Perth #2

I have just returned from my week in Perth, which turned out very well. My keynote address to the State of the Cities (SOAC) conference was reasonably received and sparked some long debates. And the social side was good, too. We had opening drinks at the Royal Perth Yacht Club (RPYC), famous as being the home base of Australia's yachting team who finally lifted the America's Cup off the US in the 1980s, after many decades of trying. That took place off the New Jersey coastline, but most Australians can remember the then Prime Minister telling employers that anyone who fired a workers hung over from the celebrations was a bum! That line was recorded for posterity at the RPYC. However, on this occasion there was no sign of Alan Bond who financed the attempt.

Two days later we also had the conference dinner at the RPYC, and very good it was too. In between there was a civic reception at the Perth City Hall. My slides show the view from the RPYC to the city centre and the view in reverse! Perth is very attractive along the Swan River, home to many of the wealthiest in Australia!

A long-time colleague of mine, Roy, and his wife, Chris, entertained me to dinner last night in Freo (Fremantle) near where they live - at a Turkish restaurant - and they ran me all the way to the airport. We'd met in July this year in, of all places, Maribor in Slovenia - we were attending the same conference. And they looked after Rebecca when she was in Rio a few years ago.

I left Perth at 3.00am Eastern Summer Time, three hours ahead of Perth where it was midnight. And I arrived back in Armidale - via Sydney at 10am, just 7 hours and 4000km later. Amazingly, the return trip to Sydney was faster by one hour than going: 3.5 hours to 4.5 hours. That reflected the jet stream accelerating aircraft speed on the return to 1100 km per hour. So I turned up to bridge this afternoon with 4 hours sleep under my belt last night - not a success!

AS

Another Trip

I am now in Perth, the capital of Western Australia, and one of the remotest parts of the world. It's certainly an isolated city and closer to Jakarta than Sydney - 4000km from home!

I'm here to deliver a keynote speech at a conference, not to look at the sights. I doubt I'll see anything of the city except for what's out of my hotel window - pictured - or the 4 km to the University of Western Australia where I'm spending the next 4 days closeted in the conference room. As Ned Kelly said, such is life! The city centre looks impressive and the hotel has about 10,000 vehicles a day past the window on the freeway.

I'm back in Armidale on Saturday morning after this 8000 km detour - possibly the last of the year, though I've just been invited to Brisbane and I may have another trip to Canberra for the day!! Poor Dot, She'll have forgotten what I look like if I'm not careful.

AS

Heatwave

It's still only Spring - the equivalent to mid-May in the northern hemisphere, but things are hotting up. Armidale, whose average maximum summer temperature is about 26degrees C, has recorded 15.00 temperatures for the last three days of 30.6, 33.1 and 31.5.

Well, if it's hot here it's diabolical elsewhere. A mate of mine is researching near Windorah in SW Queensland and that was 44C a short while ago. Longreach, which I visited a few months ago, was cooler at a mere 42C. Narrabri, which I visit quite regularly in my Cotton industry research was cooler still at 40C. And Canberra was a mere 29C.

There is an upside to all this. Meteorologists explain that hot early summer leads to very wet summer after the New Year, especially about north from here.

AS

Music Library

Armidale City library has an astonishing collection of CDs for loan - hundreds, if not thousands of them. I've just returned with 6 borrowed CDs comprising:
* the hits of 1190 - works by that household name, Perotin (whose name translates via Latin into the French Pierre);
* two symphonies by Joachim Raff (1822-1882);
* three works by Christopher Rouse (born 1949 - he's a little younger than I am!);
* Satie's Gymnopedies;
* songs and walzes of Vienna (more conventional); and
* a bizarre disc of Lute Music written by that well-known composer and Lutenist, Lord Herbert of Cherbury (1583-1648).

Few small town libraries anywhere in the world would be able to offer that kind of choice!

AS

Second Re-birthday

Well, Folks. I'll be celebrating my second re-birthday in two days time. If you recall, I had a near terminal event on 19 November 2007. However, I'm not expecting any cards and presents: just happy to be here!

AS

Ornithological Cornucopia

It is now Spring and we have had wonderful seasonal conditions - warm weather and some heavy rainfall - so that everything is looking lush and green. and, currently, we have a procession of lovely birds through the garden attracted by the flowering native shrubs and Emily's five-star bird-feeder hanging from a tree. We keep this topped up with large volumes of mixed seed suitable for just about all sizes of birds.

The flowering shrubs, including lovely bottle brushes (look that up on Google), attract the 'Varied' and White-eared' Honey-eater and, yesterday, we even saw an army of green plumed finches also dining on the nectar. The bird feeder attracts a procession of parrots: King Parrots, Grass Parrots, Galahs, Sulfur Crested Cockatoos, Crimson Rosellas and Eastern Rosellas - all with bright plumage. The males out-perform the females in that regard. In addition, we find finches, silver-eyes and the common sparrow frequenting the feeder, together with the odd crested pigeon. In fact, the garden also hosted some starlings yesterday, somewhat to our surprise since starlings are rare for much of the year. On top of all these we know that some laughing Kookaburras (a member of the Kingfisher family) live around us, along with the omni-present Magpie.

The Magpie lives just about everywhere in Australia and has better adapted to humans than just about any bird. They are large, very tuneful, and - in the nesting season which has just ended - highly aggressive. They look similar to the Pied Currawongs, but are in reality a quite different species. The Currawongs are much more secretive and wary of humans.

