For the term of his natural life...

Lacking conviction

[rufusdawes]

Run, forest, run

If I take one every 40 minutes, that’s nine of these for six hours, better make it eleven to be on the safe side. Oh, and one for the start line. Plus the chews, and better make the pre-mix energy drink now, and fill the water bladder. I’ll need breakfast as well, so let’s also set that out ahead of tomorrow’s 4.15am alarm call.

There’s a lot more maths involved in running an ultra-marathon than I ever considered. Making sure you’re carrying enough fuel and hydration without over packing and increasing your carry weight is a fine balance. There are aid stations stocking fruit, sandwiches, coca cola and more every 10kms or so along the race, but then all the literature suggests never trying something new on a long run. So, it’s twelve tried and tested energy gels with 30g of carbs (four with additional caffeine) that enter the pockets on my hydration vest, alongside two packs of energy chews (one with sodium), two 500mL carb loaded drinks, and 2L of water. Fortunately, the weather has negated the need to carry additional gear with the organisers allowing us to ditch the thermals (hat, gloves, top and bottoms), though not the rain jacket. All of that energy still puffs out the back of the vest and I, along with 1499 others, looked like a motley collection of ninja turtle action figures once we were huddled on the start line eagerly awaiting the siren.

It was only four months earlier that I even decided that this start line was somewhere I wanted to be. It was October, I’d been running eight months and was looking for a fresh challenge that I would be unable to compare to any past endeavour achieved when I was younger, fitter, and faster. I had run a very poorly managed marathon fifteen years earlier but, in running a marathon plus another 10kms through the forests of Rotorua, New Zealand, meant achieving something entirely new. However, 52kms is a long way and so those four months from signing up to lining up for the Tarawera T50 meant getting my head down, building up mileage and time on my legs, and working out what to eat and drink and when.

A friend had mentioned a running app called Vert Run that provides plans and coaches for a monthly subscription. I signed up to the ‘Lucy Bartholomew’s Become an Ultra Runner’ training program which I liked for two reasons. Firstly, it was exactly what I needed and secondly, Lucy was the only Ultra athlete I’d heard of at this point. (As a quick aside, Lucy is an incredible communicator, role model and advocate for the sport, able to carry the weight of being an inspiration to so many with grace and kindness, whilst still finding time to remain an elite athlete. Interviews with her are always worth your time.) But the Lucy plan does not involve her any further than attaching her name to a 12-week program, the actual coaching fell to another athlete, Adam Brown, one of Vert Run’s own. It was Adam that I felt accountable to, that would answer my questions, provide advice, offer his own experiences, tweak the plan to my needs and progression, and be the guy that pumped me up in the lead up to the race.

I’d had a surprisingly OK sleep and was out of bed a few minutes before the alarm went off the morning of the Ultra. I wolfed down my breakfast of jam on crumpets and a black coffee before putting my gear on. I made an extra carb drink as I now had a mile walk to the race village green (and eventual finish line) where a bus would be waiting to take many of us to the start. Being nervous, well prepared and a little anxious, I ended up on one of the first buses to depart which meant arriving at the start line of Te Puia over an hour before we were due to get going. This is a long time and was filled by stretching, stretching some more, nervous pacing, queueing for the toilet, a couple more stretches and finally finishing off the pre-race fuel including the energy gel that was the first of my twelve. With about fifteen minutes to go, we all ambled bleary-eyed through the gates of Te Puia as dawn arrived and into our respective starting corrals based on our approximate finishing times self-determined during race registration, for me the four months prior. I was in the Green Zone that would be starting ten minutes behind the elite athletes and those expecting to finish among the top 25%. I’d registered based on finishing somewhere in the top half but figuring top 25% was a tad too optimistic. Since we’re all wearing timing chips our results would be accurate to our own race.

We were welcomed to the start line by a Haka which got the adrenaline levels rising just that little bit higher and at 7am the starting pistol went and around 40 or 50 elites, men and women, bolted off at a pace quicker than I can run a 5kms. Some 30 metres behind them, the red group also started albeit funnelled through a starting gate that effectively spat them out in single file as they then too crossed the start line and their timing chips sprang into action.  Around five minutes later the last red zone athlete was on their way, 350 or so people were on the course, and suddenly all was quiet again. There was now just three hundred of the longest feeling seconds to go before our green start time of 7.10am and if one listened carefully, you could hear the flutter of collective stomach butterflies taking flight. Finally, and after a countdown from ten, the starting gate was reopened, and we shuffled through. I was near the front and so at 7:10:19am my timing chip registered my crossing of the line, 0m into a run that had another 52,180m to go, 1,222m of which would be uphill.

It was now that all of Lucy’s on-line plan, of Adam’s coaching, and my own learnings came into their own. Unlike its road running cousin, the trails are often very narrow, and such was the case here. There was a lot of jostling, of overtaking and being overtook and at no point towards the first aid station did I feel like the race had settled. I was conscious of getting swept up by faster runners and managed to focus on my own rhythm allowing myself to be passed and to pass when necessary. 70 minutes and 11kms in and I reached the first aid station at which I did not stop since my second race gel was ten minutes away and I had more than enough fluid to keep going. At about double the time and double the distance, the second station arrived and here I topped up one of the 500mL water bottles that had now been exhausted of a carb drink. On and on, past the halfway mark of the race as we ran tantalisingly close to a lake shoreline but high enough above it that it remained just fleeting glances through the vegetation.

At 35.3kms and 3hrs50 into the race, the third aid station appeared and where two young volunteers, maybe eleven or twelve years old, squeezed sopping sponges onto my head and neck cooling me down whilst an older vollie filled up one water bottle with water and a second with electrolytes. The number of volunteers on the course, both at aid stations, and as course marshals along the route were many, giving their time up to look after and manage hundreds and hundreds of people they have never met and will likely never meet again. Each and every one, my eternal thanks go out to for I never saw one without a smile or lacking words of encouragement. Spectators along the way, all strangers to me, cheering me by name since we all have ours written across our race bib. One young lass on a bicycle riding with her family that went past me on some wider fire trails a few hours in slowed as she went past, glanced down at my bib and yelled ‘You got this Jonny!’ as she rode away replenishing my energy as much as any of the gels.

My longest training run had been 30kms, at home along a section of the Larapinta Trail. It was also the longest in terms of time on feet as my training plan worked to time rather than distance and that run was a four-hour effort. It was a fortnight prior and marked the end of the build-up ahead of the pre-race taper. I had now passed both 30kms and four hours and was closing in on marathon distance from where I would truly pass into the unknown.

I ticked off the marathon and still felt good. Seven gels down and only 10kms to go. My watch suggesting a sub-6hr run was on the cards, how good is this? And then came THE climb. In the context of the race, it was another climb, there’d been plenty, but this was both the steepest and longest on the course. A few kilometres earlier, we’d merged with the half-marathon runners that had started elsewhere at 10am and by the time I reached that point I was overtaking those half’ers towards the back end of their race which was exactly what I needed, exactly when I needed it. I had hundreds of mini goals ahead of me that I could tick off, passing each in turn which got me up the hill in better spirits than had I have been ascending alone. Coming down the other side, my natural affinity for the downhill had me whooshing around the outside of many more until the moment whereby my right toe caught a tree root, my left leg caught the fall and sent my left hamstring into a cramp and I had to stop. Now it was the turn of some of those half’ers to pass me as I started to stretch and alleviate the pain whilst also popping down a fair few of those sodium laced chews. Maybe a minute or two later I was able to continue but I lost the ability to change up my speed and so settled into a one pace lope into the final aid station at the 45kms mark.

Here I received another dousing of ice cold water from another kindly volunteer. The temperature had been rising all morning as the clouds parted and full sun hit at the same time I was finally exiting the forested trails. I got my final top ups of water and electrolytes before resuming my comfortably paced jog for the final 7kms along the geothermal lakes that Rotorua is famous for. Finally, I was able to look around and enjoy where I was. For this final leg back to the race village all there was left to do was to tick off the kilometre markers until finally entering the finishing chute, to hear my name called by the race announcer, to hear more strangers applaud, and to cross the finish line eight gels, 52,180 metres, and 5 hours 43 minutes and 18 seconds after I’d started.

In so doing, as well as the leftover gels in my pockets, I had energy left in my own tank. I’d run my debut Ultra about as well as I could have hoped. Things had almost gone wrong when the imagined unstoppable force of my right foot met the very real immovable object of the tree, but it hadn’t. To run so far and for so long and that be as bad as it got is something I am very grateful for.

After all was said and done, I managed to finish in 250th position, considerably higher up than where I started and putting me firmly in the middle of all the red zone runners. I’m glad I have no prior equivalent to compare this experience to because I feel really proud of my effort. Thanks, young lass on the bicycle, I did indeed get this.

[rufusdawes]

Running high

It's not an exaggeration to say that my birthday is my least favourite day of the year. There are myriad reasons for this probably best explained to a pyschiatrist than shared online however, for the first time in my memory, I came through this most recent one unscathed. Dare I say it but maybe even feeling good? There is perhaps one leading cause of this unmitigated success and it's running. This piece is going to be an ode to running!

I didn't even mean to start running regularly again. My fitness has had more reboots since the glory days of the late noughties than a Windows 95 machine. I've tried running with friends in Brisbane and Melbourne quite recently and on both occasions largely failed to keep up. I've tried running solo in Alice Springs and mostly just failed. In February however, I went and ran a 5km social event and got around in a time best represented by the phrase 'well, at least he tried'. It did however result in me reconnecting with a friend, Simone, recently returned from a few years in Darwin who was training for a half-marathon. Her pace much more to my liking and someone who I could join on training runs of increasing weekly yardage and with a local half-marathon in July as a goal. We had increased to 11kms before I boarded a plane and left for three weeks in the UK. Unlike previous holidays back to Blighty, I surprised myself by actually continuing to go on runs and even increase to 15kms. I was getting fit again.

I continued running on my return to Australia, getting in a 16kms run in Perth and two 18k'ers once back in the Alice. Sim meanwhile had been overseas in the US but had seen illness and injury scupper her half-marathon ambitions and she was forced to withdraw from the race.

