around-oz-on-a-bike

This Blog has moved ......

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 05:22:20 +0100

If you have landed here you probably noticed that it hasn't been updated for a while. Sorry guys. I have moved to Traveller in Oz. where I am still writing.

I have been housesitting and having adventures. I have had so much fun and so many people have asked about my job that I have written a book called "Housesitting in Australia - Big Adventures on a Tiny Budget". It is packed full of information on housesitting. There are also ideas for cheap adventures and stories of other people's homes and other people's pets. See the preview here.

Mudgee - and the Strange Tale of Mary St. Clair

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 21:14:37 +0100

I am staying in Mudgee, New South Wales and recently read about a local cleaning woman named Mary St. Clair who was arrested for swearing. She told the local constable that she had had a large sum of money stolen. He didn’t believe her. The year was 1875 and the place was central New South Wales in Australia. “Nice” women didn’t swear and women of her “station” did not have large sums of money to steal. He sent her to the Mudgee Gaol telling them she was suffering from “Lunacy” and had a “disordered intellect”.

Mary spent several weeks in gaol in a cramped confined space at the mercy of the system. The gaols were very basic in those days. Mudgee Gaol has since been demolished but a nearby gaol has been restored and shows a single bedroom sized cell with one rough blanket and a mat covered canvas bed per person. I have seen horse stalls with more comfortable facilities.

Mary spent two weeks in gaol before the authorities realised she was sane and she was allowed to go home. Naturally Mary was still concerned about getting her money back, but all they could tell her was that it had been deposited in a local bank and bank regulations would not allow them to find out who had taken it.

Australia today is obviously a very different place. People no longer get arrested for swearing, (if they did the jails would be vey busy) and there is not really a down trodden poor class to be suspected of lunacy just because they claim to have had some money of their own. Anyone can save money here if they work for it. Like America it is a land of opportunity and people come here from all over the world for a better life.

There is also a sound and sometimes over eager legal system. I suspect that if something similar was to happen today then the victim would be paid thousands, if not millions, of dollars in compensation for being wrongfully incarcerated. She would then go on to make another squillion dollars from media interviews and from sales of a book about her life. She would also be much more likely to get her money back.

I appreciate the opportunity to live in modern Australia and enjoy the kind of community that has been forged by pioneers and pprotected by those who went to war to make sure it stayed a free and democratic country. As an election looms the big issues of the day are whether to give more money to families for childcare or for energy efficient items like newer cars, solar power or home insulation. People here have come to expect a very high standard of living. I love it.

And .... by the way, the story of Mary St. Clair has an interesting ending. It seems that while she was in gaol, a relative in England died and left her a large sum of money. I hope she enjoyed it.

If you want to read the original account of Mary St. Clair, you can find the newspaper report here

Brisbane - New Farm and the Juggers

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:24:19 +0100

Recently I took a ferry trip down the Brisbane river to New Farm, a riverside suburb between the city and the airport.

I stepped off the ferry to the sound of a band playing “singing in the rain” and people absolutely everywhere. The winter sky was overcast and threatened a little rain, but mild temperatures mean people here can enjoy the outdoors all year around. There were people picnicking, relaxing, smelling the roses, celebrating birthdays, sleeping and hundreds more playing sports from Frisbee to soccer and rugby, and in a small field at the back where the trees are ringed by fences, they were trying to place a goat skull on a stick.

I have never seen this game before and found it on the Internet. It is called “Jugger” and is a medieval game where two teams of five battle it out with padded weapons and a plastic ball on a chain and try to get their goat head onto a stake at the other end of the field to score a point.

It looks like a lot of fun.

The hits are intended to be touches (not great wallops) and the game lasts as long as it takes for someone to throw 100 stones against a gong. When players are hit, or of they hit too hard, they then kneel down for a predetermined number of gong hits.

Apparently it has been played in four major Australian cities since 2001, and we sent teams to Berlin in 2008. The team will return to Germany this year to play the Germans, Spanish, Irish, Americans and Dutch. . How cool is that?

