Endtimes

Back to the coast where a tsunami was approaching. Be afraid. Or was it a cloud bank?

The virus has got a small toehold in the south.  Forty cases recorded yesterday. 

Adventures

..I love the smell of exhaust in the mornings...looks like a bracing ride in  the Southern highlands is taking off.  Local roads, villages and a nineteen thirties pub, autumn leaves, cold weather and mountain climbs could be what counts most.

follow the clues

These bikes include Honda Goldwing original 4 cylinder 1000cc 1976 flat engine water cooled, in the day unlike all previous Hondas, for touring, aimed at USA market who loved them, innovative package in 1976. ...What was cruise control for... - so you could adjust the radio!...

Carbon overload

Wisdom line arrives in the coal exporter port. 

What election 'battle' is on today in upper Hunter? Battle? There is no true battle until an unlikely movement emerges against the coal mines. Pigs might fly.

Today the G7 proclaimed agreement against investment in coal. 

And a backward step as a NEW gas powered electricity plant is planned for the Hunter valley. Said to be used  to keep alumunium smelter secure during peak loads, tho smelter uses off peak.

Off shore the next bulk carrier waits its turn to get to the coal loader.

Wisdom line is Taiwanese company with 148 vessels which work for places like Japan and Europe.

Detour

The street needs a zipper for ease of opening.  The Water mains often break up and it means a small trickle of water up to a strong current a metre wide that once occured in the middle of night. 

From Merewether to the north

Imagine the north coast seaside centres and visiting before they change, caravans parks near the shore and daggy little weekenders priced out of existence so as to become uniform.

Crescent beach front must be under threat, it simply couldnt last.

 It is difficult to find a parking spot just right to hang out for a day anywhere on the miles and miles of coast line.  

Hat head area might be an exception. The coastal walk in the national park is memorable and free.

Merewether Beach

I must go down to the seas again to the lonely sea and the sky

And all I want is a tall ship and a star to steer her by....

Yesterdays

Close of Mothers Day

Port of Newcastle.  Kingfish Resto does seafoods hot and cold all shapes and sizes, almost chaotic, nice staff, one wait staff works all weekend till late and studies medicine the rest of the time and happened to remark how this has influenced her with a little regret against alcohol and its damage and against fast food. Hope it lasts. 

Ten things to do before I die.

#10. Make marmalade.

Crop of Lemonade fruit. Perhaps they could be riper. Jam or lemon meringue pie seem possible. 

Lucky

Our health service has significant numbers of immigrant professionals from whom we benefit.  At the same time a country such as India appears to be very seriously understaffed.

  This type of strain and deprivation  on 'donor' countries has been aired before today but is now clearly shown up in the crisis in India with staff shortages and resources. 

We have whole branches of care without any locals stepping up or so it seems. Is it because of our small population, or the universities, or a strangle-hold by the medical specialities?

 The situation in church circles has some similarities around clergy coming here to work in the secular society!

 

Plain purl

 The big plane trees are underfoot, also called sycamore possibly. The month of May remains warm.

Winter reading ahead. Richard Flanagan, a Man Booker prize winner, is a writer who is easy to read, quite an amazing introduction for a relative novice to books that say something.

He identifies the themes, dare I say,  of our lived experience, it is uncanny, our same thoughts and reactions on many a page. As well as that are far flung excruciating dramas. Some little scenes are Australian to the core yet universal.

Magic carpet

Bottle recycle. Dont rubbish Australia.  Where are we at?  Because many of us enjoy well- being and the bounty that this island, 'girt by sea', has to offer we can hardly complain when our policies are designed to protect us no matter how self serving, mean spirited, unethical and questionable. 

A love hate relationship grows. Take what you can get out of the place.  Is that why so many citizens are overseas at any one time?  Why the grey nomads drop out and take  endless road trips? 

After years I became more at home with this land but that was of the natural environment.

In Touch With Earth

First of May

May day street march with a red tinge was led by bagpipes, as in Celts, the CFMEU Northern Mining and NSW Energy District Pipes and drums. Several unions were represented.

Strangly, it is the day of Saint Joseph the Worker. 

Tocal

Tocal means plenty in aboriginal language says Wikipedia.

If hotel quarantine is effective, in theory, it makes no difference where  travellers come from, for example from India.

Could be that no where else has yet reached the number of deaths as the USA and flights were not banned from there.  What is our thinking?

We cant cope with a raw medieval type plague situation in the Subcontinent. Who can cope?