In mid-July, I ran the Simpsons Gap half-marathon on the windy out and back bike trail that would ultimately had led back to town if not for the turnaround point at half-way. I clocked a very respectable time for this first genuinely concerted effort to regular running since before my beard was more pepper than salt. Even more suprising is that I went for a long run the week after, and the week after, and the week after that I signed up for another long distance run only three days away.

This one is known as a Backyard Ultra and follows a standardised set of rules the world over. It is a loop of 6.7kms with the idea being that on the hour, every hour, you run a loop. The time you have back at the start all your own until the start of the next hour. And the hour after that. The race ends when only one runner remains and are able to complete one final lap alone. All other competitors classified as non-finishers! Our local event is known as the Red Centre Wringer and is held on the rocky trails around Telegraph Station to the north of town. Of course, very few entrants were intent on winning and the pre-race favourite (and former GeoQuest teammate), Rod, took line honours running his 25th lap after the final opponent retired after his 24th. I, a man who had run 21.1kms for the first time in fifteen years two weeks prior, was happy enough with six laps and a total of 40.2kms.

Notably, this attempt came the day after my birthday. A birthday that fell amongst training runs, taper days, days of morning runs, of post-run granolas, of pre-dinner runs. It followed runs in the wild countryside of northern England and of the Highlands of Scotland, of a run at the base of Uluru. This run came the day after my least favourite day of the year except this year it didn't. It came after a day when I was excited for tomorrow and honestly, isn't that just the best way to live.

[rufusdawes]

Marlowe and Me

I'm not sure when I first became aware that I was an arachnaphobe. Growing up in the UK, we might not have the biggest of spiders but over there the house spiders scuttle, appear in bath tubs, watch down on us from bedroom ceilings and generally make life miserable. If they were slower, or better yet, sedentary, I might not have had as much of a problem with them as I did. My brother's opinion of them was even worse and on occasion somewhat debilitating. Dad would have spent far too many exasperated moments during our childhood of being called upon to trap one under a glass, slide a beer mat underneath and remove the offending monstrosity to the garden where I hoped our dog, Sheba, would gobble it up.

In moving to Australia, I had of course moved to a country famous for its spiders. Here they have superhero names such as the Black Widow, Redback or Huntsman, or names that evoke their lifestyle such as the Funnel Web or Trapdoor. These are no commonly named British 'house' or 'garden' spiders, these are spiders with reputations.

My first experience of the Huntsman was when one appeared above my bed in my new houseshare in Sydney. I lived in a modern, new build house with thick doors and plush carpets. The only way I figured that huntsman had got into my bedroom was by opening the door. My father was 15,000kms away so one housemate, Gus, was called upon to trap it under what I presume must have been a tankard. The next huntsman appeared in our loungeroom but it was here that I was able to observe its behaviour, especially since its corner of the lounge was a long way from where I would sit. It rarely moved, did so slowly (despite them being some of the fastest spiders in the world!), did not web, and it kept the insects down. A chink in my phobia appeared.

When I moved house, a huntsman was often on the wall above the button that opened our external gate. One day I reached out and touched its leg. It did not leap angrily on to my face, it did not leap anywhere, in fact it twitched the leg I'd touched a little and did nothing more. The chink got a little wider. 

Over the next few years, I encountered more versions and varieties of spider than I could ever have wished, or more appropriately, feared. None of them scuttled, none of them appeared in bath tubs and none on ceilings of bedrooms. My arachnaphobia had abated enough that I could now be described as just about tolerant of our nation's eight-legged representatives.

When I moved to the Sunshine Coast after four years of building up my arachne-tolerance, I lived in a cabin on the edge of the rainforest. In my yard roos bounded and in my rafters snakes abounded, lorikeets and cockatoos would perch on my balcony where I would leave seed and fruit for them. The air and soil was rich with a gazillion types of insect, a few of which would make it into the cabin which was a one room affair. There was a kitchentte on one wall, my bed was against the opposite one and a small sofa and TV were between the two. My evenings were spent alone on that sofa until one evening, having opened my front door on returning from work, I spied a huntsman spider above the TV. I won't pretend I was glad to see it, especially since the cabin wasn't really big enough for two but I wasn't game to trap and relocate it either. However, through the course of that evening it did not move. I went to bed, managed to fall asleep but woke up to see it had moved to my sleeping end of the cabin.

The next evening on my return from work it was back over the TV, the following morning near my bed. And again the next day. I was beginning to see this spider as my guardian and thus I decided to give it a name. I was halfway through Raymond Chandler's noir fiction 'The Big Sleep' and so named the spider after the story's hero, Marlowe.

Now I had someone to talk to of an evening and an ally in keeping my cabin insect numbers down. Without fail Marlowe would be above the TV when I retired and near the bed when I woke. We fell into a routine, my arachnaphobia now just a heightened sense of mild anxiety reserved for orb spiders nearly walked into, and huntsman that weren't Marlowe.

However, as our bond grew, so did Marlowe's desire to get closer. On getting dressed one morning Marlowe was not in his usual spot. As I pulled my jeans up to my waist I felt something running up the inside. I gave an instinctive blow to my own left knee as I swiftly removed my jeans realising what I may just have done. I gave the jeans a shake and out fell the limp and very late Marlowe.

I wasn't sure what to do with a dead spider. Should I bury Marlowe or throw him in the trash? Neither seemed appropriate. I scooped him up and placed him on his back, on a post on the balcony, as some kind of bizarre offering to any of the birdlife that frequented my abode. Here he lay for many a day and night left alone by all avian visitors presumably out of respect. Until one day, perhaps a week or so later, he was gone. No more Marlowe and Me. Just me, an ex-arachnaphobe, in a cabin with an increasing number of insects.

Not Marlowe but as good a look-alike as I could find!

[rufusdawes]

Xylophone, rood, and damn

When I lived in Tennant Creek the best part of a decade ago, I started attempting the Times cryptic crosswords. These are the gold standard of cryptics and have been appearing in print since 1930. There are several blogs dedicated to their solving and explanation, there are world championships, and there are imitations. I was doing my best on a weekday sitting at an outdoor table at Top of Town cafe over lunch for my first attempt.

Tennant Creek is over 500kms north of Alice Springs. Food came to the store twice a week on a train from Adelaide, 2000kms south. The papers arrived daily on a plane from Mt Isa, via Darwin but a day late. The Australian newspaper publishes the Times Cryptic in its daily editions, and twice in the Weekend version. However, I can only get the Weekend once it arrives on the Monday. Because of transport costs, I also have to pay $5.60 for the privilege, about 200% of the price. Double the cost for a paper that is outdated the moment it arrives and all to then spend an hour staring at clues I am unable to solve.

To start, not every way brings instant enjoyment for a beginner (6)

I became a fixture at Top of Town during my two years in Tennant, paper on my lap, pen hanging loosely from my top lip as I stare off into middle distance trying to make sense of a seemingly ordinary sentence. Each attempt marginally better than the one before but never completed. Instead, I would turn to one of the on-line blogs for explanations and descriptions of how simple one such puzzle was, having been solved by the blogger in under quarter of an hour. I meanwhile, would have spent the hour over lunch, some more time over dinner, perhaps a pass towards bedtime before reading the explanation the following morning, and all for half a dozen right answers. Reading the blogs was great for the 'oh I see' moments but not too hot for the ego.

Difficult following analysis of oxidation (11)

Once I moved to Alice Springs, the papers were replaced with the book anthologies. The Times publish a selection an annual in what was once 80 puzzles but is now 100. Alice briefly had a store where I could buy them though I ended up purchasing each subsequent edition on one of my travels to a State capital. No more newspaper smudges running up my arm but also no more contemporary blogs helping explain away the difficulties. The collections were always from a year a few before that of book publication so I was usually without any detailed on-line dissections. Instead, the completed grids could be found at the back of the book so I could at least find the answer if required and try and parse the clue knowing the solution. Of course, I was also a little more experienced and was able to complete many of the offerings before seeking assistance.

Unscripted chaps in film are better (11)

A few years further along my solving journey and I have subscribed to the online version of the Australian. As such, the app on my phone gets me access to the Times cryptic as well as some other mind games. I'm yet to read a single news article but am certainly getting my money's worth from the puzzle page and don't have to dish out an unseemly amount of cash a day late. At 12.01am, a new cryptic awaits me and I have most definitely reached a level where I don't need a blogger to explain it all to me. I still don't complete all the puzzles but I do at least understand why the solution is as it is.

Fulfilment obtained when the truth is found in timeless establishment (12)

I'm now at a point where a couple of friends at work are entering their cryptic journeys and I can be their equivalent of the on-line blogger. We've had lunches together working through various cluing techniques and styles. I can offer a little bit of help when needed and it's reminded me that I've come a long way since the Top of Town lunches. I might not be knocking them over in under fifteen minutes but I've occasionally broken the 30 minute barrier. And I've certainly learned enough that I can write the clues in this piece. They might not yet be of the standard of the Times but they're

Good enough to get through effectively (8)

THE END - Answers to clues below picture.

And the solutions are;

To start, not every way brings instant enjoyment for a beginner (6) - NEWBIE (a beginner) - Start of Not Every Way Brings Instant Enjoyment

Difficult following analysis of oxidation (11) - FRUSTRATING (Difficult) - F (following), RUST RATING (analysis of oxidation)

Unscripted chaps in film are better (11) - IMPROVEMENT (Better) - IMPROV (Unscripted), MEN (chaps) in ET (film)

Fulfilment obtained when the truth is found in timeless establishment (12) - SATISFACTION (Fulfilment) - IS FACT (the truth) is found in StATION (no T/timeless in station/establishment)

Good enough to get through effectively (8) - PASSABLE (Good enough) - PASS (to get through), ABLE (effectively)

Lastly, xylophone, rood, and damn (from the blog title) are all 'cross’ words

[rufusdawes]

Dough Nuts

I am not a cook. There is not the faintest tingle of an itch that needs scratching when it comes to the kitchen. Mine is a place where a kettle is boiled and only the occasional, reluctant dalliances with the gas hob, mostly as a way to curb the expense of dining out too often. However, I am supremely fortunate that many of my good friends are not just adept in the culinary department but masters and mistresses of their respective domains.

