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

 

OUR LOCALS ARE BEAUTIES

I'm referring to the natives, plants that have evolved over eons

thriving in conditions sandy, salty, windy almost cyclonic

crucial to protecting our dunes and coast from erosion

from sudden storms and deluges, awesome and demonic

Wallum, the coastal heathland plant native to this area

is considered just as important as a rainforest tropical

protecting everything beneath a impenetrable canopy

providing food and shelter for native bird or animal

More and more of this ancient wallum is disappearing

bushes, sedges, grasses, shrubs giving way to 'development'

leaving only small pockets of native bushland behind

to be over-run and destroyed by exotics beyond containment

I'll be rooting out the introduced weeds and pests that lurk

and plant more natives that belong to the region

adapted to the conditions that have prevailed ...

I hope they'll flourish and fruit or flower in profusion

Coastal banksia, pandanus, tuckeroo, myrtle and lasiandra

I'm even trying Fraser Island creeper where it's sunny

no camphor laurel, cocos palm, cassia, umbrella or lantana

even confined the mock orange in a pot, a safe bet for my money

I like where I'm living these days on the Sunshine Coast

the aspect is fine, the weather and the neighbours are kind

I could live for a while in the hinterland or on the range

but the coast and its natives are irresistible, just divine

IN PRAISE OF MICHAEL JACKSON

I won't be crying nor will I hold a vigil for the man

That's a modern phenomenon I just can't swallow

I'd rather concentrate on his talent and skill

It's his terrific music legacy I'd rather follow

A hellava dancer ... who could forget those moves?

'Thriller', the album had everybody gyrating

He was the maestro who married pop song to dance

To me 'Off The Wall' was electrifying

He had a voice that soared and was so pure

Even as a young tacker he was the centrepiece

Whether with the Jackson Five or McCartney

Magnetic, he did it all with grace and ease

Some people are born to entertain .. he was one

Us mortals are thrilled by the brilliance of him and  others

He lit up the world with his dance and music

And he's up there with the best of the brothers

HOW I BECAME POSITIVE IN LIFE

I was an orphan. All my life I had been treated with dain and I felt wanted. It was whispered I was legitimate, the child of a licit union between two literate people. My character peached, my pecunity established, I had nothing to pede me. Scrupulous people had treated my fellow orphans and me fairly and bominably over terminable years. Why we were treated like that was logical and fathomable. Though we were a ruly bunch, I maintained a chalant exterior and tried to persuade the other to look gruntled or consolate.

We lived in a very descript dwelling. The garden was in a state of array. Kempt shrubs and beds and shevelled paths. Even the gardener moved in a gainly way. A bit of care and the place would be mitigable. Sometimes on pulse I felt I could molate the moral intendent in the cinerator along with his calcitrant staff. He was so perious and pervious yet perturbable if any of us were pertinent. I liked him.

I'll make bones about it, I still had to leave. Once out, I'd have to travel cognito. Mured as a orphan, I'd become mune to ship. Every road I'd choose was practicable, every argument I'd use would be plausible for I'd plicate none of my fellow orphans nor ply any staff had helped me on my way.

I left with ception for I duced that they would except me to so do. 

THOSE KINGS OF THE HRCA CHURCH

You think Papa Benedicts not such a good 'un

with his comments about contraception

but his predecessors of the 16th century take the cake

a book titled "Secrets of the Papal table"

surely sounds like a fantastic fable

medieval and renaissance Popes loved their steak

Men with raging, gluttonous 'La Grande Bouffe-type' appetites

they'd devour anything from truffles to even epiphytes

cried Leo the 10th "It's our papacy, so let's enjoy it"

from 1521 to 1531 his love of luxury and entertainment

art , letters, style and substance knew no containment

and to satisfy the Lord, he said "Lent? Let us observe it"

To celebrate his familiy's elevation to the Roman patriciate

he threw a feast at which 300 guests did participate

from their unfolded napkins little birds hopped out of

while their attired pages in threads of gold brought silver ewers

of rosewater for guests to wash their hands, face (an ears)

afore tucking into 25 lucullan courses of epcurean foodstuff 

Dishes of sugared capons baked in a casing of gold leaf preceded

by vessels of hoops and gilded balls from which birds ascended

(a much grander scale that 'four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie')

then eight dish dishes of mature baked peocock

dressed in skin and feathers and standing up at 12 o'clock

(you'd think they were alive without a word of a lie)

