in some type of university program, but unfortunately these only come at great cost these days… and I do wonder whether the stress of the university timetable might suck the joy out of my self-directed learning journey. But I’m starting to feel a bit desperate, so might have to contemplate this.
Literature Revisited
English Lit was my favourite subject at high school, despite not being my “best” subject. I put this down to a good teacher, but also the fact that discussions of literature themes was a entre into discussion of the (themes)meaning of life…. which is what I was/am actually interested in. But my literature critique skills were average, and in fact my literature teacher was onto me, telling me that I wouldn’t be able to rely on my nice turn of phrase to cruise through uni.
But I am here to reveal that despite this seeming handicap, I have signed up to undertake an extended cruise through the Western Canon, via a bookclub where we will attempt to read the classics as listed by Susan Wise Bauer, in her book The Well Educated Mind. There are thirty books in each of the categories: fiction; autobiographies; history; drama; and poets. Despite this potentially “quixotic” quest, the group has decided to postpone the first book, Don Quixote, in favour of Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress.
The group is based in Perth, but has an online discussion group. So I hereby invite other potential readers to join us……. *no literature experience required*. But you may need to be good at being baffled.