For a few years, I would be a regular at the home of Aaron and Kate, he the finest barbecuer of steak in all the land and she, a black belt in the world of sourdough. Sunday dinners chez A & K were akin to some of Australia's greatest grill houses except with an Italian grandmother's attention to serving sizes. However, since their move to Western Australia, the closest I now get to wagyu and sourdough is a pub’s own McBurger.

At Walker Street, Laura, Thalia, and Madura would often present multi plated feasts using pots and pans that carried fancy French names, herbs and spices sourced beyond the Coles and Woolworth staples, and ingredients that had to be explained to me like I was five years old. But then Thalia moved to Adelaide and Madura got a girlfriend. It's been several months since a Walker Street dine in.

Fortunately, the void has been oft filled. Not by me, obviously. I'm good for bringing a bottle of red just expensive enough to not be cheap, but nothing more. Instead, it is AJ who has assumed the crown, expert as he is in the art of the homemade pizza.

I don't know if making dough is easy or hard, or even how to do it. Both Kate and AJ make it look second nature. There's an aura watching people in their element. Latterly, watching AJ turn out his pizza base creations is not dissimilar to watching some Olympic gymnast twirl across the floor, what with all those spins, tosses, and flicks. He's just a backflip shy of tens across the board. Toppings are sourced, created, and combined beyond those that I could and would conceive of. If I was ever to shop for a pizza night, I'd be returning with frozen bases, grated cheddar, a squeezy tomato based sauce, some processed meat and, if I was feeling really fancy, maybe some rocket. After all, it's important to eat your veggies. Actually, let's be honest, if I was ever to shop for a pizza I'd be coming home with a frozen McCain.

AJ, on the other hand, is prepping for his toppings by bringing out knives and their sharpeners. At arm's length, the blade is drawn down against the tool's edge and up again ensuring both sides are equally keen. The sound of a dozen Death Star doors opening and closing is made as the swoosh, swish of metal gliding against metal occurs. Once satisfied with the honing of the steels, it's time to put them to action.

Apparently, there's a technique for slicing and dicing with a knife. As with every other time, AJ takes time out to show me the position of the fingers on the non-wielding hand, the pivoting of the knife as it moves swiftly up the object of its laceration. The lesson ends, as always, with recognition of my feigned interest, especially since the only time I might practice my knife skills are for help on opening up a box of cereal.

Garlic, prosciutto, mozzarella, capsicum, chilli, and potatoes are among the ingredients brought out for preparation. Olive oils with a particular provenance may be favoured. I'm watching, still trying to work out how the dough is made. Is it just flour and water?

Eventually, flavour combinations are created, and the pizzas are ready for their brief repose in the crematorium that has been assuming its high temperature throughout the evening. Each will see just a couple of minutes inside, enough to crisp that base up to perfection, the briefest of chars mottling the fluffy edging. Half a dozen or more pizzas will go through this process, each offering infinitely more thoughtfulness and flavour than any local options.

The chatter subsides as we fortunate recipients that have been crowding the workbench get our chops around our first slice, replaced instead by the satisfied moans on behalf of our contented gullets. Once sated, we can return to our inexpensive reds and, if like me, contemplate how flour and water can be made to taste so good.

As with ever other occasion when I am so fully fed and inspired, I return home full of an eagerness to perhaps crack open one of the handful of cook books that sit in my kitchen. I think of what it is I might one day be able to adequately bring to a table. I've always felt I should eat more fish so perhaps this should be my entree into the culinary world. I'd wow my guests with my filleting skills and they'd go home and write about my inventive marinades. Or, more likely and as has always been, the inspiration will run dry. I'll wake up the next morning, put the kettle on, get some bread out the freezer to warm before adorning it with a raspberry conserve. Coffee, and jam on toast. You know, in my own limited way, I too can make flour and water taste good.

[rufusdawes]

Identity Theft

I've spent over a third of my life in Australia and it's been long enough that I forget that I still carry an accent that identifies me as one of the soap dodgers that've been invading these shores for over 200 years. That accent will often lead new friends to the timeless question, 'So, where are you from?'

It used to be an easy one to repsond to. 'Bristol', I'd retort. After all, I moved there when I was six years old, left when I was eighteen, back again at twenty-one and stayed put for a further eight years. Now, after sixteen years in Australia, I'm finding it harder to answer.

Do I have a cultural identity anymore? Did I to start with? I've never exactly been a flag waving patriot but I did grow up on a diet of roast beef Sunday dinners, I've played cricket in the park, and despite preferring coffee, I did and still do have a favourite tea (it's Yorkshire). I know whether you put the jam or cream on first, and if you're after a lunchtime cafe treat, you should never look past a Cornish pasty. These are all pretty English sentiments. However, I now own a swag, I have camped by a billabong under the shade of a coolibah tree, and I have most certainly watched and waited until the billy boiled, all of which is pretty ocker even for an Aussie.

After several years, I started answering the question, 'so, where are you from?' by being somewhat more cryptic in announcing that I'd been schooled in Bristol. After all, it's usually one's school years that make us and Bristol in itself felt insufficient as an answer, especially since I hadn't been born there. The majority of my UK friends are the ones that I made long before my eighteenth birthday and my longest friendship that of one made in my first year of big school. My parents however, haven't lived in Bristol since 2000 and my brother left in 1996. My extended family by and large remained in the town of my birth, Swindon, in which I spent the first three weeks of life. And so, with the passing of time since residing there, Bristol had become just a chapter. My childhood home was sold half a lifetime ago and with it, the only tangible link to the memories of my youth.

Between leaving Swindon aged three weeks, and arriving in Bristol aged six years, I lived in the quintessentially English named village of Creech St Michael, on the outskirts of the Somerset town of Taunton. My memories here almost all linked to the clubhouse of Taunton Hockey Club, who Dad played for, and where cider was readily available by swigging the dregs from abandoned glasses. The time in early adulthood from eighteen to twenty-one, I pretended to be a student in south Devon's University of Plymouth. My parents now live in Devon, an hour or so east of Plymouth in the fishing port of Brixham, where they've been since leaving Bristol. Despite never having lived there, nor even having claim to a bedroom of my own in their house since my brother turfed me out of the one I nominally held on visits as soon as I got on the plane to Sydney all those years ago, Brixham is now as much a part of me as Bristol is. I've stood on the harbour wall and fished for crabs, and I've dined on the day's freshly caught fish in a restaurant above the quay.

Each and every return to British shores sees me head out to the wilds of Dartmoor, in south Devon, made famous internationally thanks to Conan Doyle's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'. The grassy upland and treeless, barren landscape where the rain usually comes at you sideways firing wet bullets at any exposed patch of skin, regardless of the season, is a place that refreshes me and soothes my soul. It's my respite from and antithesis to the heat and harshness of my new home in the heart of Australia's desert country, albeit a home that I adore for a whole suite of other reasons to be shared another time.

As early chapters of towns, cities and villages bleed into one another, as my visits becomes increasingly regionally centred with each trip back to Blighty, I've arrived with another answer to the question, 'so, where are you from?'

The answer to this question took me down several Internet rabbit holes. As Massive Attack played on the stereo behind me, I delved into Wikipedia articles reading up on Banksy, and Trip Hop, all things strongly associated with a Bristol identity. I somehow watched youtube videos on boating in Torbay, the broader coastal region around Brixham. I looked up how Somerset County Cricket Club were going, a team I only vaguely now follow with primary loyalty going to the AFL's Sydney Swans. Ultimately, I came across this quote at the end of my searching,

'The South West is known for cheddar cheese, which originated in the Somerset village of Cheddar, Devon cream teas, crabs, Cornish pasties, and cider'.

I've never read a quote that hit me in the feels quite like this one. I've eaten so much cheddar in my lifetime that I'm worried my right arm is made entirely of the stuff. I'm pretty certain at least two per cent of my brain is just scones. Admittedly, I don't eat that much crab and cider is only an occasional dalliance but if someone described me as being known for all of that, I'd take it as a declaration of love.

Let me walk up Haytor, stand on either bridge at Two Bridges and take lunch in Princetown. Let's get a Cornish pasty and a Devonshire cream tea at the Fox Tor Cafe. Maybe follow it up with a pint of Thatchers at the Plume of Feathers. These are the things that my UK memories have been distilled into. There's no Swindon, Creech, Bristol, Plymouth or Brixham anymore. They're all one and the same, the amorphous source of who I am and is expressed through my Dartmoor pilgrimage that reveals the kernel to my identity.

'So, where are you from?'

'I'm from South-west England... cobber.'

Me atop Haytor. 30mph wind and needle rain not pictured (but definitely there)

[rufusdawes]

Please Excuse Me

I had my day in court earlier this week. After being on the electoral role for several years, I finally had my summons to sit on a jury. In a town of only low five figured eligible jurors, it had seemed a long time coming. I have friends that have been called up within weeks of arriving and amending their voting registration but every time I checked the mail box, it was more often that not another sodding letter for pervious occupants. I have sent well over a hundred return to sender, not at this address messages scrawled across envelopes back to the post office. It's reached the point that I keep thinking to google whether I can legally just start binning their mail. Maybe, I'll do that once I've finished writing this. Anyway, one day in early August a letter from the Sheriff's Office arrived addressed to me, and not one of the half dozen muppets who are too lazy to tell the banks they've moved, informing me of my requirement to attend the Supreme Court 'on the 27th day of September 2021, at 8:45 oclock in the forenoon'. 'In the forenoon', how quaint, how exciting!

A formal letter with my name across the top and one not requiring me to get out the credit card, and a pink slip to be returned to the Sheriff saying yes or no. We have a Sheriff? Do they have a badge the shape of a star, spurred boots perhaps? Is their horse tied up to the outside of the Court, or maybe Bojangles the Saloon Bar on Todd Street? Either way, I don't think it's someone I want to mess with. If I say no, will I be called upon to take time out of my day for a duel in the Mall at noon? I don't want a midday stand-off, that's when I take my lunch. Ah no, punishable by a fine it seems, not a duel. Even so, I responded in the affirmative; yes, I am indeed available on the 27th and understand that I may be called to serve on a jury of a Supreme Court case running then or anytime up to four to six weeks later. No worries at all Boss.