Rodrigo Borgia reigned disgracefully as Alexander the 6th

around 1494 he designed the Torre Borgia, a torture pit

that was decorated by the famed Pinturicchio

his numerous illegitimate offspring lived and died there

deployed his assassins and stored his poisons where ....

they got rid of his enemies with brioche and brio

But during Lent he'd observe seasonal fasts strictly

eating sparsely in public on salads, fish soups and chickpeas

alone, he'd gorge himself on desserts and panpepato's

fond of parties with his appalling children and their off-spring

his table groaning with capons, eels, sauces and exotic things

even pheasants in human skulls,  saying 'eat up, let other's be martyrs'

Another libertine was Alessandro Farnese of renaissance times

Paul the 3rd whose behaviour was egregious even for the times

who was nick-named 'della gonella' (the skirt chaser)

he practiced nepotism on a Theucydian scale most wild

bestowed on his every vile, grasping child

yet scrupulously observed his duties liturgical as a pastor

He's remembered for masquerades and licentious plays

extravagant feast, spectacles and other bacchnalian displays

his estates supplying him with oranges, cherries, wild boar and hare

deer, pigeon, pheasant, eels in feast prepared by chefs

a sommerlier provided wine that left the guests senses bereft

when he died of indigestion he hiccuped "I don't care"

An earlier Pope, Simon de Brion reigned as Martin the 4th

from 1281 to 1285, very briefly and was known as 'Martin Uncouth'

he had a passion for Bolzano eels in astringent white wine

so depraved in his gluttny, he kept a tank of them in his room

while drowning them in venaccia wine he would swoon

very little is recorded whether he like other meats, the swine

Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it it's said

Henry the 1st of England ate too many lampreys and soon was dead

about 150 years before Martin Uncouth (and following Popes)

yet these licentious, obsessive, gluttonous, gourmandising men

a disaster for the Church and the State ... now and then

ironically died by their own mouths, thank God, the dopes 

 

ADIOS MUCHACHO, DON'T CALL US .....

It wasn't so long ago that the man with the unpronounceable name

Zigismund Zwitkowski was giving Telstra a bad name 

its second and third traches sank without a trace but ...

to 'Dr" Ziggy and the oink-boys that was just another game

But behold and lo, the Yank who took over from ZZZZZZZZ

arrived in our village with two bandidos to make 'the gang of three' 

there was no 'Magnificent Seven'  to hold them back

uttering wank business words, they set about robbing the money-tree

10,000 employees needed a rest so they made it an enforced one

'Broadband? Sure we'll build you one but only the juicy parts'

they wanted their competitors bobbled, hobbled and nobbled

so, about regulation they whinged and threw corporate darts

For five years they plundered pillaged and (g)raped

(they were a group, the gang of three, weren' they?)

then they flew away in first-class like the first-class thieves they were

to Noo Yoik or where-ever-the-hell they came from in Amerikay

This hubristic hombre was heard on the Beeb the other day

lamenting our naivety, our hedonism, our (gasp) racism

its a pity he didn't remove the mote from his own eye

this paragon, this barbarian, this champion of greedism

Let's turn the page on this obnoxious person

and heed history in appointing foreigners to jobs

there's plenty of Aussies who're just as good hatchet-men

among all our peters, pauls, jims, johns or bobs 

PIXIE'S PASSING

Pixie passed away on a Monday in May

soon after I'd arrived at Taabinga

I saw her briefly when I dropped Harry off

then had a quick look around Kinga

back at Windchimes I did a quick trip to the tip

with a full load of stuff behind me

went back into town about 4 pm

to bring Harry home for evening tea

as we walked down the aisle to say goodnight

we were met by the hospital nursing staff

who said 'Harry, we're sorry to tell you ...

