TASMANIA'S THRIVING TREASURES

It's the first thing that strikes you as you begin your daily travels

around cities and towns, carpeting distant hilsides, skirting its many lakes

the spectrum of trees in a variety of colours,shapes and sizes

mighty eucalypts that touch the sky like the Tassie Blue Gum

myrtle, blackwood, sassafras excellent for furniture, boat building or turning

must be something in the water of which there's plenty

but there's more besides the natives ....

Glorious, majestic specimens from the temperate zone

grown for aesthetic or practical purpose as a feature or a windbreak or shelter

in yards or a park or the botanical gardens in Hobart or Launnie

silver or golden elms, common English or claret ash, Italian or grey alder

the cypress family including Bookleaf, Monterey, Italian or Chinese Weeping

incence or Japanese cedars, redwood, chestnut, sycamore, magnolia, spruce

Douglas or Upright Scots  firs, Maritime or pencil pines, oaks, larches, giant sequoia

and as if that isn't enough of a feast for the senses....

The Araucariacea giants

an ancient conifer family of which 11 are native to Australia

with a Wollemi pine as the piece-de-resistance, a survivor from dinosaur times

vast plantations of eucalypts and pines marching up and down the landscape

to be logged in the future but ingesting carbon for the present

With a population of half a million and stating the bloody obvious

Tasmanians need never worry about their carbon footprint

if we mainlanders had a hundreth of this arboreal wealth

we'd be laughing too 

THE SOLO SAILOR

Now if I was a round-the-world yachtie

like Ian Kiernan or Kay Cottee

I'd sail around the world between the 50s and the 40s

those latitudes aren't too mean, temperate or cold

(anyway, to be a solo sailor you need to be bold)

but at Cape Horn you've gotta dip your keel into the 30s

If you've got this far withour being rolled over

by salt-crusted waves that rise far above your shoulder

you can duck back into more benign water

skirting past South Georgia and the bucolic Falklands

across the South Atlantic and nearing Prince Eward Islands

you're almost home in the Indian Ocean quarter

If you feel a little more adventurous than you already are

consider the Kerguelens and Heard Island, which aren't far 

off your nautical highway that is leading you home

Heard Island, our most external territory contains Mt Mawson at 2746 metres

'our highest mountain', icy and cold, lots of pure water in gigalitres

if only we could export it back across the far-flung foam ....

The place to be shipwrecked though is the Kerguelens

where the French researchers welcome individuals or persons

they accommodate and feed you with panache and style

tired of your own company and your cooking for so long

you can revive your spirits while being made to feel as if you belong

amid cameraderie and joi de vivre you haven't felt for a while

From there it's just a few skids across the South Indian Ocean

to Cape Leeuwin and Freo where you've sure to cause a commotion

as Aussies welcome you back as a hero and that's a fact

you've sailed across four mighty powerful oceans

enduring loneliness, doubt, terror and other emotions

back at your departure point ... you've 'been there, done that' 

MY HEART'S A-FLUTTER

I saw both my grandkids yesterday

Oh! I'm a lucky bloke you know

First it was young Ty at Forrie

And later at Cap it was Big Ro

I've seen more of Ty these days

As Esk is closer to where he resides

Looked after him last Monday

While his Mum was away at work but besides ...

He's a lovable little boy with a wistful smile

Curious in the extreme with an intense look

Loves his tucker .. mexie mmmm .. just like his Pa

Putting on weight and likes a story from a book

Curly-haired Roie is a boy and a half

Still shy when he first meets you

Has his own lingo with the odd word of English

Identifies doggy-doos crying 'Ah! Poo'

Hasn't quite got the hang of steering his trike

Ploughs into things with the motor roaring

Likes going for a walk around the garden

At two and a quarter, like any boy, he's into exploring

I'd like them to visit us at Marcoola

Take 'em into the surf down by the beach

Let 'em race round the house or the garden

Or walk in the park that's within reach

These two young blokes, I live 'em so

I'd like to chew on them, tasty like bread and butter

eminently huggable, their young faces open and guileless

Is it any wonder they make my heart go a-flutter?  

WHEN WATER'S MORE PRECIOUS THAN ...