I pinned the summons to the fridge so I wouldn't forget and popped the date into my work calendar so I could arrange bush trips around it. I informed my manager. I went to work and carried on working away a lot. This intensified after I applied for and accepted a role with another agency which meant suddenly I had to get sh!t done before my last day of the 8th October. I was away on one trip until the 24th September, a Friday and the last working day before my summons.

The four to six week period was now covering my final two weeks of my current employ, and then the beginning of a new role 3000 kilometres away from all my future colleagues who work out of Perth. I couldn't afford to do my civic duty. The next two weeks critical to ensuring that the three ranger groups I work with have ongoing work plans and that I have written handover documents despite not being directly replaced. Instead, each group will soon be getting dedicated Ranger Co-ordinators but not until weeks or even months after I've left. My next two weeks were promising to be busy especially having been out bush working with these groups the previous weeks. I needed to be excused.

Over a coffee with a friend the day before, it was mentioned to me that you can indeed get out of it if you successfully plead your case. Well then, tomorrow morning that is what I shall do. I walked up to the Supreme Court at 8:30 in the forenoon, a full fifteen minutes before expected so as to appear polite. The security officer at the door asked if I was there due to a jury summons. 'Why yes kind Sir, please may I enter' were the words hidden behind my nodding. "Did you call the number on the letter? You're due here Wednesday now." What number, what letter? Turns out on the formal letter, long since buried under a pile of other people's mail include the instructions to call an 1800 number before turning up on Monday which informed us potential jurors that we're not required until Wednesday.

This is disappointing since I was still hoping to get to Finke for work before my notice period was up. On the other hand, our HR department is on the top floor of this building, so I might be able to get them to write me a letter supporting my service deferral. They could, and since I now knew a little more, I was also able to write a Statutory Declaration and be far better armed for Wednesday morning.

When that day arrived, I had both documents and could not wait to hand them over to the mystery Sheriff. Having passed through security, I was instructed to take the stairs up to the next floor. There a lady behind a desk asked for the pink slip with my jury ID number on it. I handed it over and asked who I should show my requests for deferral to. "You'll need to ask the Judge for permission so best keep hold of them and head in."

In meant in to the public gallery to take one of the hundred or more seats that face the raised rostrum of the Judge's seat, under the seal of the Commonwealth of Australia. To the left, a witness box and an area where the defendant sits. To the right, the jury seats and in front, the defence and prosecution desks. Slowly, the other seats fill. Sometime after 9am, and with several dozen potential jurors seated we are informed of our instructions. We are led through the mechanics of a courtroom and what to expect, how jurors will be selected by drawing our numbers out of a tombola. How, should we be selected for this case, we can expect to serve for a couple of days. If not, that we should return for the next case to find out whether our number is up. And again after for four to six weeks. Unless we plead a case not to serve to the Judge from the witness box. Then we all stand up as the Judge enters the room.

Once he's seated, we sit and the morning begins in earnest. First the two charges against the defendant are read out, the not guilty plea to both is heard, the names of the witnesses who will take the stand as well as some other instructions are given before the Judge calls on those who think they have just cause not to participate. I line up.

I'm fifth in a line of eight. The first is excused from this case on account of being a good friend of the defendant. The next three excused from either the case or the full four to six weeks depending on their circumstances. My turn.

"Do you want the religious pledge or the promise" I'm asked by one of the Court attendants.

"The promise" I reply.

She then recites a few lines, something about the Queen and telling the truth and asks me to assert 'I promise' at the end, which I do before taking my seat in the witness box. This is somewhat unnerving. To my right is the defendant who has been sitting through thirty odd minutes of pre-trial jargon still innocent of their crimes until proven otherwise. Here I am, asking Sir if I can be excused from my civic duty because I'm a little bit busy at work.

The Judge asks my name and I lean forward towards the microphone.

"It's Hodgetts". Am I supposed to say Sir? Maybe it's Your Honour. Instead, I go with neither.

"Mr Hodgetts do you wish to excuse yourself from this case or your full civic duty?"

"Um yeah all of it I uh got a new job and um since I got my summons and said yes er things have changed and um I have a letter and er I wrote a Stat Dec so um I'd like to..."

"Show me the letters"

One of the Court officials takes them from me and hands them to the Judge. He scans them both before handing them back.

Fortunately, my mumbling and supporting documents as well as the benevolence of the Judge saw my deferral successful and I will be returning most likely early next year to have my number in a tombola for the selection lottery to be whittled down to twelve. I may be called to be one of them, I may not but until then I'm free to finish my job without risking being tied up in a Courtroom for days or weeks depending on the next case. This particular day in Court, a successful one. I do wonder though whether the same could be said for the defendant.

[rufusdawes]

Trucking Around

All of the vehicles available for me to drive at work are cars, with one exception. Whilst the cars come in a variety of sizes from town runners such as the Toyotas Corolla and Rav 4, to the 4WD Hiluxes or bigger still, the Landcruiser traybacks and troop carriers, they still only require the sort of license that in my case was dished out to a seventeen year old whose voice still went squeaky and didn't know if he would ever be able to grow a moustache. The one exception is an off-road bus, for which a Light Rigid license is required coming in as it does, under eight tonnes in weight but greater than four and a half. Supporting three emerging ranger groups in my role, none of which yet have vehicles and with an upcoming conference in Yulara (later cancelled in these COVID times) I thought it might be wise to utilise the bus to get many of them there since it had not moved out of the yard following its arrival at the beginning of the financial year a few months back. However, in making enquiries about how to go about getting permission and the necessary license to do so, work decided why not go the next license up and put a few of us through the course. Which is why, early in September, I hopped into a dual-axle truck weighing somewhere over eight tonnes for a full day of driving before being judged competent or not to get my medium rigid, or MR, license.

I have been driving for nearly 30 years. I have been behind the wheel of a well over a hundred vehicles, partly because I've rarely owned one and am therefore behind the wheel of a friend's car, a hire car, or a work vehicle. The last dozen years have introduced driving across beaches and desert dunes. There's been scrub bashing, rock scrambling, creek crossings, and tens of thousands of dirt road kilometres to add to my vehicular experience. In that time I've also piloted boats and hovercraft, and taken the steering column of not one but two light aircraft. I like to think that I have achieved a fair degree of experience. And yet, after four or five hours of cruising through Alice Springs and surrounds in a Hino 500 and with my test about to start from the parking lot of a truck stop on the outskirts of town, butterflies flew into the pit of my stomach reverting me back to feeling like a squeaky seventeen year old.

The day had begun with an introduction to the cabin, the standard motor essentials such as oil and coolant, as well as a few new items like the air brakes. The rest was pretty straightforward since the vehicle size means it's still controlled by a standard six-speed gearbox. My UK license allowed me to drive minibuses and the sort of lorry you can pick up from Thrifty when you move houses and the familiar controls meant moving and controlling the Hino wasn't an issue. We started by going around the block a few times. One of those 'take the next left' mornings in an industrial estate where the roads are wide and the traffic low. The only real issue was the slip into second gear, which needed some prolonged gentle downward pressure before it assented. Since the truck is in 4th gear before 40km/hr is on the speedometer, and with plenty of up and down changes as we moved through the estate, there was a lot of chance to practice the change to second from both first and third. With reverse being a smidgeon further to the left of second, it was important to make sure this change was found comfortably.

After a few laps, it was time to practice the four 'screw up in the test and you immediately fail' components; the uphill start, downhill start, reverse in a straight line, and reversing around a corner. The latter two must also be done maintaining a half metre gap to the kerb and a striking of a kerb at any point during the test another insta-fail. A couple of practices of each and it was onwards into town.

Alice Springs is not very big. Our city centre made up in a grid like formation with roundabouts at the majority of the block corners. Cars park on both sides and so the streets are relatively slender however, mid-morning on a Monday, also fairly quiet so it was quite a pleasant drive looping around and around Woolworths, a school, the police station, and the Council offices before heading out to one of the suburbs, East Side. We're over on that side of town since there are a lot of trees with overhanging branches as well as telegraph poles and wires. Here was the opportunity to be aware of the vehicle's height as well as its width. Lastly, out on the Ilparpa circuit where we can get up to 100km/hr before eventually heading back to base and some lunch.

After a bodily fuel stop, there was a quick assessment on ropes, ratchet straps and chains to secure loads. A demonstration on each to tick off the first part of the formal test and then off to the truck stop. Here the instructor, 'JB', installs a camera on the windscreen pointing straight at me before introducing us both to it and reeling off some legalese to commence the start of the driving test. Hellllloooo butterflies.

Geez, I had a really nice morning driving around town. Perched up high in the cab chatting away I had more than competently demonstrated an aptitude. 'The only way you should fail is if you have a brain fart' were JB's closing words before the camera came on. Suddenly his voice became less familiar and more professional.

'Jonathan, can you talk me through the cabin?' he asks.

'The mirrors, steering wheel and seat are set up for my driving position and I am comfortable. Above me are the sun-visors. To my right are the indicators, and lights on a turn switch. In front, the speedometer, rev counter, fuel and temperature gauges as well as the pressure gauges for front and rear air brakes which are correctly pressured. To my left windscreen wipers and hazard lights. There is a six-speed gear box and a maxi brake low to my left' is my response, accompanied by sweeping gestures for the benefit of the camera.

'Thank you. Now please start the vehicle, pull away when ready and take a right at the exit.'

I could feel my heart thumping through my chest, my breathing seemed strangely laboured. Foot on the clutch, I had to mentally work out where first gear was before trying to engage it. I pulled away. Seconds after the right turn, 'Please pull up on the left hand side where it is safe to do so and secure the vehicle.'

Already? I have been going for ten seconds. Oh man, can you fail this soon? I pull over, put the truck in neutral and apply the maxi brake.

'Thank you. This is your downhill start, please pull away when it is safe to do so.'

Phew, phew, phew. Though my heart is still knocking louder than Axl Rose on heaven's door.