Once I could tear myself away from the people whacking each other with great big padded weapons, I continued to explore the surrounding park and found;

A huge fenced area just for dogs. (The land here has to be worth million dollars easy)

A wonderful, and practical, way to show the river flood level.

An Ibis looking for a cigarette butt.

And a notice worth noticing

Someone in New Farm has a sense of humour. It’s a wonderful and magnificent world with still so much to learn.

If you haven’t subscribed to my blog yet, please do so because I can bet you anything there are many, many more surprising things for me to write about yet. Or leave a comment. I would love to hear about your most surprising find.

Highways in the Sky and Fluffy Toys that Attack.

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 11:56:07 +0100

I look after two little Maltese Terriers and we go walking twice each day. They look like little fluffy toys but they are very fierce little fluffy toys. They have that mighty dog attitude common to little terriers that makes them feel invincible, particularly with dogs behind fences.

When we go the park, the owners of big dogs have to put their animals on a leash, presumably to stop them tearing my dogs to pieces. I have some sympathy. My little girls race in like they own the place, all excited and yapping loudly. Last time we went into the dog park, there were four dogs in the park when we arrived, and they were all gone within five minutes.

But I like taking the dogs when I go walking, particularly if it is after dark. I might be more prone to a dog attack but I feel less likely to be bothered by smaller animals. The other night I saw a lump on the power line. It was too solid and low to be a bird. It looked like a rat. I stared for some minutes and it didn’t move so I decided it was one of those lumpy things that seem to connect the power lines in places. Only the next night it wasn’t there.

I found out why tonight.

There are no footpaths here and the trees hang over the road. They look pretty in the day time and like something from a horror movie at night. Something bulky rustles the trees as I go by and makes me jump. They are probably crows but I wish I had the dogs with me.

I am walking in the middle of the road to avoid the tree things and watching the sky for the lump things and suddenly I see a long dark shape on the power lines and this time it is definitely moving. There is more light than last night and I can not only see clearly that it is a rat, but I can see the light shine off its fur. I try desperately to make out that it is something more acceptable, like a squirrel (do they have those here?) or even a possum, but the animal in question definitely has the shape and long tail of a rat.

I grab my phone camera and try to get evidence. The rat like thing takes its time and meanders along as if I am not there, but by the time I have taken the camera off video mode, taken a flash photo of the air half way up to the power lines, turned off the flash and then decided video would be best after all, the rat has disappeared out of sight and I have no evidence.

I am disturbed by the fact that the power lines must be a sort of highway in the sky for wandering rat like things; and they lead into every home in the neighbourhood, including mine. I only hope that should a rat invade my place, the little dogs will treat it the way they treat big dogs and annoy it to death.

And next time I go out after dark, I am taking the dogs.

The Tap Dancing Dogs now Star on their own cute Mousepad. Get one today for all the dog lovers in your life.

Maltese Terrors by Lifelonglearner
Browse other mousepads on zazzle.com

Microwave Birds and Tap Dancing Dogs

Wed, 07 Jul 2010 02:07:27 +0100

Australia has some wonderful and distinctive bird life. The other morning I woke to a neighbouring house alarm. Only, it wasn’t a house alarm at all, it was a bird that sounds like a house alarm, and like a house alarm, it went on all morning.

I love the birds here, they have such interesting calls. If birds were classified by their sounds there would be the Microwave Bird, the Rat Bird and the 60’s Theme Tune Bird. There is one that echoes as if it is calling through a long tunnel and one that brings to mind an angry duck.

There are colourful parrots with colourful calls and musical magpies which are a favourite that remind me of the New Zealand bush. The laughing kookaburra is an Australian icon and as are the chattering pink and grey Galahs, who gather in colourful flocks and play noisy games.

I remember a woman in the remote countryside of the organic farm where I stayed who complained about the cat that called all night; probably a bat that I would like to rename the cat bird. Then there are the birds that sound like chattering monkeys and others that bring to mind a child’s squeaky toy.

