Late Sunday In Canberra. Once the men-in-suits were out of the way, a load of ice on a sloping bank had snowboarders take off, jump onto a pair of picnic tables and back to earth, in full view, no less of Parliament House, High Court and National Gallery!
The National Galley has Masterpieces from the Musee D'Orsay in Paris exhibition drawing to an end with an unprecedented number of visitors. Add to this, ABC radio will go live from the gallery this starry night from 2am for several hours as part of the closing hoo-ha.
To any other gallery under renovation: please loan us your priceless collection. It will be underwritten by the National government.
The Feds will have lots of spare cash if they renege on the health budget. Their rehetoric about funding is absurd, largess does not come into it nor contingency, funding of services is what it takes, is a normal right and is the purpose of revenue.
At the same time, a well thought out revolution to rationalise our health services is required - a task that gives the top layer of government something to justify their existence.

Grasshoppers met this car as a result of travel across the south west of the state from Adelaide.
Van in lower photo has unique paint work with or without grasshoppers.

Why have these storage boxes appeared at the Fisherman's co-op? Very large quantities of Mullet are netted at this time of the year.
The fish are transported away to be processed and they yield a number of products.
Other fresh clean examples are sold all year and are economically priced and are said to be delicious when smoked although this art may have been lost. The flesh can have an 'oily' flavour and some discolouration at times.
Some say the quantities of mullet have declined. No wonder, some say the fish are caught before they have spawned in the local rivers. The price offered to the fishermen has been unsatisfactory and some have declined to harvest the mullet.

The Well of Wisdom. Inspiration from Japan expressed in the town of Cowra.

Elioth Gruner. Spring Frost 1916 Emu Plains. Art Gallery of NSW 

Lower photo: School children at the gallery. What do they think? I first saw this painting at the gallery when I was a youngster and have been pleased and reassured to discover it again.

The bright days and starry nights of Canberra, ACT.  Axes mark the city layout and Lake Burley Griffin is manmade.  (Walter Burley Griffin was a Chicago architect who won an international competition to design  the city round 1912.)  Population 329 000.

Early morning and about to leave the caravan park, these bikies had been to WA to a meeting and returned round the top end and were on the home run after covering a massive distance. A Wicked camper was also making tracks.

Not more about milk. Loved by campers and others is long-life milk or UHT milk.
Believe the company, Dairy Farmers, did a lot of work to perfect this handy product. Early it was taken up by caterers, eg, in airlines, and it must be perfect for export to those countries with hot weather which, ideally, is unsuitable for dairy farms.
For that reason, it was even unusual for dairies to start up in northern NSW. 
UHT milk is considered unsuitable by some experts.

Out of town, the weather was glorious today. Afterall, we were on the Golden Highway!
  The day before had fog and rain all day long.

Coffee at Royal Newcastle Centre hospital foyer.

Ducks or Geese in the park.

 

Why Calcium, Estrogen, and Drugs are not the Answer (to bone health).
It it can be believed, literature can be found that questions the role of dairy foods, calcium supplements and bone mineral density because, people in the affluent West, on good diets, are not doing well when it comes to bone fractures.
It is obvious that many non-Western diets around the world do not include abundant dairy foods yet these people are not necessarily worse off or is it better off.  For instance, they benefit from more fruit and vegetables and cereals and other factors that go with alkaline foods.
Alkaline rather than acid food and drink is seen as a key to bone health.
The turnaround goes something like this: acid foods in the conventional diet are related to dairy, meat, fish and eggs and an over-abundance is counterproductive because too much calcium is used up to buffer the acid.
This summary is a simplistic account and more details, debunking and strategies are found in the book by A J Lanou Assistant prof; M Castleman Science writer; Building Bone Vitality McGraw Hill NY 2009.

All's quiet on the Western front. The environmental protestors had gone home.
Never usually do sunsets. This is why.

Time to turn out the lights for Earth Hour. 
15 minutes to go.
Braye park overlooks the city in 180 degrees
and a gathering is meeting there to watch the lights go out.  Maccas was in on the act according to the place mat.
At the park, earlier on, I commented to a car owner who had parked in the no-parking area but I got my comeupance when I scrapped my car on a post when I was leaving. Darn it..I went to some trouble to calculate the space needed for my exit.
One parking area has been made inaccessible, long term, as it is, maybe done to exclude some uses, but the park will be reclaimed by the people tonight who will enjoy the nice improvements made to the whole area.

