DAY 260: Hooning around an Arabian stud farm

18 May

AS IF to mock my own experience of being wedged into bushes, six-year-old Billie is tearing up the paddock on a miniature quad bike, gunning the throttle and hooning down slopes with a fearless stare in our direction.

She brings the bike to a splattering halt in front of us. “I’ve got four horses,” she announces.

So we head up the hill to see them.

This stud farm outside Launceston breeds Arabian horses for endurance racing, and the majestic beasts are everywhere, rearing up, cycling their front hooves and psyching each other out. They’re bred for Tom Quilty endurance racing: 160km across country in one day. A ‘strapper’ has to hose down the horse at intervals to get its heart rate down to a vet-approved bpm, then it’s off full-pelt again. I’m glad I’m not being dared to get on one.

“You big sooky la la,” Billie admonishes as I hesitate at the electric fence. I hand Old Dog my latte, which he accepts with a grimace, and duck under. Bloody hell, they breed them tough around here.

As we ascend the paddock, horses come up for a mild-mannered look, until we decide to take a closer inspection of the foals, at which point a whole field’s worth of horses start clustering us. I turn around and there’s a nose right in my face.

Back near the homestead, which is awash with dogs, kittens, mice, motorbikes and kids on motorbikes, a new recruit with beautiful pebble markings is being dressed in the stables. It looks a bit mortified as it’s bustled up in a total of five fetching coats – and that’s without even knowing its picture’s going to be splashed all over the internet.

Keeper? Yes: patting, not racing.

DAY 259: Laying bush tracks

17 May

I’VE never questioned the existence of boulder-lined bush tracks. They just crop up here and there, don’t they? Apparently not, as I’m given the mission of creating one today.

The hard work’s done – the quarry rocks have already been sourced from a nearby pine plantation and lugged to the right spot. My mission’s to help shape the track that will form a 1km walk around this property, so I start by undercutting the slope we’re on with the blunt end of a pick.

I’ve got to hack through tree roots and form a level area on which to lay the rocks. The bush pirate points out wombat trails as we go, identifiable by upturned soil and mulch all pointing in the same direction. He’s right – but I’d never have noticed.

Keeper? I only toiled for 10 minutes, truth be told. I don’t think I’m built for brute force and ignorance.

DAY 258: Swamp forest floor restoration

16 May

THE bush pirate is working on a property that’s in the middle of a clear fell — a brutally overlogged area that he’s trying to restore to its full foresty glory of 150 years ago.

He’s thinned the paperbark swamp forest of dead trees to create light and reduce fire hazard, and cleared out the undergrowth of blackberry bushes, nettles, logs and dead branches. Now he’s in the process of putting in braces of myrtle beech around the boggy patches, and an understory of four species of ground ferns and man ferns.

Before.

After.

He piles up some of the detritus he’s cleared around the ferns, where fronds will keep the muck moist so that they grow moss which accelerates their delay, which in turn feeds the ferns. That’s clever.

Artful mulching.

Already, within the existing paperbark forest, he’s created two areas of rainforest, a blackwood forest and a eucalypt forest – all on this four-acre property.

Today we’re propagating ground ferns. When fronds of the ferns die, new buds and leaves grow at the end. These are pulled off and replanted in clusters. He grabs the last specimen from his pile of tagged man-ferns and shows me how it’s done. Muddy work, to be sure, but nowhere near as hard as transplanting man ferns, which can grow up to 22-feet tall and have to be manhandled by the bush pirate up and down steep slopes. I never knew gardening could be so sexy.

Getting the dead fronds with green tips.

Planting em. And so on it goes.

Keeper? Could actually do this without supervision, should I stumble across any ground ferns. 

DAY 257: Making a wish at St Columba Falls

15 May

You had to be there, clearly.

I CAN hear the falls the whole time, but if Bucket the dog didn’t glow white in moonlight, I’d never be able to find them.

She leads the way, and after a 10-minute hike we’re awarded with a spectacular view of a two-pronged falls. The bush pirate gives me 20 cents to make a wish, then we climb the fence and pick our way down rocks to sit at the bottom, for a more refreshing experience.

Keeper? Yes. Exploring’s more fun at night.

DAY 256: Driving naked

14 May

THAT’S about it, really.

Keeper? Yes. Would prefer an automatic next time.

DAY 255: Finding a pub in a paddock

13 May

WE’VE already driven past ‘The Homestead’ – a makeshift saloon on some land 20 minutes out of Launceston, at which you can tether your horse and hit the turps, and now here’s a pub in a paddock.

The sisters boozing on in the main bar are cleaners by trade, and save up every cent to go travelling once a year to see something new – more vital than owning a house back in Geelong, they testify.

They’ve gawked at a woman swimming with snakes in a tank at the Moulin Rouge, sampled olive oil that made them weep in Italy, and travelled the length and breadth of Australia.