Next, the reverse around the corner, the straight reverse and finally the uphill start. All completed with aplomb. Before commencing either of the reverses, I ask JB to lower the passenger side mirror so I can see the kerb. I forget to ask him to return it. I noticed a couple of minutes later and announce 'JB, I'm just going to pull over and get you to move the mirror back up'. No doubt he'll be impressed with my remembering. Perhaps there'll be bonus points on offer.

'No problem'.

KERRRRR-UNCH!!! That was the first time we heard the almightiest of crunches as I missed second and tried to put a dozen tonnes straight into reverse. My whole body making such a sound of deflation that it sounded like the air brakes.

'Is that a fail?' I ask.

'We'll have to wait and see' was JB's frustratingly straightforward response before he adjusted the mirrors back to my liking.

Bizarrely though, it did settle the butterflies and calmed the anxiety. I decided that I'd failed and would therefore just enjoy the rest of the drive. Especially since I did it again once we'd reached town. Starting the test in the mid-afternoon raised the hazard dial up to eleven. Suddenly there were kids bounding out of school and crossing roads, people running across the street in front of traffic to get to Woolworths, car doors opening from the sides. I had to make so many gear changes that really gear crunches two and three were a statistical probability rather than anomalies.

After an hour, we return to the side of the road where I had completed my uphill start. I secure the vehicle and JB leans over.

'Congratulations Jonathan, you have passed' he says, reaching out his hand to shake.

'Oh, thank god' I reply as my head slumps forward onto the wheel forgetting that I'm still being recorded.

As it turns out, my three gear crunches responsible for three small x's on the test sheet. A fourth and it would have been game over. The four compulsory manoeuvres all completed without incident but the brain fart not so far away. I do not recall being as nervous for a test since sitting my driver's license as a spotty teen but I am now in possession of an MR license, two weeks before I leave my current employers for another. An MR license that I am now therefore, unlikely to need.

[rufusdawes]

The Hunger Games

As wild bush fires continue to headline around the West, with east coast Australia and west coast USA making recent and devastating front page news, people still continue to wander pockets of the Outback lighting fires as they go. One week in August, I was fortunate enough to be among that number.

I’ve been supporting the establishment of a ranger program in the Aboriginal community of Kintore, also known as Walungurru and some 530 kilometres west of Alice Springs, for the past three years. The community is also one that sits within an Aboriginal Land Trust (ALT) that may soon join the ranks of becoming an Indigenous Protected Area (IPA). An ALT is freehold land legally granted to Aboriginal people essentially via their traditional ownership ties. An IPA sits above that and allows for Commonwealth funding to support management of that Country for conservation of both the ecological and cultural values of the land. Fire is a tool that can conserve both.

The Walungurru Rangers were established in 2019 and is made up of six men and four women from Kintore under the guidance of an advisory committee made up of senior traditional owners. We can create work plans and activities for the rangers to perform across an ALT but getting IPA status opens up more funding and resources. Two colleagues and myself were there to continue IPA planning and discussions with members of the community as to their desires for keeping culture alive and Country healthy.

One recurring theme is that of ‘right way burning’. Fire, or ‘waru’ in the local language of Pintupi, has been used for millenia as a regenerative tool for landscape; many Australian native plants need the heat generated for seeds to germinate. It is also used to push out scrub turkeys, perentie, and other animals so that hunting is made simpler. It opens up country to enable easier movement and visibility of burrows where more bush tucker may be found. It breaks up the landscape into a patchwork mosaic that results in different vegetative age classes and thus reduces the severity of wildfires that are often sparked through lightning strikes. There are many reasons to burn and on our trip, it was a chance to take the rangers out with some family groups and set light to mostly spinifex environments under the direction of senior men and women. This cultural and intergenerational knowledge transfer is also critical to helping pass on skills and understanding of looking after their traditional homelands. We visited three homelands across three days and made fires at all of them.

Our first site took us down some old hunting tracks, wheel ruts that weave through the mulga scrubland until we reached some old spinifex. Here, as we piled out of the 4WD Toyotas, boxes of matches were distributed and all got to work lighting up the spinifex grasses, conscious of the wind direction. The idea is to make a front that the wind can then carry through the landscape. Burning in winter keeps the fires cooler and considerably lessens the risk of the fire getting out of control. Despite that, it’s still the intention that the fire be big enough and strong enough to simmer along for a few days.

Two of the younger and more energetic rangers were very keen to extend the breadth of the fire-front and excitedly moved further away from our base to the east, lighting up as they went. Some of the older men were content to do the job a little slower and moved westwards at a saunter. Closer to the vehicles, the senior women in our party had thrown matches for a minute or two before grabbing shovels and crowbars and sitting down under the shade of an Acacia kempeana. Here they starting to dig, since it is within the roots of one of these shrubs that can be found the bush tucker staple and favourite food of reality celebrity survival shows, the witchetty grub.

The soil is loose enough that it was not long at all before the women had exposed the roots. However, being around an inch in diameter, removing the desired section from the shrub was not quite as straightforward. A lot more physical exertion and hacking at the root stock was required before then having to pry into the wood to see if a grub was indeed inside. The first few efforts proved fruitless. Confidence remained high and the ladies’ perseverance was rewarded not just once, but some half a dozen times under this one bush. The witchetty grubs, some of which were at roughly their maximum size of between three and four inches, were pulled from a tunnel inside the root where they had been feeding on the sap within. Behind the ladies, the fire front grew but it was nothing more than a backdrop to their activities.

Soon enough, it was time for a more modern lunch since we had purchased all the necessary staples for sandwiches earlier from the community store. That didn’t prevent everyone asking if we could also grab some roo tails whilst we were shopping and sure enough, a few frozen kangaroo tails were added to the cart. By the time the first couple of matches had hit their targets, another ranger had already dug a fire pit and collected firewood just for cooking the roo tail. Here she singed the fur in the flames and scraped it off with a knife before wrapping the tail in aluminium foil and burying it under the hot coals to cook.

Several toots of a car horn told all still out burning that it was time to return. The sandwiches were dished out and the roo tail was evenly distributed. In one corner of the group, the ladies had set a very small fire of several twigs; just enough to lightly grill a witchetty grub or two. To my disappointment, I didn’t get to try one. The tootles on the horn had not yet brought back the two young rangers so I’d gone off in their direction hollering. By the time I got back, there was only the head of one of the grubs remaining. I was not game for that, since if the ladies had discarded it I figured it was probably not fit for consumption.

There is no question that life has changed immeasurably for Aboriginal peoples since Europeans first arrived. However, in the Great Sandy Desert, as it is across the majority of the continent, fire remains a traditional tool for managing the landscape. Knowledge that has been passed down for 50,000 years that has enabled people to survive and thrive in these environments continues to be passed down ensuring it is practiced for at least one more generation. As the westerners among us are buying bread, cheese and salad for the group, keeping the groceries cool in eskies stuffed with ice blocks, the rangers and traditional owners are happiest making a fire or two for their favourite feeds. The roo tail might be store bought but it’s still a meat regularly hunted and a significant part of people’s diet in remote Australia. The witchetty grub remains completely free range and devoid of packaging, the larva getting fatter and juicier throughout the winter months underground and far from predators, hoping to pupate and eventually emerge as a cossid moth. That is, until a bunch of elder ladies have an opportunity to be out on Country with a few basic hand tools and, with flames flickering in the distance, a fire in their belly.

[rufusdawes]

London Calling

Growing up, I would often eat the occasional dog biscuit. Doggie chocolate treats were my very own catnip and our black labrador, Sheba, was a constant companion until her death on my fourteenth birthday. Mum and Dad brought Sheba into the family when she was just six weeks old and I just six months. There is nothing unusual about being raised alongside a pet of some description and nothing unique that sets my experience apart from thousands of others. That I had an orange soft toy dog won at a fair that I called Sheba, and took on school holidays smuggled in a suitcase so she wouldn't be left behind is no more than an amusing side note. However, having recently spent a week in the company of a border collie called Izzy, whilst visiting a friend in Brisbane, it's got me wondering what it means to so often be searching out a bond with our canine cousins. I'm that guy at the party who is more interested in meeting your dog than I am mingling with your friends.

One of the shows I remember fondly from childhood is The Littlest Hobo. Starring London, a German Shepherd and titular character, he wanders the provinces of Canada fleetingly interacting with people he meets along the way and for the better. Maybe tomorrow he'll settle down but until tomorrow he'll just keep moving on was the refrain to the theme song. I identified with the Littlest Hobo then, I re-identified with him when I moved to Australia and the song is a recurring ear worm whenever I travel, holiday, or plain up move. As a fella who has more often that not done those things on my own there's an odd comfort in pretending I'm TLH but in human form. I've passed through continents, countries, States and Territories and like to think I've had plenty of positive interactions with the humans I've encountered along the way. The bonds are fleeting in human terms but decades in dog years and eventually it'll be time to move on.

This last decade or so of wandering, a whole bunch of pups have been critical to my happiness and contentment at any given moment just as much as the people I've encountered. Honourable mentions are to Muddy, the Tennant Creek special, the GSPs of Axel and Gertrude, and the border collie triumvirate of Mollie, Jack and most recently Izzy. All dogs that I have run with and cared for to varying degrees. My memory is great for trivia, useless at retaining genuinely important information, forgetful of names, unless of course that is you're a dog. If I've been introduced to your dog, be it Punky, Humphrey, Lexi or Dexter; King, Harry, Diefer or George then I will remember. I pass through their lives, as I do with people. If my purpose is to give belly rubs to a series of canines then I'm gonna consider that a pretty significant win in the lottery of life.

'There's a voice that keeps on calling me

Down the road, that's where I'll always be

Every stop I make, I make a new friend

Can't stay for long, just turn around

I'm gone again

Maybe tomorrow I'll want to settle down

Until tomorrow, I'll just keep moving on.'