The Hunter Valley Co-operative Dairy Company Limited, Hexham, (just outside Newcastle), 1953. Known for Oak brand products. The milk bar or cafe, famous for real milk shakes, was a busy mecca for 'Sunday drivers' and others.
The factory is disused and believe is changing hands with cheese makers moving in.
Now, two bridges span the Hunter river at that point and along with an interchage have completely changed the setting. 
Beginning in 1903, more recently, this company went on to merged with Dairy Farmers company from around Sydney. The company had other factories in our valley, including Morpeth and Muswellbrook and a network of centres and developed pure-breed herds and pasture improvement and studied all aspects of milk production as well as state of the art milk processing but all that has changed now.

Milking

Peters Milk Factory, Taree, with echos of butter churning, dried milk processing, steam cleaning and gum boots  from those days when it was a hive of industry (and sold Peters Ice Cream).
The rail line went past its doors and then to the nearby Co Op milk factory (home of Peerless Ice Cream) where, as well as rail transport, milk cans arrived by conveyor belt from the wharf on the Manning River.
Trucks collected milk twice a day from the dairys before refigeration and bulk handling.

Grass grows over the old rail lines.

Country Store from the sixties. Enterprises change, fall and decline.
Road transport has taken over. Useful rail sidings and corridors rust and remain only a potential cycleway in Taree.

Little prawns (shrimp) from the river
are usually very tasty.
Taree Fisherman's Co Op is a small
informal enterprise tucked away
beside the Manning River. Taree is just up the
the north coast.
Biologically, shrimps and prawns have some different
characteristics. Generally, we use the name prawn no matter what.

Taree Fisherman's Co Op.

 Manning River, Taree.

Clive Hamilton: Why are we ignoring climate change?     Climate Action Newcastle invites you to attend our 2010 Annual Lecture.   Australian author and public intellectual Clive Hamilton is coming to town to speak! The lecture will be at 7pm on Tuesday 23rd March at Newcastle City Hall, King Street Newcastle. Clive is a renowned public intellectual and academic who founded and directed the progressive think tank The Australia Institute from 1994 to 2008. He is the author of many excellent books including 'Affluenza', 'Scorcher: The Dirty Politics of Climate Change' and his latest book 'Requiem for A Species: Why we resist the truth about climate change'. The last year has seen a surge in climate scepticism and apathy. Clive will discuss what is behind this phenomenon, and why we don't actually have to take climate change lying down! Entry by gold coin donation. No bookings required.

 

Meditation

Early model Vespa with Hindu theme. Ganesh and wasp syncretism.

Have Syncro will travel. From Austria to sand and surf. Overland from Europe to Australia and back again in the footsteps of old hippies. (Shipping the VW (diesel) on one leg)

A carving told us we were entering Biripi Country (Taree area to the north).  Roadhouse.
And more of the same coal train to the north pictured here Tuesday.

Chris drew attention to an article in NY Times: Is there an Ecological Unconscious?  Thanks to Daniel B Smith the article is very easy to read and he presents an interesting theme with reference to Glenn Albrecht who was dwelling around Newcastle and dwelling on ecology and solastalgia which is the term Albrecht coined to describe our 'homesickness' in the face of local change. Our feelings around environmental concerns  have led to ecopsychology and associated therapies to lend us a helping hand and this work is explored in the article. The Herald, Newcastle has featured academic Albrecht's musings if I am not mistaken.

A local environmentalist, John Seed, has had similar concerns for some time now, and amongst his global activities, is a roadshow, which at times. has dealt with issues of despair and empowerment. Joanna Macy was an associate. John Seed, just back from India, has also focused on saving the rainforests and his web site, here, has more details.

(Therapists: Even psychologists discover wholism and contiue their march to 'muscle in' on every conceivable issue, in this case, seeking to keep up with ecologists and sociologists).

Newcastle is into coal exports in a big way, not only that, two members of the intelligentsia with links to Newcastle disagree that global warming is driven by anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases. One of them is associated with minerals. Give us a break.
A spectrum of beliefs are valid yet a fringe minority can 'white-ant' or subvert action to combat climate change.

While stravaiging down Pitnacree Road towards the Hunter River the corn was a high as an elephant's eye.
Pitnacree road from East Maitland came to a dead end  before construction of a bridge over the Hunter was commenced.
Pitnacree must have origins in Scotland and is the name of a neolithic barrow unearthed in Perthshire.

Walk for the Williams  14 March - 20 March
What a crazy, romantic plan to walk the length of the Williams River from the source just north of Dungog down to Newcastle. Participate in all or part of the walk and in the gatherings arranged at certain junctions. The full story is at www.notillegradam.com