Now they’re visiting the Pub in a Paddock (famed secondarily for Priscilla the Beer Drinking Pig) near St Columba Falls, and are quizzing locals on why it’s alleged most Tasmanians have two heads, while screaming in unison at the antics of “local character” Dale.

Dale could be a bushman from any of the black and white photos of loggers and pioneers lining the walls. He sports an unkempt beard, swagman’s hat, a holey jumper, and pants, from the legs of which pepper berries keep a-rolling. He’s keen to disprove the idea that Tasmanians are only interested in inbreeding, and so sings bawdy sea shanties and keeps up a relentless offensive on one sister, who he reckons he’s on a promise with. For every remark about places she should smear her gravy, though, Diane gives it back twice as hard. It’s like porno ping-pong.

Bruce didn't have the same finesse as Dale.

The barman supplies me with a bottle of light beer for a dollar and we all troop outside with a torch to feed Priscilla. (It’s okay, the RSPCA have approved the light beer; although they may not have endorsed 12 bottles a day.)

Priscilla’s not playing ball, having gone to bed, so I climb the fence and try to rouse her — but ominous growling from the sleeping quarters quickly sends me packing again.

Keeper? Best pub ever.

DAY 254: Stalking people

12 May

See?

WHEN I say ‘stalking’, I mean 90 per cent is a social experiment that can only further one’s development, and 10 per cent is personal enjoyment. Roughly.

In my continuing attempt to relate to others, I have decided to single out some strangers and follow them. This will sharpen my observational skills and encourage an interest in other people.

It turns out I only have time to kick off with one person today, but what a corker.  The subject pops out of Flinders Street Station, dressed ordinarily enough in a grey tracksuit, but walking like a lunatic: fists clenched and swinging, chin up, holding his arse a touch gingerly. He’s moving at a cracking pace and definitely up to something.

It takes all my energy to keep up pace; he’s got a blatant disregard for road safety and at one point I almost lose him until he stops at the lights, shifting from one foot to the other. My mission is to follow him to his destination, and he finally climaxes at an undisclosed address on Queen Street, which a quick Google later reveals to be offices for lease; just the sort of place where a big drug deal would go down on any number of gritty Australian crime dramas I’ve seen.

Keeper? Yes. Extremely exciting.

DAY 253: The bush: as dry as a dead dingo’s donger

11 May

THE Screen Worlds exhibition at Melbourne’s ACMI is free, and tells the ‘story of film, television & digital culture’. A bit.

It was the Australiana I found most interesting.

The Bush: Through harsh, bleeding colour and the unforgiving calls of kookaburras and crows, filmmakers have long loved making the endless Australian bush seem claustrophobic – and sinister. Always sinister. Classic including Picnic at Hanging Rock, The Proposition and Wolf Creek are profiled here. Wake In Fright should definitely have been in there, in all its sunstroked, hungover hellishness, but I won’t quibble.

The Australian Accent: A video installation with clips from satirists like The Chaser and Chris Lilley, plus clips from The Castle, The Adventures of Barry McKenzie, and various ocker types from sketch shows of yore.

The Mad Max Interceptor: Yep! It’s there! Complete with fingerprints from people who’ve leaned over the barricade to cop a feel.

Tracey Moffatt: The macabre, Brisbane-born artist’s various installations included a clip (above left) of an Aboriginal woman caring for her dying white mother – with barely constrained violence.

Keeper? Been now.

DAY 252: Having my first feijoa

10 May

THAT was easy.

Keeper: Nom nom NOM!

DAY 251: Being more welcoming

9 May

I DIDN’T realise how much I stereotype people till I moved to Australia. Not being able to place someone’s class or region by their accent, and add that ingredient to the great pudding of presumption, throws me.

From an early age in England I could distinguish between lower middle, middle middle and upper middle (and whether you were putting it on), which home county you were from, what your dad did for a living and how you held your fork, just from your voice.

Over here I can sometimes tell if you’re from Adelaide and that’s it.

‘Welcome’ by Lynette Wallworth is a video installation at Melbourne’s Immigration Museum, depicting life-size groups of people of varying nationalities and walks of life (including Oxfam workers and Pies supporters), alternately looking welcoming and threatening.

Without an audience I find myself laughing and grinning like a loon at all the clips of people cracking up and embracing. I’m not taking the hostile ones personally, so I’m not that bothered (although it is disturbing when the women scoop up their children and glare at you), but it’s interesting seeing a gang of Asian teenagers, say, go from ne’er-do-wells to goofy geeks in my perception in a matter of seconds.

Keeper? Yes. I’m going to smile warmly at everyone tomorrow and see if they smile back. They better, or they’ll see what a face-like-a-smacked-arse looks like.

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