This morning I woke up to the more gentle sound of a flock of cooing pigeons outside my window, and the sound of tap dancing dogs in my room. The floor here is polished wood and one of the little Maltese Terriers I am looking after is already busy. She paces the floor under and around the bed, her little toes pattering on the floorboards like some sort of Fred Astaire impersonation.

Did I mention I love Australia? You bet I do
.

Turkeys in the Bush and Sausage Trees. - Annerley, Brisbane.

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 05:02:03 +0100

Annerley is a very convenient Brisbane suburb. From the higher parts of Annerley you can see the inner city Brisbane high rises and it is just a few stops on the train or 5 minutes by car to reach them. It is an older suburb and many of the homes are run down and need work. Annerley is an area ripe for development and gradually homes are being replaced with modern homes or blocks of units. The one I am staying in has a large garden so the new owners plan to demolish and replace in just a few months.

It is lovely home with polished floor boards and a large garden but it also has draughty windows and the toilet is practically outdoors.

Annerley also has an unusual park. As well as a children’s playground and a very nice little bridge, it has its own small flock of wild turkeys. They forage in the bush and add some charm to an otherwise insignificant park.

The bridge spans a small ravine which is a shortcut from one street to another. I decided to explore under the bridge the other day and imagine my amazement when I found that they had laid pieces of carpet along the track. It looked like it even had underlay in places.

At one end it is gold and at the other it looks like grey loop pile. It’s hard to tell because it is worn and rotting. The photos didn’t come out too well but they do show the texture.

I did wonder if it was laid by the same person that left an old armchair behind a nearby tree.

Then yesterday in another nearby park I discovered a

group of what can only be called sausage trees. They are covered with bulbous sausage like pods that hang down in strings.

Every day I find new things to remind me how amazing this world really is.

Dog Sitting in South Brisbane

Sat, 26 Jun 2010 05:32:08 +0100

Somewhere in Brisbane there is a green bike helmet strapped to a tree with a plastic egg inside. It is also home to several earwigs and a colony of big black ants that bite. I know this from personal experience, because after finding this particular geocache I still had an ant climbing around under my jeans ten minutes later.

I am house sitting two adorable little Maltese Terriers that look like little balls of fluff on legs, so I took them for a long walk to a local park this morning. While I was trying to look inconspicuous while poking around under the park trees searching for the geocache, they were barking up a storm because there were birds nearby. And dogs. And people. And puffs of wind. Lovely dogs and so easily excited.

We walked back past the adjacent complex that houses hundreds of animals the SPCA has up for adoption and a paddock of horses. The dogs went wild and I had to carry one of them for a bit to let her calm down.

I love Australia.

Where else can you hear a house alarm screech all morning before you realise it is just the annoying sound one of the local birds makes?

Where else can you watch crows devour the insides of an enormous dead rat like marsupial?

Where else can you find ants that are big enough to wander off with a loaf of bread?

Okay maybe not that big …. but big enough. I never tire of the amazing wildlife here.

Geocaching - The Global Treasure Hunt

Sat, 29 May 2010 02:21:22 +0100

Rummaging around in the undergrowth of neighbourhood parks is one of my favourite hobbies. Occasionally it leads to suspicious looks, but it is perfectly innocent; I am searching for geocaches.

A geocache is a small container that people hide for others to find using a GPS device. The most common caches are made from film canisters, eclipse containers or plastic lunch boxes but they can be any size as long as they can contain a log book for visitors to sign. They are usually camouflaged in some way and are sometimes hidden in items designed to look like something else.

I am getting better at this but there are still some I have not been able to find despite having the GPS location which puts me within a few metres of the right spot. I went back three times to one location and finally found it exactly where the clue said it was. It was hard to find because it was only the size of the top of my thumb

There are at least 1,300,000 hidden around the world and they are hidden everywhere from central cities to suburban parks and remote mountain bush walks. There are thousands of caches hidden in Queensland, including xx in central Brisbane and within 4kms of where I am staying. I have found 37.

