A Transcendental Experience III

This posting might best be labelled 'Down to Earth'. All good things come to end and, alas, we had to touch ground at some point. However, our accomplished pilot conceded that our trip had been a little longer than usual because of the favourable conditions. The landing was perfect and unlike the balloon preceding us the basket remained upright. We descended slowly over a line of trees and the odd fence to rest gracefully in a paddock attached to a CSIRO experimental farm. On reaching the ground, the balloon rapidly deflated and when most of the air had, so to speak, been exhaled we exited the basket with various degrees of agility. Nothing remained but for us to pack away the gear once the support team had reached us in their 4WD vehicles and trailers. The latter task was difficult as our paddock had no observable gate and no paths crossing it.

After about 15 minutes the cavalry arrived and we began the task of winching the basket on to the trailer (which was quick and easy), and packing up the balloon, which was time- and labour- consuming. The balloon had to be folded carefully so that formed a compact mass for stuffing into a bag, and there was a lot of material involved! Actually the most difficult bit was packing the balloon into its home - a rather large bag. Max came in useful at several stages, but especially when using his wine pressing skills bouncing up and down on the balloon to compact it into the bag. The pictures below follow this chain of events.

Those tasks complete, the convoy headed back to Rydges Hotel for a celebratory drink of champagne, a tradition apparently going back to the early days of ballooning in 1783 when the Montgolfier brothers first went aloft in a hot air balloon.  That was followed in turn by a slap up breakfast at the hotel to finish off a memorable start to a day. All of this was complete by shortly after 10am, just 5 hours after we arose from our beds.

Thanks to Dawn Drifters for their professionalism, care and efficiency. The trip went without a hitch ... unless one counts the difficulties experienced in finding a way into our landing paddock!

AS

A Transcendental Experience II

Once aloft, we had the surreal experience of gliding silently in space a few hundred meters above familiar Canberra landmarks. This posting shows little more than a selection of the images we saw during our trip to give readers an impression of Canberra from the air. Remember that the trip took place early on an incandescent morning with brilliant visibility. The shadows, where observable, are long, but equally the pictures sometimes reveal large distance. The images are in time sequence, but taken with two different cameras.

So, on with the display. I will briefly describe each image below it.

The Carillon (bell tower) alongside Lake Burley Griffin with Civic (Canberra's commercial heart in the background.

Part of the Parliamentary triangle, with the High Court in the front left, Questacon (a science exhibition) in the white building (front right), the brownish Treasury Building (where Beck works and Max went to pre-school (above and slightly right), old Parliament House in the middle distance, and Capitol Hill with New Parliament House behind it. Note the Brindabella range in the distance rising to almost 2000m and the shadow of the balloon in the foreground.

In the middle ground are (i) the National Library, (ii) the Commonwealth Avenue Bridge, and (iii) the National Museum of Australia behind that. Note the considerable expanse of Lake Burley Griffin as it winds past Yarralumla, Government House.

ANZAC Parade leads to the War Memorial in the middle distance. Immediately behind us, on the other side of the lake, the ceremonial avenue stretches out to Parliament House.

Commonwealth Avenue leads from Civic - behind us - to Parliament House.

This view stretches over the National Museum towards the office towers of the Woden Town Centre. Woden is one of the major suburban clusters, along with Belconnen, Tuggeranong, and Gunghalin.

It is now Autumn and the many deciduous trees in Canberra are turning vibrant reds and yellows. This region north of Civic shows the beautiful display put on as the season changes towards winter.

Black Mountain and its communications tower are visible from most parts of the city.

The Canberra Stadium, in the suburb of Belconnen, is the premier sporting venue and I have seen matches there

Belconnen town centre is in the middle distance alongside Lake Ginninderra - one of Max's favourite play areas. And Belconnen is home to various strands of our family.

I hope you enjoyed these images as much as we did seeing the whole landscape evolve beneath us. The experience was magical.

AS

A Transcendental Experience I

This is the first of three successive posts on what must be one of the world's most transcendental experiences - one I'd recommend to all my readers wherever you are. By good luck, Dot and I received a voucher for a hot air balloon excursion as a Christmas present last December. Thanks, guys, for the opportunity. We had a year to cash it in and, after an abortive try to get airborne last Wednesday, which failed on account of excessively strong winds and a lot of cloud cover, Thursday dawned clear and fine with a light breeze. Beck and Max also came along for the ride of a life-time.

So, we gathered together with our fellow balloonists at Rydges Hotel near Parliament House at 6am, a really early start for all of us. Then the Dawndrifters crew had to work out whether it was safe to lift off and where to start (and land) given prevailing wind conditions. That decided, we jumped into either of the two troop carriers provided, one towing the basket and the other the balloon, and headed off to the eastern end of Lake Burley Griffin. Getting the craft ready for ascent is part of the fun, and involved most of the passengers as well as the crew.

When arrived at our launch-pad, we found it occupied by two other balloons,one just about to lift off and other in mid preparation. We were therefore able to see their preparations as well as our own, which added to the excitement.

The first task was to unload the basket (pictured) and turn it on its side, and to unpack the balloon and stretch it out full length on the ground in front of the basket. You may recognise three of the participants in the front of the picture below.