Pixie's gone, from this life's she's passed

Harry staggered and leaned against the wall

I hung on to his arm as we went to where she lay

I left him alone in his grief, overwhelmed

while I pondered about this unhappy day

Colin and Libby turned up as soon as they could

and stated the whole sad process of interment

we took Harry home and we all had a drink

at the extinguishment of a star in our firmament

THE MAN WHO LOVED POETRY

"I came out through the same door as in I went"

was the line of a favourite poem he would recite

during those early years at Capalaba as we three were ...

renewing relationships, starting life with no kids in sight

He'd talk about 'his footprints in the sands of time'

I'd respond with 'Horatius at the bridge' or Annabelle Lee'

he took me back to the time I was a kid

listening to my father who, like Don, had a love of poetry

Don brought it all back ... that love for poetry

his life mirrored by the wisdom of the prose

whether by accident of design it doesn't matter

he gave much more than he got from those ......

of us, who loved and admired the man

a 'live and let live' bloke who never rushed to judge

he'd rather give people the benefit of the doubt

kept his own counsel, from that he would not budge

not a paragon of virtue he'd be the first to concede

he's laugh, and indication he never took himself seriously

if things were grim he'd come up with another line

a throwaway, laced with levity but apt poetically

I'll miss him greatly, the man who loved poetry

these last years would have been so much easier

if we'd been able to exchange poetical repartee

of Lawson, Byron, Paterson or Shakespeare

IT'S THE LIBIDO, STUPID

When you're in financial distress, your house in a mess

your relationship under duress, you'll confess I guess

that the sharemarket isn't the only thing to go ... down

Psychologists and counsellors say, in a caring sort of a way

although your foundations blown away and you don't care to lay

with the person with whom you stay and play

that libidinous surge, that emotional urge to merge

needing the pure drug-like effects of lust that scourge ...

your body can sometimes grate on you like a  dirge

So you use the 'Not tonight, Josephine' line

and it's not that you've had too much wine

you roll off or away and you present your back , that rigid spine

treading a fine line, knowing things aren't fine

aware that you just can't 'up the ante' ..... too far behind

It's not your dick, you dill, it's in your head

you dread being with her in bed

but your tadger's withered and she's bewildered and bothered

what should be her passionate moans are just groans

and she sighs and rubs her thighs

knowing another night's just full of lows instead of highs

your anxiety builds for your corpora cavernosa isn't filled

your brain's disconnected.. under the circumstances only to be expected

leaving her ejected, rejected and dejected

It's well to remember (in the Chrissy month of December)

that everything goes up and comes down

so play the clown, don't despair or frown

your defective libido's not permanent

it will soon be your firmament

for in the New Year, never fear, it will be like that spear

that flies straight and true, soon you'll apply the screw

in a rampant rising sharemarket ... and your lover who's true-blue 

FRED

He's a great bloke our friend Fred

a man of many a colour

an artist, a writer, a raconteur, a participant

an optimist, not a dolour

He's had the odd struggle or ten

life's googlies he's played with a straight bat

loves a yak or yarn or a discourse about anything

from global cooling to Cocos Island to dogs or cats

We've known him and Fleur since Banks St days

our boys linking us to friendship firm and fine

spent many a day in their colourful company since

cards or board-games ... tea and sympathy anytime

He's a relaxed man in tune with his circumstance

unafraid to express an opinion, he won't be led

always worth a visit just for the entertainment

a ripper of a bloke that's our Fred

Sixty today ... strewth! He's like a long-distance runner

I bet he never thought he'd live to see the day

tempus sure fugits Fred, we're glad to be with you

what more can we say but ... Happy Birthday

THE GLOVE-BOX

Every car's got one, big or small

located in the dash, it's a repository

maps, rego, pens, tissues, cutlery, tablets

and a curious collection of cards funerary

We were looking for a map of Queensland

to check out a campsite at O'Reillys

as Paul trawled through the box she found 

cards about Dad, David Pate and Bobby's ...

Mass or service hymnals going back to 2004

we'd put in the glove-box with the intention

of removing it later (but it's easy to forget)

because of one's poor memory retention

They mount up this collection of people's passing

always in a place close to you sans keys or locks

to occasionally remind you of death or life

and that we'll all end up in someone's glove-box

GEE-KIDDIES .... I LOVE 'EM BOTH

These two young tackers, Ro and Ty

captivate me with their presence

a bit like chalk and cheese they seem

their different stature being that very essence

One's big and shy when he first meets you

(You know who I'm talking about)

the other's lithe and laid-back

doesn't like being wakened or put out

I think Roie likes me... after he's warmed up a bit

occasionally he'll bring me his shoes to go for a walk

we'll set off for the bush at the end of the street

the dog's in tow, he's too busy looking around to talk

Ty doesn't roar like Ro or make loud noises

(I haven't heard him do so .... yet)

I'm told he has his moments like every baby has

just biding his time I'll bet

I look forward to seeing these young fellers

they're the fruit-bowl of my prideful eye

time spent with gee-kids are never dull

I'm hoping they think the same way about me by and by ...

