Meeting at Night

Meeting at Night

 

The grey sea and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed i’ the slushy sand.

Then a mile of warm sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross till a farm appears;
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, thro’ its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts beating each to each!

 

Robert Browning

Yabbies

18 Channels on the TV, and the best entertainment in my flat is the aquarium. Since I installed the four yabbies, they have settled in very well. They each have a plastic or aluminium hole to crawl into and I have just introduced some weed to help keep the water fresh.  Yabbies make a hell of a mess so I also use flocculant to remove the colloidal murk and change the filters frequently because they clog up pretty quickly.  Since the filter cartridges are so expensive, I went to the haberdashery and bought a roll of orlon fibre (used for quilts and duvets etc) for the princely sum of 80 cents for 20cm by 1m, and I picked up a bag of activated charcoal from the pet shop for about $8.  I now make my own filters up for a hundredth of the cost of a cartridge.

As a result, the water is now crystal clear, and the yabbies are slowly turning from cream yellow to blue, as predicted.  I have been trying to photograph them but I am having problems filming from outside the tank because of reflections in the glass, or shadows from the flash.  If I put my waterproof camera inside the tank, they retreat into their holes whenever I try to shoot.  As soon as I get a good shot I shall post it.  I will figure it out.

The Gambusia  I had in the tank are now reduced to a mere few.  They have learned not to sleep on the gravel any more, but were decimated before they figured it out.  They sleep at the surface or amongst the weeds now.  The crayfish have taken to climbing the weeds so I guess that is no longer a safe place.  It seems only justice that these nasty little invader fish, which have done so much ecological damage to Australian wildlife in ponds and streams, should suffer at the hands (or pedipalps) of native crustacea.   When I first captured them, I knew it would be unlawful to release them again, and did not intend to do so.  I was trying to figure out an entertaining yet humane way to kill them.  Then I discovered that in fact even keeping them in a tank is unlawful.

Under the Fish Resources Management Act 1994 you must not do the following with any noxious fish:

• keep, breed, hatch or culture them;
• have them in your possession;
• consign or convey them;
• release them into any waters; or
• put them into a container or receptacle in which they might remain alive.

I was about to flush the Gambusia  down the loo when I had the offer of yabbies caught from a private dam. I decided to see how they would interact.  The score so far is definitely in favour of the crustaceans.  I count the fish every day.  On Sunday there were only nine left.  This morning there were six.   If any are left next Sunday, I shall humanely dispose of them.

Other than Gambusia, the omnivorous and voracious yabbies like ordinary fish food, and the occasional morsel of chicken breast or minced meat.  I mostly feed them whole green beans or salad greens blanched in hot water and squeezed so that they sink.  It is most entertaining to see the yabbies scuffle with each other over the beans, then once they have sorted themselves out with one each, settle down to eat in their odd crustacean way, grasping the bean with their claws, picking at it with maxillipeds and stuffing it into their mouths.

UPDATE

I think they are getting used to me.

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PS  5 Gambusia

Mary Morison

O Mary, at thy window be!
It is the wish’d the trysted hour.
Those smiles and glances let me see,
That makes the miser’s treasure poor.
How blythely wad I bide the stoure,
A weary slave frae sun to sun,
Could I the rich reward secure –
The lovely Mary Morison!

Yestreen, when to the trembling string
The dance gaed thro the lighted ha’,
To thee my fancy took its wing,
I sat, but neither heard or saw:
Tho’ this was fair, and that was braw,
And yon the toast of a’the town,
I sigh’d, and said amang them a’ –
“Ye are na Mary Morison!”

O, Mary, canst thou wreck his peace
Wha for thy sake wad gladly die?
Or canst thou break that heart of his
Whase only faut is loving thee?
If love for love thou wilt na gie,
At least be pity to me shown:
A thought ungentle canna be
The thought o’ Mary Morison.

 

Robert Burns

Hydrangea Flashback

Summer in Palmerston North, 1958.

Westend Primary School.

The excitement builds as we prepare for the School Gala Day.  Until then, I didn’t even know what a gala day was. It had to be explained to me.  It sounded really exciting.  Our teacher informed  us also that we were all going to have an opportunity to win a prize in a flower arrangement competition.  We all had to bring flowers to school, and  arrange them artfully in a saucer of damp sand.  They would be on display for all to see, and a panel of judges would choose the three for first, second and third prize.

I asked mum for flowers and after a hunt around the flats where we were living at the time, she gave me a couple of heads of hydrangea.  She suggested helpfully that I could disassemble the flowers and arrange the florets in an attractive pattern.