By the way, it wasn't exactly warm at 6.30 on a clear morning, but we set about the tasks with enthusiasm. After laying the balloon on the ground, the crew began inflating it horizontally with two powerful fans and a heap of cold air (below). The expanding balloon was anchored to the basket at the beginning and, once inflated to a reasonable size, the hot air burners were fired up to inflate the balloon to full size and help turn the basket on to its base.

That done, the passengers pictured below clambered on board with various degrees of agility. Max was in quickly, but some of us oldies required a less athletic step ladder to gain our positions. The basket had four rectangular slots for passengers, one at each corner. with the pilot attending the burners in the middle.

With a few roars of the burners the balloon slowly became airborne vertically and, caught by the breeze, we drifted westerly in the direction of central Canberra. Interestingly, it was warmer aloft than on the ground at that time of day. During the trip we learned that passenger ages can span an immense range - about 95 years from 6 to > 100! So this is something for everyone.

AS

Cooma and Eucumbene

Beck and Max departed for a couple of days taking in the Wellington caves and the Western Plains Zoo at Dubbo. The latter sees the animals not in cages but in large paddocks surrounded by ditches - and that goes for the large cats!

Yesterday, we took off for a short (?) drive down to the country town of Cooma. It's the main entry point for the Snowy Mountains National Park (where Kosciuszko rises to 2228m - it's Australia's highest peak - or 7250 feet for the imperially imprisoned). We didn't venture that far and preferred to look around the quite attractive old town of Cooma (pop 6600), taking a walking tour following a guide issued by the local tourist office. We saw lots of historic buildings, many still in use. They included the court-house (dated 1887), the prison (still in operation) and its museum of crime, and the old pub, pictures of which are included here.

The town is also well-known as the headquarters of the Snowy Mountains Hydro Authority and, in the decade following the second world war, it was the scene of one of world's great nation-building experiments - the construction of Snowy Mountains scheme designed to provide irrigation storage for the dry inland (including some waters turned inland from their normal coastal trajectories) and to provide - like China's Three Gorges project - hydro power in the process. Thousands of immigrant workers from all over war-ravaged Europe made the area their home during and after the construction phase, and today the town flies the flags of all their home countries around the central park. The town has also leveraged some tourism trade from the famous (to Australians) poem written by A B (Banjo) Paterson, The Man from Snowy River. A statue to that man occupies the same park as the flags.

One of the Autumn attractions of all the New South Wales high country - including our home area around Armidale - is what the Americans call Fall. Of course, the colours are nowhere near on the same scale, but the clumps or rows of colourful deciduous trees are picturesque. We saw lots of yellow trees on the way to Cooma, in the two itself (as pictured here) and on the way to Adaminaby, our next stop. Adaminaby is close to Lake Eucumbene, one of the massive storages of the Snowy Mountains Scheme - indeed, by far the largest at over 20km long. Old Adaminaby has long been drowned by the waters of the lake, though we wend to the site because we were told, incorrectly, that some of the old town had been revealed by the falling water levels occasioned by the recent long drought. However, our informant had not been there recently has the lake has been topped up to overflowing by the massive summer rains in 2010-11. The following pictures show Eucumbene backed by the foothills of the Snowy Mountains and the 'big trout' in the reconstructed town, which betokens the new economic base of the area - fishing in the lake.

Our return from Adaminaby to Canberra took us across country via a road described as 'rough'. That was a gross understatement, but could be handled OK by our Rav 4 -with its 4WD capacity. However, the route was very attractive forgetting the road surface for a moment. We crossed the headwaters of the Murrumbidgee River, one of Australia's largest and most imposing rivers, though not at the point shown here. And then we went through the large and beautiful Namadji National Park, sometimes through clouds of dust raised by passing vehicles. All told it was a lovely 300km (190 miles) for what was supposed to be a short country drive.

AS

Ginninderra Park

Rebecca and Max live in the suburb of Dunlop, which is part of greater Belconnen - one of Canberra's major districts. Close to the Belconnen town centre is Lake Ginninderra, an artificial creation that's very attractive and has good amenities. Max loves going there because he meets up with heaps of kids and the play equipment is first rate.

On Good Friday many families headed to the lake amidst lovely Autumn sunshine (and temperatures still about 21C). Max first play around a little waterfall which had lots of stepping stones he could run across (he didn't fall in).

Next came a traditional play area with lots of equipment. He didn't linger long because the flying fox beckoned and that was much more interesting. And, true to form, Max used it in ways not intended by the designers. He's very agile and creative.

And finally came the Fortress, a very large climbing frame with many platforms at different levels and all sorts of means of access and egress. He loved that, especially when he could hide and we tried to track him down. All told it was a fun day.

AS

CSIRO Discovery

Dot and I have travelled south to Canberra for two weeks over Easter to look after Max during the school holidays and we've had a good time so far. Max is a handful who needs constant stimulation, but in some senses that's easy in Canberra for much of the time. Last Thursday, for example, we took him to the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation's (CSIRO's) Discovery exhibition near the Australian National University (ANU - Emily's university). It's designed for kids of all ages and has lots of displays with knobs on or other things to do. So he can look through microscopes, touch and feel materials, look at jars containing deadly spiders, see short films or whatever.