THAT MIND-NUMBING, INSANE, INANE, MIND-GAME

Facebook .. on the face of it another great communication tool. Initially latched onto by the young as all fads inevitably are, osmosis-like it sinks its insidious hooks into the concupiscent not-so-young, there to remain long after it has ceased to be a fad for the young ... who have embraced the next fad that emanated from the febrile, mercantile imagination of another shrewd entrepreneur. Get off your apolaustic appaloosa I hear you say?

Let's face it. Facebook (FB) is a thief of time, up there with the maestro of thieves of time ... TV. Call me a recalcitrant Luddite or a boring old fluff for I've only heard of this latest scourge from others and seen it but once, only to wonder in wonder that one can "friend" somebody, anybody based on a real or perceived affinity. FB's yet another site to share your most intimate or inane thoughts or photos or menus or disorders or bodily functions with other facetoids who have nothing much to do like you. Perhaps to be embarrassed later on by Face-disclosures by disgruntled Face-totalisators?

Face it fair and square for within days of your Facebirth, you will have generated perhaps hundreds of Facefriends with facefaces. Like porn, you get to figuratively take off your identity and abase yourself in public, a public that's increasingly inured to debasement of oneself or others. There's the horrible stories of the bloke instead of cleaving to his wife for life actually cleaving his wife to death for changing her FB status to single or anorexics showing each other new ways to purge themselves or young thugs gate-crashing .... you get the picture? You don't? Just get on FB and it's revealed in all it's horrible vacuity.

To face it mildly, FB brings out the voyeur in us. It's like a reality-show star's unquenchable thirst for revealing every detail of their life in minutia, no matter how unexceptionally boring, excruciating or stultifying. On FB, you are convinced that everything you do in life must be inherently and absorbingly interesting enough to alert every faceghoul to its importance.

Updates are the go ... Symantha is cooking cookies, Jaidon is going to footy practice this arvo, Kylah-Leaeane is glad its the weekend, Braith is going to raid the icebox and Rybekkah ... is gonna do a great doo-do rightaway. You get my drift ..... 

Having been exposed to the wonderful world of FB aka Fu^%$%^ Bull$&*^, I'll get back to the other world of email that's mostly devoid of pretenders or poseurs. I prefer to trade insults or stories on the basis that I (generally) know the recipients and accept their reciprocation in good humour. 

THE LIE OF THE LAND

Earth's sixth largest country by area at 7,682,300 square kilometres, its low mountain ranges and generally flat topography reflects the age of its landscape and extensive erosion which has occurred over millions of years.

The continent lies at the centre of the large Indo-Australian plate. As mountain ranges are formed by tectonic plate collisions, the absence of plate boundaries within our landmass are the reasons why we have low mountains and infinitesimal earthquake activity.

During it's long geological jouney, Oz has drifted north. 600 million years ago it was part of the Gondawana supercontinent, flanked by India in the west and Antarctica in the south. In Jurassic times (150 million years ago) a rift appeared between Oz and Antarctica.  50 million years later the Tasman sea was formed and 45 million years later, Oz broke away to begin its leisurely journey north. Soon it collided with the Eurasian plate and the Pacific plate resulting in cataclysmic volcanic eruptions that gave birth to the young, high landforms of New Guinea and Indonesia complete with growing mountains and nascent volcanos.

The Oz landmass consists of three main topographical regions. The Western Plateau covering about two-thirds of the land, the Central Lowlands and Eastern Highlands where three-quarters of the population live today. Some of the world's most ancient rocks are found in the Western Plateau, dated at more that 4000 million years old. Our oldest geological formations, the crustal, around which the rest of the continent grew are the Pilbara Block in the northwest and the larger Yilgarn Block in the southwest which was formed about 3500 million years ago. Sediments accumulating over them raised the block above sea level while erosion of these landforms deposited large quantities of iron on the seabed forming thick layers of iron-rich rocks found today in what is the Hamersley Range.