To begin Geocaching, you need a GPS unit, an Internet connection and an account at Geocaching.com. When logged in, you can search for caches in your location and see the GPS coordinates for each cache. Some caches contain items for children to swap and others have themes like the Australiana cache or the Christmas Cache. Others have clues that you have to decipher before you can start. There is even a community devoted to virtual Geocaching where nothing is hidden but you have to prove you have been there with photos or by answering questions.

Geocaches has been an interesting way to explore Australia. Some of my favourite locations were private spots I found while looking for caches. And there is also something quite satisfying about finding a cache right under the noses of unsuspecting local; just as long as they don’t call the police.

I think I got busted ....

Fri, 21 May 2010 04:00:04 +0100

I love exploring the neighbourhood parks and a funny thing happened at a small neighbourhood park the other day. I was searching for a geocache. You may know that a geocache is a buried container that is hidden for searchers to find using a GPS unit. This one was partly buried under a bush at the back of a planted area near a children's playground.
So ....... picture this.
I am lurking around the empty playground trying to pretend I am on the phone while I use the GPS to work out which bush I need to look under. True to form my GPS takes me back and forth and I have to do some searching of my own. It is obvious by the trampled areas in the planting that others have done the same thing. Just as I am about to give up rummaging around in the undergrowth, I find the cache and crouch down to sign the logbook and take a photo.
All done, I come out of the bushy undergrowth to find a neighbour has been taking an interest in my activity and is sitting on a chair on her lawn and eyeing me suspiciously. I try to smile and wave but she seems unimpressed, as she takes out her mobile phone, presumably to report something.
How bizarre.
At the next cache in the same neighbourhood, a young boy comes over and tells me that the neighbourhood knows about the cache in their park. He says that one of the neighbours thought it was drugs. They took apart the small trinkets in the cache and called the police to check the container and area for drugs.
I wonder if it is a coincidence that there were police in the street as I went out for a walk this morning. I sure hope so.

_____________________________________

Park Photos

Australia has some beautiful neighbourhood parks so I thought I would show you a few of my favourite photos.

The trees are gorgeous and provide some much needed shade in this park in Mudgee, New South wales.

A path through the bush makes this a wonderful spot for a walk.
This is one of many wild neighbourhood parks that make you feel miles from anywhere.

I love the way the councils have shady seats and often free barbecues in neighbourhood parks. this one is minutes from the motorway and overlooks the Brisbane River near Ipswich, Queensland.

Another well planned park which is the centre of a new suburb.

(Do you see the comments section below?
If so, ... please leave a comment and let me know what you think. Thanks, Nikki)

A snake in the grass.....

Sat, 08 May 2010 21:04:00 +0100

I have finally seen an Australian snake … !!

Like many New Zealanders I thought I would see kangaroos at every turn, a koala in every gum tree and I would have to dodge snakes, crocodiles and dangerous spiders every time I left the town. After six months exploring in three states, I have finally caught a glimpse of a little brown snake and it was slithering away through the long grass as quickly as it could.

It’s not like they haven’t had lots of opportunities to make themselves known. I have spent hours exploring native Australia, wading through the undergrowth, poking around under trees, and sometimes inside them. When looking for *geocaches they can be anywhere including inside hollow logs and under rocks.

I have met people who know people who have seen snakes. ☺ But the snakes are a lot more shy than I expected.

If I had thought more about it I would have realised that there is a reason the daily papers don’t carry the latest snake attack statistics. There aren’t many.

So that brings my “Australian wildlife seen in the wild” collection to a few hundred kangaroos, thousands of beautiful birds, ten water dragons and various other lizards, no koalas and half a snake.

Perhaps I should go further north. I hear they have real live crocodiles there. That should be fun.

* A geocache is a small container that is hidden for others to find by using the supplied GPS co-ordinates. There are over a million of them hidden around the world. Look out for a post explaining more about geocaching soon.