At one point, all the kids were summoned to a theatre with cushions on the ground where they sat as attendants brought our some wildlife to hold or pat. The two pictures here show Max with a mouse and a turtle, but there were also stick insects to hold - just Max's cup of tea. He loved the mice, which were then put in a race (he put his hand up to 'win' a racing mouse, but lost out), and the long-necked turtles, which were also fast on their feet.

As for the stick insects, we asked nicely at reception to see if they had one to spare. And, yes (!), they gave Max an elderly gentleman stick insect, now called sticky, to take home in a plastic container. He's got instructions in how to keep it alive in a glass case. He has to feed it new eucalyptus (gum) leaves every couple of days and sprinkle water into the container. It's still going strong and quite impressive! I mentioned that if bits broke off the body (say a leg) he would need sticky tape to put it together again, but Max couldn't see the joke. At what age do kids understand puns?

AS

Narrabri Conference

I attended a conference in Narrabri, about 300km from Armidale, this week. It lasted just two days and I drove across starting at 6am to reach the venue just in time for the 9am start! The route taken was across country avoiding major highways where possible and included about 50km of gravel roads which produced clouds of dust in my wake. Fortunately, the road was very lightly trafficked at that time of day and I was able to survey the very beautiful landscape bathed in morning sunlight.

Well, that day was a long grind, but I managed to stay wake through masses of presentations, some inspirational and some rather plodding, but all on the subject of growing and sustaining rural communities, while obviating conflicts between different interest groups - miners, farmers (themselves divided between different commodity groups), environmentalists, or even town-based interests - some of which are inter-generational. All this is set against a background of rampant globalisation of production, soaring currency values (reaching A$1 = US$1.05 this week, well above parity), and a massive raft of new technologies. Some of those exciting technologies will transform rural life and include the possibility of conducting advanced surgery in which local medicos are guided by specialists in remote centres using audio-visual techniques enabled via broadband. UNE has a collaboration with the University of California at Irvine in which our medical school is development remote surgery protocols. So, it's possible that a small hospital in a town of 10,000 people could see operations more typically performed in places with populations in excess of 500,000 or 1 million, reducing the expense of travel. And the specialists guiding proceedings need not even be in the same country ... they could be in the USA!

The event was a gastronomic extravaganza at morning and afternoon teas, lunch and the evening banquet, and it was all free. This made staying awake a little difficult, especially after that early start. So I exited the banquet a little early as I had a 40 km drive to my accommodation in Wee Waa, 40 km away to the west on the banks of the Namoi River. I couldn't see anything at that time of night (9pm) and anyway I was looking out for kangaroos and other wildlife. One doesn't want to hit one of those at 100 kph, especially in a brand new car.

The following day was more of the same, with the first presentation starting at 8.30am, necessitating an early start (7.45am) from Wee Waa. This time the drive was again very beautiful as I roared across the dead flat plain bordering the Namoi River towards the mountain vista behind (eastwards of) Narrabri. The Nandewar Range rises spectacularly and almost vertically out of the plain to a height of 1650m (5,400 feet) or more at Mount Kaputar. During lunch, the organisers put on a strange display for the delegates. A group of ten or so kids armed with Kelpies (a form of cattle dog) put on a display connected with a dog-training program they were enrolled in. This took place next to the well-appointed Crossing Theatre, which was the conference venue and itself next to the Namoi floodplain shown in the picture.  By the way, Narrabri is 212m (690 feet) above sea level. Now the water in the Namoi at this point (shown in the the background) travels maybe 1500km to reach the sea, dropping therefore at the rate of 1 meter per 7 km (or the height of a person every 14km (8.75 miles). That's flat!

And then, at 3.00, I left a little early for the return journey, arriving home just on dark. All up, the full-bore trip took 36 hours, with 7 hours sleep in the middle.

AS

Grease

I've mentioned from time to time that Armidale's musical life is quite intense. Well last night we headed off to yet another extravaganza, a performance of the Broadway musical, Grease, which is named for the 1950s United States working-class youth subculture known as the greasers. Set in 1959 at fictional Rydell High School, it follows ten working-class teenagers as they navigate the complexities of love, cars, and drive-ins and such social issues as teenage pregnancy and gang violence; its themes include love, friendship, teenage rebellion, sexual exploration during adolescence, and, to some extent, class consciousness/class conflict. I always associated it with John Travolta.

This rendition had several interesting features. The entire cast and much of the orchestra comprised teenagers and the audience was heavily teenage to match. Dot, I and some friends dramatically raised the average age of the audience! However, the cast was drawn from the exact opposite of the working-class poor because they came from from 'The Armidale School' (TAS, which approximates Harrow and Winchester) and 'The New England Girls School' and 'The Presbyterian Ladies College' (approximate the Cheltenham Ladies' College). This seems a little bizarre and the performance took place in the private auditorium of TAS.

Although the performance was a bit rough around the edges, participants and the audience certainly enjoyed themselves.

AS