I've been moving on for quite some time. My parents moved away from the city I grew up in over twenty years ago. I've lived in dozens of houses, units and apartments since, across at least half a dozen towns and cities. The concept of 'home' is one I still struggle with as a stranger in a strange land; a blue passport and an accent at odds with one another, family the other side of the world. I entered the property market a few years back, so there's some sense of belonging but there's no real unknown answer as to why I seek out canine companionship. All dog people are on the exact same wavelength as are no doubt the cat people too. It is the unfettered love and lack of judgement, the eagerness to seek out our company as we seek out theirs. Hand on fur, a pat, a ruffle, an ear scratch are all moments that create belonging if only for a second. I might keep moving on but every petted dog is a home comfort, my modern equivalent of the soft, orange Sheba. Once a dog person, always a dog person. Now if you'll excuse me, I can see a pup I know down the road that I need to say hello to. That's where I'll always be.

Sheba and I as pups

[rufusdawes]

Nomenclature

Pretty much every nickname I've ever had is some version of other of my birth certificated, parent-given forename of Jonathan. Whether you've known me by that name, by Jon, Jon Boy, Jonny Boy, Jonno or Jonny probably dictates where on the relationship spectrum of familial, professional, or personal we are. There have been a handful of other variations. I was briefly DJ at university, which came about originally to differentiate in the third person between myself and the other Jo(h)ns, be they Architect (AJ), blond (BJ), or Canadian (CJ) that resided in the same small halls of residence. I've been Hodgo playing hockey at Bristol-UWE HC in my final few years there and, upon my arrival in Sydney another moniker was bestowed; JT.

When I landed on this island I knew exactly two people. One, a lass I'd met the year before when travelling in the Cook Islands and who was weeks away from returning to the UK and the second, the sister of my oldest friend. In meeting her for a drink at the Nag's Head pub in what was to become my home suburb of Glebe, we attended on their trivia night. Her boyfriend at the time was there with one of his mates, Tony and in turn two of his, Pete and Amy. It is those three that became my first proper friends in Australia and they who I would see most Thursdays for trivia as part of the 'Wenham Hogg' team until I moved to Glebe six months later and they became much more a part of my Monday to Sunday life. Thanks to Amy, the name of Jonny Trivia (or JT for short) was born.

I've always been a little bit partial to the odd bout of trivia. Much to my brother and mother's chagrin, the game of Trivial Pursuit was a childhood staple. Tolerated by Mum but actively hated by my brother frustrated by Dad's inevitable victory, I'd at least enjoy the battle for second. At uni in Plymouth I found trivia friendship at The Walrus with some of the regulars as 'Quarter Pound of Rubbish'. We rarely threatened victory until a fella named Paddy was instructed to join us by the bar manager, Tracy, after winning several weeks in a row on his own which was bad for business. Paddy was an egotistical git, impossible to engage in discussion with and an all round annoying chap. When Tracy grew tired of his presence he was barred and only a few months later we read about him in one of the national tabloids. He travelled south-west England winning cash prizes in pub quizzes raking in hundreds of pounds of tax free cash a week whilst also claiming unemployment benefit. He'd won a quarter million pounds on Who Wants to be a Millionaire and a few other large prizes too and whether or not any of that is actually illegal I'm not sure. However, his hubris resulted in a few column inches that would have seen a few more pubs close their doors to him.

In Bristol I'd attend a variety of trivia nights with childhood friends at The Compass or The Sandringham where we'd compete as 'Andromedaries and other Ungulates', 'Ichthyologists and Paleontologists', or some euphemistic version of Harry Potter novels which I shan't share here. Trivia nights were now becoming a central tenet to my identity.

Back to Sydney and the Nag's Head trivia nights gave me the introduction to pretty much everybody I made friends with there. Despite being oft winners and developing my own reputation for having a good range of trivia (though not Melbourne Cup winners nor the Kings and Queens of England), it remained the weekly social that swiftly became the driving force, as it was in both Bristol and Plymouth.

Once I'd arrived in Alice Springs I became a regular at Montes. I've lost count of how many victories I've been a part of there, either as one third of 'Kim Jong Un' or one of a revolving cast from 'E = MC Hammer', it's never been too long between $100 vouchers. However, as the number of teams and the pace of the quiz increased, so did the background chatter, the need to truly concentrate, and thus all the social interaction and therefore fun seeped away. Trivia nights, as my brother failed to realise growing up and Paddy did not appreciate, is not about the winning but the spending time together. Once that becomes secondary or too hard to find, it's time to move on. It's been a number of months now since my last appearance at a trivia night.

Though with trivia running through my veins (you can make a sentence using the word 'Buffalo' nine times in a row), I do still try to make a claim to my JT nickname. Whilst every other version of Jonathan might seek his social interactions elsewhere, JT is on the internet competing in a global trivia league with opponents far smarter than Paddy. And losing. Perhaps the nickname can now only be the equivalent of what started in 1924 at the University of Minnesota, the participation trophy. But you know what, I'm OK with that. After all, as Shakespeare once asked, 'What's in a name?' Call me what you like, I still smell the same.

[rufusdawes]

Water Colours

If you're old enough to remember the music video to A-Ha's 'Take on Me', you'll remember the girl jumping into the pages of a comic and being literally drawn into that world. Stepping out to start the Ormiston Pound walk, an hour and a half west of Alice Springs a friend, Alix, remarked that it was like walking into an Albert Namatjira painting. As she explained, the colours on a Namatjira artwork appear abstract until you're immersed in the landscape he called home and appreciate he was far more of a realist than the casual observer may appreciate. As we started our walk, the colours here embrace you and you find yourself humming the A-Ha earworm.

Despite living in Alice Springs for over seven years, it was Alix's visit back to her old home from Tasmania that had me treading the Pound walk for the first time. I've been fortunate enough through work to have experienced some glorious sights throughout central Australia, many on distant Aboriginal land and far from the glances of a tourist. However, in doing this short day walk of nine kilometres, there is more than enough variety and splendour to be had to satisfy even the greediest of landscape gluttons. The slow, sidewinding trek to start that weaves you ever upward saw us tramping through wildflower country, purples and whites abound following earlier winter rains. Some forty minutes in, a short detour takes you atop a rise and has you looking down over the extent of the Pound, a ring of mountains nestled in the heart of the West MacDonnell National Park. From here, under an azure sky are every conceivable version of orange in the rocks, bathed as they are in the full sun or shivering in the shadows. A matting of grasses across the Pound floor delivering shades of hayish yellow and more green than the US Treasury.

After a short break to indulge in the staple delights of a day walk lunch, that of copious amounts of fine cheese and crackers, it was time to descend. Shortly after, the landscape changes again since the relatively recent rains had topped up a waterhole on an otherwise dry stream bed. The white sands and crystal clear water a far cry from the perception of an otherwise arid landscape. Continuing on, more wildflowers as we skipped from rock to rock that make up the trail, maintained as it over natural contours with no additional materials brought in.

Having crossed the western extent of the basin you end up entering the gorge that will see us finish the last couple of k's walking back towards the day picnic area and the plethora of tourists that will only experience the boardwalk amble down to it's more accessible waterhole, as I too had only experienced until this point. White trunked ghost gums stand tall with their crown of eucalyptus leaves shimmering blues and greens. We scramble across the larger boulders that make up this part of the adventure, to our right the vertical wall of the northern side of the gorge, each rock cold to the touch hidden from the warmth of the sun. On the opposite side, a cornucopia of colour as sunlight reaches the floor. As the gorge sides draw in, the shadows multiply and there's a faint chill in the air. Despite today being a perfect winter's day with the temperature maxing out somewhere in the mid-twenties, the base underfoot does not get the benefit of direct sunlight. Which is a real shame, as it is here that we need to make a water crossing.

Ormiston Gorge is one of the must-dos for any visitor to Alice Springs. A couple of hours cruising along Namatjira Drive takes you to Ellery Creek, Ormiston, Glen Helen, Two Mile and Redbank. Each will have water to some degree and will vary from stagnant to flowing depending on the time of year. Many can be swum in and Ellery, site of the most permanent and accessible water, is known as Alice Springs' beach. I've swum in all, bar Redbank, and they are all colder than you might expect. During the summer months that is a blessing, providing a respite from scorching 40 degree plus days. During winter, not so much. Following a week long bush trip burning Country with traditional owners and Rangers in the Southern Tanami where nary a shower or running water was seen, I once dived into Ellery Creek on the drive home desperate as I was to wash a week of grime away. The temperature of the water causing such a sharp intake of breath, as well as the involuntary shrinkage of one's nethers to the size of a couple of walnuts, that I did well to stay put long enough to make it look like I knew exactly what I was in for. As a tourist sunning himself on the banks remarked that the water was a bit fresh, I had to force my grimace into a smile that suggested yes it is but was also exactly what I wanted and expected. Which it absolutely was not.

For us, the crossing on the Pound Walk was all of twenty feet wide. Yes it's winter. Yes it's been in shade all day, all week and all month but it's not that deep and how cold can it really be? We took our shoes off and stepped first into ankle deep water. At that point I realised it was possible to get cramp in your toes. From here, the depth quickly increases ending up around thigh high. The creek bed is uneven and slippery and so the only way to get through whilst wearing full walking gear and carrying a backpack full of cheese is slowly. Alix was only two weeks out of a moon boot following a broken ankle after a climbing mishap so needed to progress carefully. I had my phone in my pocket and was in no mind to risk a slip either. This meant it took us the best part of a couple of minutes to get to the other side during which time our legs went from tingly to achy to numb. As we exited, Alix's feet and ankles had turned pinker than a flamboyance of flamingoes at a shrimp barbie.

I was cold in that Ellery dip. I've been colder still during an ill-advised plunge into the Southern Ocean off the coast of Stewart Island, about as far south as one can swim without getting in at Antarctica. I may just have been coldest crossing a sodding creek bed in the desert Outback of Australia of all places. Once the meat in our lower halves had returned to out of the fridge and not out of the freezer temperature we were able to continue the last few hundred metres back to the start. The final thawing took place at the little kiosk by the carpark supping down on a flat white. Blood flow returned our skin through shades of pink, red and white, eventually returning it to our respective natural skin-tones. Even Albert Namatjira would have struggled to create a colour palette to accommodate our inclusion in to one of his works just after the creek crossing. All the extra hues radiating off of our legs might just have a looked a little too abstract.