Around 200 million years ago, due to vocanic activity and plate movement, new areas of crust rose above the sea in northern and central Oz. These youngsters, along with the Yilgarn and the Pilbara grew into three large masses in the far west, the north and the south. 900 million years later they bonded to form the West Australian plateau. Soon after, the plateau was covered by two ice ages about 730 million year ago. And, 600 million years later, shock waves created by the formation of Gondwana created a vast mountain range known as the Petermann Mountains. Snow-fed rivers fed sediments down to the plains below to build the inselbergs we know as monoliths today ie: Ayers Rock, Mt Connor, The Olgas and others.

Oz was much wetter during the late Mesozoic and early Cenozoic ages, when (15 million years ago), numerous rivers flowed across the Western plateau. Extensive erosion resulted, leaving chains of salt pans scattered across the land. Some of these ancient rivers formed when Oz was part of Gondwana. Today, their headwaters may lie in Antarctica ...

At the plateau's southern edge lies the featureless and flat Nullabor Plain. Consisting mainly of limestone, it was formed under shallow seas during the early to mid-tertiary period about 60 million years ago. It was then uplifted during the Miocene Epoch, 25 million years ago. Today the Plateau is covered by large deserts that are sand, clays or stones deposited by water or wind erosion. Occasional rainfall has formed floodplains along desert streams but the region has few rivers. Most of them rise at the edge of the plateau and flow to the western and northern coastlines.

The Central Lowlands lie from the Gulf of Carpentaria to the Murray-Darling delta, from the Western Plateau to the Eastern Highlands. The land comprises layers of sediments left over million of years ago by rivers and seas. During the Cretaceous Period (145-165 million years ago), an enormous sea covered much of the northern Central Lowlands. Numerous rivers emptied into this sea which subsequently flowed into the Southern Ocean. The Central Lowlands consist of a narrow belt that abuts the Western Australian plateau along the Darling fault escarpment, an enormous fault line created by gigantic rifts around 200 million years ago.

As the seas retreated and the climate became more arid, rivers dried up to form an inland drainage network that empties into lakes including Lake Eyre. The sedimentary rocks of the Central Lowlands contain the Great Artesian Basin, an enormous aquifer that covers about 22 per cent of the continent. It is the major source of underground water in the continent and is replenished by rivers that flow down from the Eastern Highlands.

The Eastern Highlands, incorrectly known as The Great Dividing Range, extends from northern Queensland to Tasmania. It is not a single mountain range but a series of plateaus, mountains and volcanos. They formed about 540 million years ago when an ocean plate on the eastern side of Oz plunged under the continental plate pushing up volcanic islands as sediments collected along the plate boundaries. These continued to accumulate and build over the next 200 million years (the Permian and Triassic Periods) gradually forming the eastern third of Oz. During this period, the folding of the crust created sedimentary basins where plant-life occurred which then  turned into rich coal deposits slowly ......

Volcanic activity continued. Parts of the highlands consist of volcanic deposits formed as the Indo-Australian plate slowly moved northwards over hot-spots where plumes of magma burst through the crust like a blowtorch. This northward movement is confirmed by the fact that the oldest volcanic rocks lie to the north and the youngest to the south. Those in Mt Nebo in Queensland, for example, are about 32 million years old while those at Mt Gambier are between 1400 and 4700 years old. 

During the late Mezozoic and early Cenozoic eras (about 15 million years ago), parts of eastern Oz were uplifted between 600-3000 metres. Bounded by faults and folds, this area includes The Blue Mountains. Extensive erosion of the Eastern Highlands has exposed huge granite intrusions including Mt Kosciuszko, Mt Buffalo and the granite chain from Armidale to Tenterfield.

Many areas of the Eastern Highlands are separated from the Lowlands by escarpments. Numerous short rivers rise and flow from the highlands ending in large bays. These bays were formed when sea levels rose at the end of the last ice age flooding valleys in the southeast.

The land was still evolving ..... as man arrived just a mere 60,000 years ago.