Two years ago the people of Toowoomba said 'no'

'Purified recycled water? That's shit ... no way'

Two years on and their dams are critically low

Down to level 5 restrictions but help is on the way

We're building a pipeline from Wivenhoe to Cressbrook

Up hill and down dale, 38 kilometres in lenghth or so

When we turn on those pumps and let the water run

Toowoomba's troubles will be less and no more

There'll be arguments about who pays for this line

As a citizen and tax-payer I couldn't give a toss

for there's a city and its people just about dying of thirst

This project's more about future gain, not current loss

The design blokes have nurtured a grand design

And the construction fellers have done us proud

We commissioning jokers have got to make it all work

I'm confident its success will be proclaimed out aloud

The programs are being written, the procedures laid down

There's plans or strategies that we discuss or rehearse

The teams are honing skills for that day in December

When a pipe hitherto dry will become a watercourse

Regardless of whether its a drought measure or not

What it conveys to the people upstream is gold

We can share what we have with others less fortunate

In Oz we don't leave people out in the cold

At the end of the year when everything's ticking and clicking

(Thanks to the construction people the line's as sound as a bell)

We'll away to new pipelines in pastures old or new like this one

Fond memories of TPA, its people, the community ... farewell

STATE OF (AB)ORIGIN

There are perhaps 200 languages

and several more dialects they say

unique, unrelated to each other

alas, most are extinct today

The one that's given us the most words

is Dharug, apparently, spoken by the Kooris

from those original settlers around what we call Sydney

comes boomerangs, wombats, koalas and wallabies

From Riverine region languages like Wiradjuri

we get billabong and kookaburra

while the Kamiloroi or Kooma

have given us the budgerigar

Didgeridoo is from the musical tribe, the Yolngu

up north in Arnhem Land

Billinudgel, a place of plentiful sparrows

from the Biripi, near Byron's golden sand

Such a huge compendium of words from millenia

yet to few of them do we ever recourse

it's time we took some interest (and pride)

and used 'em imaginatively in our modern discourse

GETTING TOGETHER, TOGETHER

We Mendii gathered informally in Sydney

At Jeanne's and Rog's place on the 11th and 12th of July

three generations of us from Ceylon, NZ, Britain and Oz

to mark our arrival forty years ago ... time sure does fly

my siblings and I are the 'now generation' ... orphans

our parents having passed away giving birth to us twice

John (and Linda) were absent but represented by Kirsty

they could have said 'cooee', it would have been nice

Sydney was cold to us Qlders but the family was warm

we visitors from the north took a trip to Taronga Zoo with Jess

visited friends, the Art Gallery and the Opera House on a walkabout

rugged up like mountain climbers, feeling the cold I confess

There was some grouse tucker to consume and scads of it

everybody brought a plate in the Aussie tradition

we heaped the succulent bounty onto our plates

while imbibing, chattering and adoring the 'magi' sans condition

difficult to believe that we had our own landing in Oz

five days before man walked anywhere else but on earth

my siblings and I, like millions of others were thrilled by their feat

but nowhere near as thrilled as we were with our second birth

We'll see each other again from time to time in New South or Qld

I'd like to gather 'em all together in another 10 years time

to celebrate our 50th anni with newer progeny and gusto

but may I suggest strongly we do it in Qld, a warmer clime?

 

WHO WAS WHO AT TARONGA ZOO

While in Sydney for a family get-together

we Qld Mendii and Jess went to the zoo

a visit of discovery for gee-kiddies and us

it was on our list for months as a 'Sydney must-do'

We drove instead of taking a ferry or train

relieved of our money by the many tolls to our destination

found it changed a lot since our last visit

the temporary entrance caused a bit of consternation

The solitary Komodo Dragon obviously didn't like the cold

certainly the largest of its type I've ever seen

was Roie impressed? was Ty?  .... hard to say

Roie was making noises, taking in the scene

The giraffes were hard to miss, necks longer than legs

chimps lounged about except for one arial gymnast

the African waterhole with its pygmy hippo and birds

zebras and sntelope skittered by as we went past

Mountain goats abseiled from their eyrie insouciantly

(I think Ro liked their agility and daring) .....

Fennec foxes and meerkats standing up and looking around

spider monkeys and pandas, their coats red and glaring

The elephant house with its new unsteady arrival

was the most popular place at the zoo that day

walked past the well-dressed penguins and leopard seals

some of them knifing through the water in a high-speed play

Took in the seal show, the next most popular event

cared less about their performance, more about their sleek form

then on to the kids zoo where the domestic animals dwelled

soon after, our visit ended in a pelting rainstorm

I don't know about the others but I enjoyed the day-out

it is an excellent place to take the young to see ..

animals, birds, mammals, reptiles from all the worlds's continents

but mainly to teach them that other species like us should be free