Albert Namatjira's 'Sunset in Ormiston Gorge' (C) Namatjira Legacy Trust / Copyright Agency

[rufusdawes]

Sticking Around

The last time I was even close to being a half-decent hockey player was 2007. This was my one and only full season with Sydney University Hockey Club and was happily spent as part of the first grade set-up. Due to my leaving British shores for sunnier Australasian climes in 2005 on an extended holiday before moving to Sydney in 2006, it also meant it was my first full season of the sport since 2004. Back then I was an integral part of the Bristol-UWE 1XI as we yo-yo'd between the various top divisions of the South-West and Wales quarter of the English Hockey Association league structure. However, the desire to explore saw me pack my gear away and commence my first retirement from the sport whilst still in my twenties.

On arriving in Sydney, I decided I was going to be a diver. I'd get certified in all manner of underwater qualifications and maybe move to Fiji. I'd teach, swim, read books, laze in hammocks. It was going to be glorious. Until that is, the nose bleeds, the ringing of the ears for days on end, not to mention the pain from every descent. No, a diver I would not be. I'd also burned through my savings and so I got a normal job. Once back into the 9-5 grind and living for the weekend, it was one Friday night in a pub of my home suburb of Glebe that I saw paraphernalia adorning the walls for Glebe Hockey Club. Thinking they'd naturally be my local side, I was swiftly corrected by someone who knew better who informed me that the Uni was actually the side closest to me. I bought a stick, turned up one eve to training and did enough to bluff my way into a first grade spot and eventually to the role of left back. My retirement was off.

Sydney Uni probably did just about bring the best out of me. I'd played up front for Bristol although the move forwards came as I exerted more influence over selection during my years there (a club I played for since childhood). I'd represented the County as a youth at left back and left half and played Regional Premier League hockey in those positions. My late 20s saw me rebel from that role and fortunately I became a twenty plus goal a season frontman. Bill, the Sydney Uni coach and former coach at an international level, saw only the left back despite my protestations that I was a striker and no hint from me of my earlier defensive endeavours.

I was never gifted at hockey, nor any other sport. If I missed a week or didn't train, my skills and touch would regress faster than Scott Morrison's empathy during a crisis. However, at Sydney Uni we had training Monday, gym session Tuesday, strength and conditioning Wednesday, training Thursday, a rest day Friday before game day on Sautrday and a ridiculously intense 'recovery' session at Coogee Beach at 6am on a Sunday that would reduce many of us to dry wretching from the physical exertion. All of which turned me from a competent player into a competent player who was supremely fit. That was enough to see me represent the top tier of the club and saw me running out to make my debut against the Australian captain (and his successor) who was kind enough not to wear his Olympic gold medal nor whatever is dished out to a World Player of the Year. We lost 5-0 but I picked up a couple of points in the 3-2-1 best and fairest awarded out after each game to determine our player of the season.

The rest of the season is a bit more of a blur though we finished mid-table and the 2008 season was cut short due to my spending most of it on the physio bench. Half-way through that year and with the injuries mounting I decided to again retire.

Neither ending saw me miss the sport and I didn't think of it again until after I moved to Queensland. There were adverts for the Sunshine Coast league airing on television early in 2012 which piqued my interest and so I wandered down to join in on a training session and introduce myself. Somewhat bizarrely after the session, I was offered a spot in the Queensland Masters side, I can only presume since they must only have half a team. I never got to find out since I was still struggling to secure a future in the country and wound up moving to Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory a few weeks later.

There's no hockey in Tennant Creek. There's not much of anything in Tennant Creek but it is where I played my one and only season of Australian Rules Football as a ruckman for YDU Demons. I wasn't allowed to play up front there either.

Two years later, I moved to Alice Springs where a water based astroturf pitch hosts a four team league for both men and women. In 2014 I therefore became a member of the Kiwi Warriors Hockey Club. My retirement was off again. Then on again in 2015, off in 2017 and finally on again in 2018. Well, until 2021. This next comeback making me the John Farnham of the hockey fraternity. I'd only gone to watch this time around but the Warriors had six players and were in need of someone, heck anyone, to take to the field.

A long time has now passed since training and playing six days a week and I am fourteen years older than my last good run out. My secret weapon of elite pace and fitness that carried me through my earlier passes at the sport is now just an observation that I'm quite quick for a man of my age. I still go to take people on round the outside but quickly realise that younger, fitter players can quite capably keep up with me without breaking a sweat. I'm back playing up front though my twenty plus goal a season record worked well when my hand eye coordination lined up but that's fallen off massively too, just ask my golf game to testify to that. Now I'm spraying shots wider than mentos in a coke bottle.

I want to say this will be my last season. I had no urge to play this time around and would not miss the sport if yesterday's game was my last. But to say so would be foolish. Every time I do take to the field, I yearn that I might have one last good game in me. Do one thing skillful. Feel, if only fleetingly, like I was a competent and fit player again. It hasn't happened yet and that, I fear, is why there will always be a next game.

[rufusdawes]

Making Tracks

"Keep going" and "straight ahead" are Joe's two navigational instructions, if not otherwise gesturing forward by a casual waving of his right hand low to my left.

Meanwhile, my hands are spinning the steering wheel faster than some eighteenth century freebooter trying to outmanoeuvre the guns of the East India Trading Company. This is mostly due to the plethora of staking hazards that are found when bush bashing through scrubland somewhere in the eastern fringes of the Great Sandy Desert. Each potential wheel puncturer the remnants of some long dead skinny tree, anywhere from a few inches high to a few feet just waiting for an opportunity to interrupt an afternoon. It doesn't help that I'm in the only Toyota Hilux, the lead vehicle in a convoy of six with the remaining five all being the larger, more rugged and purpose built for such adventure, Toyota Landcruiser. It's not that the Hilux can't handle this kind of off-road terrain but that the relatively low seating, lengthy bonnet and thus my angle of vision means trying to read the landscape that's fifteen feet in front of me and not the six feet I'd get from the upright and high seating in the Landcruisers. So for every 'straight ahead, keep going' I'm getting from Joe, I'm trying to process where my wheels are in relation to all the stakes that have now exited my field of vision whilst also trying to identify and put into memory those still ahead. The five cars behind have got it somewhat easier in that they can now follow the tracks I'm creating.

Eventually, and despite another 'keep going' from Joe, I stop the car as I'm unable to see a path through the scrub infront. We're looking for a sacred men's site not visited for many a year and Joe is my guide, reading the landscape from memory and knowledge of the songlines that helped Pintupi move through this environment for millenia. The vehicles we're able to bring helping people stay connected to their Country by getting to places that are beyond the capability of a Holden Commodore. The stop was good timing since the back right tyre is hissing from the inevitable puncture. As we patch it up the senior men are able to regroup and chat through where they think we now are in relation to the rockhole we're looking for. We're hemmed in by the thick scrub in front as well as some rocky country to our left. It seems we might not be getting in to where the site is thought to be from this direction and we've been pushing through for a couple of hours now. Since we only left basecamp around two o'clock, the decision is made to visit a different site further west, in our approximate direction of travel whilst we still have time.

Despite the fact that the two most senior men, Joe and Bundy, are both in my car from our party of more than twenty, I ask them if they want to jump into one of the Landcruisers to lead. They decline, but with a long way before we get close to this next site, they are happy for us to sit back and let someone else with thicker tyres and more visibility make the tracks for us to follow. Naturally, this is of course the period of the journey where we move into more open and sandy country. Gone are the puncture hazards every couple of yards, replaced only with the occasional dune crossing for which confidence and speed are the two requirements to surmount.

Sitting three vehicles back from the lead, the tracks are already well defined so the next hour or so is a relatively sedate affair. Eventually, we hit the Sandy Blight Junction Road. Running from the Great Central Road in WA up to the Gary Junction Road in the NT, this single track is a bucket list affair for many the four wheel drive enthusiast. For us, it's a chance to get out of second gear as we head south for a dozen or so kilometres before again peeling off to head through the scrub.

This site, a cave, is close Joe tells me, so we assume the lead once more. To my frustration, scrub, stakes and uneven terrain replace the maintained Sandy Blight and my hands on the wheel are again moving quicker than Bruce Lee's on a wooden dummy. Close is very much a relative term, much like time when you're moving through Pintupi Country. Since it's now gone 5pm and we're due back at camp ideally in an hour to cook for this group plus the twenty or so women that are off hunting at an outstation to the north of Kintore, I'm hoping close means five minutes.

"There should be a track. Keep going, straight ahead" Joe tells me.

There's no track.

"Where's the track? Should be track here."

Still no track.

"When were you last here Joe?"

"Maybe six years. We made a track."

Whatever wheel ruts we've made today could be followed tomorrow. After six years, I'm not so sure. However, this site is much more obvious in the landscape sitting high in a large hill in front of us and close turned out to mean around thirty minutes. The navigation was far more straightfoward despite the absence of a track than to our original intended target.

Upon our arrival, we pile out of our vehicles and climb the last twenty metres to the opening of the cave. Looking out from it's southern facing entrance over the Great Sandy Desert, as the sun sets to our right is a view I'd never thought I'd get to experience in the middle of Australia. Behind me, Joe is telling the men the stories and songlines of this site in language to the other Aboriginal men. To myself and my piranpa (non-Aboriginal) colleague, they are words we neither understand nor should understand. To be here is privilege itself. Many of the fellas were excited to be taken to this important site. It helps place them in this part of the landscape and for some would be the Country of their fathers or grandfathers, helping embed them further into the lore and culture ingrained deep into the desert features.

We leave on dusk and I can now settle behind the fleet of Landcruisers again, though we're retracing our tracks back to the Sandy Blight. From there, it's an hour and a half back to camp, albeit now on this formal track and another as we bypass the afternoon's cross-country adventure. Despite the majority of people responsible for cooking tonight's dinner for the group being in our convoy, the women had returned first from their trip and we arrived to find a chicken stir fry ready for our rapacious appetites. As we retire to our respective campfires following the feed, Joe breaks into song sharing more of the stories of Country with the men. On the other side of camp, the women engage in some traditional dancing. I am tired from another long day behind the wheel and crawl into my swag, lulled to sleep by Joe's distant melodious voice knowing nothing of what he sings. He is accompanied by one of the other tjilpis tapping out a beat and between song there is conversation in language punctuated by occasional laughter. It is among some of the sweetest sounds to fall asleep to and when I awake the next morning I am fully rested and energised to do it all over again. To play my small part for us all to keep going, straight ahead.