This I did.  Try as I might I could not make it look anything other than a hydrangea flower stuck in a saucer of wet sand.  Never mind.  I had given it a shot, and I was quite content and settled in my mind with the fact that though my effort was not going to win a prize, I had completed my first flower arrangement.  Maybe someone would like it. My Grandmother liked everything I did.

Gala day arrived at last and I had sixpence to spend.  Wealth.  You could get a lot for 6d in 1958.  The Gala proved to be just as exciting as expected.  I looked around at all the amazing things I had never seen before in my short life, and filled with anticipation of how I might spend my pennies.   The first thing, though, was to hurry to the room where the flower displays were set out on  trestle tables.  Just to see my work laid out for all to see, and maybe admire.  There they all were; the three best marked “First Prize, Second Prize, Third Prize” and a few “Honourable Mentions”.  The remainder were laid out along the table right down to a rather sorry effort of wilting daisies and dandelions arranged in concentric circles around a single nasturtium flower.

I circled the trestle several times looking for my own contribution.  It should have been easy to spot, but I could not see it anywhere.  Then I saw an empty saucer on the windowsill and with a chill presentiment I went to look in the waste basket near the door.  There was a little pile of sand and some fading blue florets and petals.  My arrangement.

Rejected.  My work had not even been worthy of display.   The only one of them all to have been considered so bad that it was summarily thrown away.  The hurt lives with me still.  You never forget your first put-down.

That is why I hate hydrangeas.

 

 

 

 

Thrice Widdershins

Wayland touched me on the elbow in a gesture that I knew meant I should follow him.  He led me through a yet more stony fields until we came to a rocky hill.  It seemed to be a circular  outcrop perhaps a couple of hundred metres in diameter, surrounded by a stone wall about waist high.  There was a small gap in the wall just like the one that had started me on this strange journey.  Once through, we  picked our way through a boulder strewn field overgrown with bushes and briars.  Urging me to stay near, Wayland wound his way through the boulders.  I followed close behind.  At last, as we stood at the very base of the cliff, we turned to walk towards the setting sun, with the cliff at our left, and the fields to the right, still clambering over and around boulders and  brambles.

We walked for what seemed like miles until I was quite sure we had walked all the way around the hill.  In fact I could tell we must have done so by the way the shadows fell.  Yet still we carried on, making what seemed to be another complete circuit, and yet another.  Each time I became certain we had returned to our  starting point I looked around carefully for some landmark or sign but could not recognise a single feature to prove we had already passed that way.  I could not even see the gap in the wall by which we had entered the field.  Finally, on what I was sure by the now lengthening shadows must be our third circuit, Wayland stopped and pointed back to a cave entrance that we just passed.  It looked like a tall door in the rocks.  I was absolutely certain we had not passed it before.  I would have seen it.  It was puzzling.

“We go through there. ” he said. “Through the… thairseach,  what do you call it?  Portal.”

“Portal?  To Where?”

He looked at me as if I was a bit slow.   A half smile crinkled his eyes.    One eyebrow lifted.

“You are kidding.” I said.  ”You are taking me to faeryland?”

“We don’t use that term, Alan.  It is too… Disney.  We prefer to call it Talamh Sidh - the Peaceful Land.” And yes,  that is where you and I must go this day…”

Love’s Alchemy

Some that have deeper digg’d love’s mine than I,

Say, where his centric happiness doth lie;

I have lov’d, and got, and told,

But should I love, get, tell, till I were old,

I should not find that hidden mystery.

Oh, ’tis imposture all!

And as no chemic yet th’elixir got,

But glorifies his pregnant pot

If by the way to him befall

Some odoriferous thing, or medicinal,

So, lovers dream a rich and long delight,

But get a winter-seeming summer’s night.

Our ease, our thrift, our honour, and our day,

Shall we for this vain bubble’s shadow pay?

Ends love in this, that my man

Can be as happy’ as I can, if he can

Endure the short scorn of a bridegroom’s play?

That loving wretch that swears

‘Tis not the bodies marry, but the minds,

Which he in her angelic finds,

Would swear as justly that he hears,

In that day’s rude hoarse minstrelsy, the spheres.

Hope not for mind in women; at their best

Sweetness and wit, they’are but mummy, possess’d.

John Donne

The Voice (Cont.)

“Prepare to turn right at the roundabout in 300 metres.”

“OK. Thanks. Glad you know where we are.”