So we have a large number of friends in all shapes and sizes. Apart from these we sight lots of other birds from time to time, including ducks, wading birds, plovers, eagles, and so on.

Alas, I have to report that we had a sick bird in our garden a few days ago. It was a beautiful female King Parrot - a large bird. I saw it looking sorry for itself on a branch outside of my study window. Several hours later it was on the ground feeding from fallen seed below the feeder and it seemed unable to fly. That was a worry as our cat, Honey, was stalking it. So I caught the bird by throwing a blanket over it. Dot and I put it in a cardboard box along with a dish of bird seed and called an organisation called Wires, which looks after injured wild-life. By this time it was dark and the Wires staffer turned up early the next morning to collect the bird for treatment. The next day, we heard that the King Parrot had sadly passed away.

AS

Shine Dome

The real reason for being in Canberra last weekend was to attend a symposium run by ASSA (Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia) and delivered by members of the Australian Research Council Research Network on Integrated Social Science (ARCRNSISS).

That's enough of acronyms for the moment. I'm a member of that network and I and a colleague from UNE explained our ARC-funded research into change and adjustment in Australia's agricultural heartlands: down on the farm and in associated country towns. In fact, I was only on the floor about 7 minutes last Tuesday (3 November), but enough time for the network to pay my expenses for the trip. However, the entire day was relevant to my research interests and very entertaining.

Proceedings took place in the Shine Dome (!) pictured here, which is owned and operated by the Academy of the Sciences. It was a wonderful venue, whose auditorium had great acoustics and ultra-comfortable seating. And the presentation we made went down very well.

AS

More Rain

I have reported on heavy rain received in this region during 2009, and I apologise for raising the matter once more. Coffs Harbour, just east of us, has just had another 460mm in two days. In imperial measures, that comes 18 inches, or just a little under the annual rainfall received in the drier parts of England. Further inland, the amounts taper off, partly because Armidale lies well west in the rain shadow of the coastal mountains rising to 1600m (5000 feet). So we've only received 35mm or so (about 1.5 inches) from what we call English weather. The skies are dark grey and the rain is fairly light but constant.

By the way, Armidale is running about 800mm (32 inches) for the last 12 months (or above the average of c. 765mm). Coffs Harbour is much wetter at 2200/1690mm (88/67 inches). The grass is now growing wildly in a brilliant shade of green.

AS

And after that

Having got back safely to our car, we took off for an adventure playground to meet up with Beck and Max. It's now Max's favourite because there are large climbing frames and a flying fox among other things, although a long 20 km drive from where they live in the suburb of Dunlop. By the way, the suburb is not named after the tyre company, but after a famous second world war army officer.

Max displayed his usual energy despite the heat and he even joined in Frisbee throwing with me and Greg, though his eye-hand coordination, not to mention throwing technique leaves a lot to be desired.

After that, it was off to the swimming centre for an hour in the pool - Max can now swim, while Em did 800m (many laps of the pool) to recover (?) from the hike and Beck did about 400m. I stayed in the shallow end with Max to nurse my sore legs! Then it was back to Beck and Rob's place for a barbecue and a guitar lesson for Max. What a day!

AS

Gibraltar Rock

Some of you can readily locate the Rock of Gibraltar, which I saw from the Moroccan side of the Mediterranean a couple of years ago. But have any of you heard of Gibraltar Rock? I hadn't until yesterday when Emily, Greg and I set off to climb it. They were practicing for the Overland walk in Tasmania, which they hope to complete over a week in December.

So they climbed the rock with their heavy backpacks yesterday to simulate Tasmanian conditions and I went along for the ride with only a light day-pack. I was worried most of the time that Em would expire, not only because of the steep climb (up about 400m), but also on account of the heat (about 32 degrees). It might be the middle of Spring, but Summer temperatures are already here.

We made it to the top and back in about 3 hours, though only 2 hours were spend going up and coming down. The pictures show some of the scenery. We also saw quite a few kangaroos in family pods, including a mother and joey in her pouch - see photo.

AS

Soccer Match

Living in rural NSW, there are few opportunities to attend major sporting fixtures. I used to watch a lot of soccer when living in the UK, and haunted the terraces at various grounds, including Newcastle United, Manchester U, Liverpool, West Ham, and, dare I mention it, Brighton. The last match I saw live was in a distant suburb of Buenos Aires when Rebecca and I stumbled across a second division match and paid to go in after being frisked by riot police. We ended up in the visitor's end of the ground behind a steel fence patrolled by armed police ready to throw tear gas grenades into a rioting crowd. Well 'our' team was losing and, towards the end of the match, 'our' crowd staged a riot. Beck and I exited rapidly from the ground!

I'm now in Canberra to attend and present at an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA) meeting. Arriving three days early to socialise with Em, Beck and Max and their families, I was invited to Bruce Stadium on Saturday night to witness an A - league clash between Central Coast Mariners (based at Gosford, north of Sydney) and Adelaide United. I have little idea why they were playing in Canberra, except it's located between the home-town cities. Anyway, there were some Australian internationals on display and the standard of play was quite good. However, both defences were well on top and the attacks rather unimaginative. So, I, Emily, Greg, Rebecca amd Max endured a scoreless draw. Most of the thunder and lightning was aerial. Max was there in body if not spirit as the event seemed to bore him greatly. I guess 5 year olds want to roam everywhere and not remain seated.

AS