[rufusdawes]

Way of the Gun

The Lasseter Highway is gunbarrel straight in so many places. The main highway into Uluru from the east, having left the Stuart Highway that bisects Australia, is 250 odd kilometres of minor undulations, a few gentle curves, but mostly just a straight line. I used to regularly drive a 50 kilometre stretch of it moving between my base camp of the Aboriginal community of Imanpa, and my workplace of Angas Downs Indigenous Protected Area. 

On one such drive, I had in the passenger seat one of my colleagues, Kuminjay Wongaway. He grew up in Imanpa and spent much of his youth hunting on Angas Downs before becoming a Ranger there. His eyesight was incredible and often, when we were out on Country, he was seeing and interpreting animal tracks I hadn’t even yet processed as existing. We were heading west on the Lasseter one morning when he exclaimed ‘camel’. It’s one of the longer, straight sections of road though we’re at the crest of one small rise and can thus see even further ahead and a fair distance off into the scrub either side. ‘Where?’ was my response since I am certainly not seeing one. They’re not exactly uncommon in central Australia, so the sighting of one is not surprising however, my scanning of the landscape is yielding no positive result.

'In the horse box’ comes the reply.

'What horse box?’ I say, my eyes surveying the scene through a pair of polarised prescription sunnies. 

'The one that ute is pulling’ replies Kuminjay pointing off into the distance. 

On the crest of a rise several kilometres in front is a blob. A dark, shadowy blob. Might be a truck, maybe a caravan, heck maybe even a little Kia. It is, to me, a distant vehicle of indeterminate type also making its way to the shallow base between our two rises. What it isn’t yet to my eyes is a ute pulling a horse box.

However, on taking his word that that is exactly what it is, my next question is ‘How do you know there’s a camel in there?’

'It’s ears’

'Eh?’

“You can see it’s ears over the top of the ute’

It’s getting closer but I still haven’t confirmed it’s a ute, nor can I yet see a horsebox. It’s still a couple of k’ away. The blob is taking some shape so I can least ascertain that it’s bigger than a little Kia.

Over the next minute or so as we near one another I finally see the body of a ute, I can see that it’s pulling a trailer. That the trailer is taller than the vehicle becomes clear. What isn’t clear is that there is an animal in the trailer. Even if there were signs of movement, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what it was. Eventually, our trajectories cross and I can finally see in the shadow of the space at the top of the horsebox a pair of eyes, a nose, and a pair of ears that do indeed belong to a camel.

A few weeks later, we’re back on Angas Downs doing some monitoring in a paddock agisted by a neighbouring pastoralist for some of his cattle. As we near the northern fence line, Kuminjay points at some distant trees.

‘Some cattle up there.’

This time five other pairs of eyes, that of mine, his father's, two other colleagues’, and the pastoralist’s, gaze off into yonder.

A collective, ‘Where?’

‘Under the trees.’

There are a lot of trees and scrub around. We’re all straining to sight them.

‘Oh yeah’ says Ross, the pastoralist, eventually. “I see them’.

‘Where?’ is the cry from the rest of us.

‘See those rocks, and then that big gum behind? To the right of the gum is that thicker scrub. Yeah, so behind that in those trees. You see them?’ asks Kuminjay.

I mean, I guess I see a dark, amorphous mass that could at best be described as possibly not vegetation. It’s a hot day, the cattle are black, they’re lying down motionless in the shade of some trees. This is Where’s Wally with the dial all the way up to eleven. Ross goes to get into his ute.

‘I’ll go check on them, see if they’re mine’ he says. 

This he is doing to confirm they’re not scrub cattle on the other side of the fence.

‘They’re yours’ says Kuminjay.

‘How do you know?’

‘They got ear tags.’

We lost Kuminjay to a car accident a few months later. I'm posting this piece on his birthday and following the opening of a park named in his honour at Imanpa. Tomorrow there will be a smoking ceremony at Angas Downs that will provide closure to his life, driving his spirit away to find peace and allowing Ranger work to resume in full. We only worked together for a year but he was a phenomenal young man, embracing his roles and responsibilities as a Ranger and eager to share his knowledge. He was both a colleague and a mate and will be dearly missed. His vision on Country, like that of the highway that he spent much of his lifetime moving up and down on, was gunbarrel straight.

His daughter, mother and father at the opening of the park in his name

[rufusdawes]

Seals the Deal

I'm not sure where I'm happiest but surely it's somewhere in nature peering under rocks, peeking through scrub, and generally looking for native wildlife be it reptilian, mammalian, avian, or even insectivorian. And so, having found a rock pool chocka full of crustaceans of all sizes on our first full morning walk during our weekend visit to Kangaroo Island, I was one happy little camper. I was therefore a little dismayed to look up from my marine adventureland to see the other nine of us wandering off back down the beach and continuing on with our stroll. Nor was anyone overly enthused to help with my hypothesis about what one small louse like creature might be, of which there were dozens, once I'd caught them up. Obviously, I've since looked it up and can confidently state that it was a Marine Slater (Ligia australiensis). [Just in case someone out there cares!]

Things did improve upon the sighting of an echidna by some of the friends on a track near our base camp. I hastily turned around and a few of us squatted down together, eventually discovering a glimpse of a handful of spines as it hunkered down from our prying eyes. I remained after the others for a few more minutes hoping the echidna might feel empowered to continue on its forage but it seems it would remain spooked and mostly hidden for some time to come.

A dog at the gin distillery elicited even more interest from the group as did a game of ‘dead or alive’ in the car, whereby roadside animals were ID’d as either being living flappy (avian), furry (mammalian), or flatties (reptilian), or sadly of the late variety. Not quite the same as tramping through the bush searching solely for live ones but, at least a passing interest in wildlife was evident.

However, a visit to Flinders Chase National Park, still recovering from the severe bushfires of 2019 which meant the closure of most walks, finally united the lot of us in enjoying the spectacle of our native wildlife. Perched upon the rocks below us at Admirals Arch, playing in the rock pools, posturing against one another, pups suckling from their mothers, big bulls and cows bathing in the full sun were several dozen long nosed fur seals. What started as a viewing high up on the cliffs turned into a relatively close encounter as a boardwalk led us ever further towards sea level. A healthy distance is still maintained however, the proximity allows for an intimate following of a favourite's behaviour.

‘Look, those two are fighting’, ‘Aw, look at the baby one’, ‘Ha, that one's having a play in the waves’. We're all pointing and sharing what we're seeing but all are too engrossed in our own sightings to take every action and reaction in.

Eventually, and one by one, we pull away from the boardwalk and ascend the wooden staircase like a version of the ending to Ocean's 11. Two of the mob race back to the cars but one remains behind and for the first time, it's not me.

Below, one story is of a pup trying to find its mother. The most likely candidate offering nothing more than a roar, teeth bared. I return to join Thalia, the last one standing who's been watching this all play out, and we monitor the vain efforts of the pup for several more minutes together. Eventually time wins out and we too take to the stairs missing whatever conclusion played out amongst the rocks.

A common question asked among the group during the weekend was for people’s highlights and the seals were indeed a frontrunner, up against frolics in the surf, and the splendid home cooked meals we enjoyed. I might not get too many joining me in the rock pools but the shared experience of watching these sleek marine mammals made it an absolute highlight for me.

Upon returning to the house that evening, the Air BnB we were using just off Pennington Bay, I even discovered a card game called ‘Menagerie’. In it, players collect native Australian wildlife for each of three ecosystems; desert, rainforest, and marine. This game could have been made for me. After our united seal experience, perhaps everyone wanted to play? Unfortunately, it was not to be. I was indulged briefly by Thalia who was unable to betray the childish excitement in my eyes, she the one that had stayed behind to watch the travails of the pup. Still, it was enough for me to be where I might be truly happiest, in the company of dear friends enjoying each of them finding and being in their own happy places, whatever and wherever they may be.

#kangarooisland #seals

[rufusdawes]

The Worst Polyglot

As I wander over to the campfire in the middle of the dry river bed to join my Walungurru colleagues, the chatter switches from their native Pintupi to English to accommodate my monolingualism. Settling down in the comfort of a tired camp chair we reminisce about the day's activities, especially Moses and Sacariha's attempts at snake catching. Growing up around the Great Sandy Desert of central Australia they have a very healthy respect for these creatures and so were somewhat nervous being asked to retrieve both western brown and mulga snakes, two of our most venomous, with a pair of overgrown tongs. We all giggle at the video on my phone of Sacariha's neat footwork as his instinct to flee is overcome by the instruction to remain still.

A few metres away, two other colleagues from the Utopia Homelands are talking in Alyawarr whilst behind me the campfire conversation is taking place in Warlpiri. Further down the riverbed several more fires are burning where Warumungu, Anmatyerr, Pitjantjatjara, Western Arrernte, and more can be heard. Flags of the respective ranger groups are tied to the aerials of the fleet of Toyota Hiluxes and LandCruisers parked along the bank. There is a mini United Nations taking place at our annual Ranger Camp and yet all share the term Australian or tick Aboriginal on a census form.

One by one, the campfires reduce to a smoulder as the chatter subsides and people move into their swags, stretcher beds, mozzie domes and tents. I too turn in and my colleagues' conversation returns to Pintupi before they grow tired and retire.

Eventually all are asleep, dreaming of the day passed and the morning to come. A hundred Rangers representing a dozen or so language groups slowly drift off before a language, understood the world over, stifles the sound of rustling tent fly nets, the distant howl of a dingo, and a million crickets. It's the language that binds us all as we arise bleary eyed at sun up. The language that makes for gossip and guesswork as we all look around for that one son of a chainsaw that kept half the camp awake reciting the entire dictionary from that sodding grunt of a language, Snore.