“In one hundred metres turn right at the roundabout, taking the third exit onta garble ord.”

“Did you say onta?  And ord? What happened to your posh accent?”

“Turn right at the roundabout, taking the third exit onta garble ord.”

“You are not very good at pronouncing Australian street names”.

“Then you should have chosen the Australian voice”.

“I like your English accent.  Except I have noticed you say ‘onta’ instead of ‘on to’ and ‘ord’ because I assume you are trying to say ‘Rd.’ Just trifling matters really”.

“You are exceeding the speed limit.”

So is ev’ry other fucker on this stretch of road.  And don’t change the subject. We were talking about elocution.”

“There is no call for vulgarity”.

<Pip>

“Is that the battery?  Damn! I didn’t charge it…  Lara?

Silence

“Dead.  Damn…  Ah well I guess that proves you are not in my head”.

Silence

“Doesn’t it?”

Shining Road of Sparkling Diamonds

I mentioned in one of my earlier ride reports that in some places here the roads sometimes sparkle in the sun. I postulated some sort of quartz rock in the aggregate.  It seems the explanation is more mundane but still quite interesting.

Cullet.

One way of recycling glass in this country where vast distances make many forms of recycling uneconomic, is to grind up the glass and add it to the road metal (or gravel as they call it here) used as aggregate.   Everyone can use a supplement to road metal.

Weekend Trip

The Silver Lady and I hit it off from the outset. I rode her for a few hours around the suburbs of Perth on Friday night, mainly because I had no GPS set up, and got lost looking for a motel.  I had not intended to go far at all, just to a nearby motel, and was going to leave the getting acquainted until the next day.  The first two motels I found closed their offices at 8pm.  Not, in my opinion, the way to run a business based on providing accommodation.  I could have gone to stay with the family, but by the time I realised that was the most sensible thing to have done, it was very late and I was concerned I might disturb them.  Finally I found the motel I stayed at last time I attended a workshop up that way, and bedded down.

The first thing I did in the morning was wire up the GPS.  No more getting lost.  Then a trip to find a gift for my little great-nephew who celebrated his birthday on Friday,  a visit to the bike shop for a new helmet, and off to see the family in Forrestfield.

We all agreed the bike is a beauty.  Of course Steve will never admit that anything could be nicer than his Vulcan, and I don’t blame him.

While at the motel, I had chatted with my neighbour who asked me where I was headed on the bike.  I told him I had planned to ride to Dalwallinu, but the person I intended to visit was now otherwise engaged.  He suggested that if I wanted a really good ride, I should follow the Indian Ocean Drive to Dongara.  The road is pleasant and scenic, and Dongara, he said, is the nicest town in Western Australia.

So that is where I headed.  With a diversion into Nambung National Park for a ride around the Pinnacles.

The Silver lady is heavy -310kg – and likes sand even less than the White Lady does.  The soft patches were a real test of my riding skills.  I did not let her drop.  I did two circuits of the park, the first to capture a movie of the ride, and the second to take photographs.  I had only the one camera along.  As I had hitched a ride to Perth with a colleague and her family, I had been limited in what I could carry with me.  Though it did mean I was travelling light, it also proved to be somewhat problematic, as I had no charger along to replenish the camera battery when it was exhausted.  This meant that I could take no photos the next day.

Dongara is a lovely place.  Whether it’s the nicest in WA is debatable. I think Esperance is really lovely too.  NZers will know what I mean when I say that Esperance reminds me of Orewa, while Dongara is perhaps more like Waihi Beach.  Both excellent places to be.

Sunday morning at breakfast in a Cafe on the beach, a couple celebrating mother’s day with a champagne breakfast asked me where I was headed.  I told them I had no idea but I was fairly sure I’d know when I had arrived.  I toyed with the idea of going further north, perhaps to Coral Bay, but I did not have a mask and snorkel or bathers with me, and in any case I was already quite a way from home considering I had only a three day weekend.  I thought I should at least head in the right general direction.  Since I was now north of my original intended destination, I set the GPS to take me home via Dalwallinu, Wongan Hills, Northam, Brookton and Wagin.  I did not know how far I would get, but decided to ride until fatigue set in, then if necessary find a pub to sleep in.

I passed Damboring lakes, which I thought were actually quite interesting.

At Wongan Hills I stopped for lunch.  As I was about to mount up I met Debbie, the former colleague from NZ, whom I had intended to visit in Dalwallinu.  She had completed her business the day before, and was out for a ride with her friends. We admired each others bikes and chatted for a while before I continued south and they north.

The roads were all good and I found some of the back roads were nice and curvy.  in a couple of places the carriageway was very narrow. The roads could have been Irish country lanes if they had not been so obviously surrounded by vast amounts of Western Australia.

Unmistakably.

I may have mentioned in passing before how incredibly BIG Australia is.   Speaking of big,  I encountered some wide loads coming in to the mines.  They were buckets for a digger and larger than a house.  They took up the whole road, and all traffic had to pull off onto the shoulder or verge in order to let them pass.  Amazing.

By the time I got to York, the day was wearing on, and by Brookton the light was beginning to fade.  I was soon riding in darkness.  The driving lights gave me a well-lit road, and once again I encountered no ‘roos in kangaroo alley.  At one roadside rest in the middle of nowhere I stopped for a leg stretch and a drink of water and electrolyte.  I turned off the lights and stood for a while under the stars.  It was a clear night, and I was at least 80km from the nearest town.  No loom to affect visibility.  An Awesome sight.  Proper use for the word Awesome.

One of the pleasant things about riding a bike is the closer connection with the world around one.  In particular the smells of the countryside.  Regions have their own smells.  Down south the air is filled with a medicinal/herbal/eucalypt smell and around Katanning there is a more earthy odour.  At the moment though, the entire Great Southern and Wheatbelt  is scented by the smoky smell of burning wheat and Canola stubble as the farmers prepare the fields for the next crop.  It is a most pleasant odour.  A mixture of burning autumn leaves, spicy baking cookies and fragrant pipe tobacco.  I passed a few fields still burning and rode through the smoke.  It made me think of the old fellow smoking his pipe and blowing smoke rings.

In the dark I came upon a hillside still on fire and the ruddy glow tinged the smoke drifting down to the road.  It was a pretty sight, and I regretted that the battery in my camera was dead.

The night grew cooler as I came south and I stopped at  Popanyinning to add some warm layers under the jacket. at least I had come prepared in the clothing department.

As I rode almost due south on the last leg from Narrogin, the horizon ahead of me was lit periodically with flashes of lightning.  Another pretty sight.  I made it home before the rain arrived though.  I had just ridden 700 K with barely a half dozen breaks to stretch, drink, eat or refuel.  No numb bumb, no stiff knees or pains anywhere.  Outstanding.

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Silver Lady pros:

• The seat – without doubt the most comfortable I have experienced.  No need for an Airhawk on this bike!  I did not need to stop nearly as frequently to stretch my legs.  In fact I had to remind myself to do so anyway. Just to take a break.
• The windshield takes the wind pressure off so that there is less strain.
•  The above  combined with the raised handle bars  means one is riding in a comfortable posture that is not tiring at all,  Makes this bike a beauty to ride.
• 1300cc means she cruises at 100 very comfortably with plenty left if needed.
• Fuel injection means she is as economical as the 650 in fuel consumption.
• Double front and single rear disc brakes.  She stops.  I did a few test emergency stops on quiet stretches of road.  I will need to do some practising on gravel.
• Alloy wheels means tubeless tyres. I can carry a tubeless repair kit and fix punctures without removing the wheel.

Cons:

• The windshield height is such that turbulent air makes the ride quite noisy, which is a shame because the water cooled engine and single exhaust make the 1300 much quieter running than the air cooled twin exhaust 650.    If I lower my head just a few inches, the wind noise stops.  I am not sure what, if anything, I can do about it.  I cannot ride crouched.  that would defeat the purpose of the other comfort features.  The windshield does not appear to be adjustable.   Earplugs or noise-cancelling stereophonic earphones maybe.
• The extra weight means I need to take more care on gravel and sand.
• That’s about it.  The only glitch  I found was that if I leaned on the fuel tank, a dent suddenly appeared which suggested negative pressure in the tank.   Sure enough, when I opened the fuel cap, there was a sucking in of air and the dent popped out again.  I was sure that was not supposed to happen.  I soon found the deformed rubber ring that was blocking the breather hole.    Problem solved.

Conclusion:  She’s a keeper.

1300K

Collected the bike on Friday evening, rode around in the dark getting lost around Perth. Dropped in on the family Saturday morning before heading off to Dongara which is 400K north of Perth.  By the time I got there i had done 605K on the bike already.

 

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Next day, after looking round Dongara a bit, I rode home via Dalwallinu, Wongan Hills, Northam and Brookton. Lots to tell but it was a 700k trip in nine and three quarter hours. I’m tired. More later.
 

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