Desert Mandala: Life In Central Australia

Amanda March 28th, 2008

This is our bag for three weeks away. That’s right- both of us have our belongings packed in this bag.

Hey there, 

We’re in Ubud, Central Bali, on the second day of our holiday here. We had a good flight on Air North from Darwin – they give you HUGE meals!! The flight from Darwin to Denpasar only takes 2 1/2 hours. We arrived in Bali at 8.30pm local time, and then went straight up to Ubud (about an hour away from the airport).

We’re staying at Ananda Cottages again where we stayed last year. We’ve also hired a motorbike – just like last year. Yesterday we spent the day chilling out around Ubud: going to Kafe, looking at shops (but not buying anything), and eating. We saw the most amazing electric blue kingfisher with a red beak, and from our second-storey bungalow set amongst the rice paddies, watched a squirrel build its nest. Last night I did a yoga class (Yin/Restorative) at the Yoga Barn. It was ok, except for the mosquitoes! Actually, the woman teaching should come and do Sally Mumford’s classes in Alice Springs to get some idea on how to cue more precisely for beginners. It was a little annoying to hear incessantly: ‘… feel energy flow into the meridians and connective tissues’ as opposed to ‘…externally rotate your upper thigh…’

Today we’ve been off exploring on the motorbike. We went up through Tampaksiring (where the Water Temples are) and halfway to Kintamani via the tiniest back roads we could find. We weren’t really lost (much). After dodging school children, dogs, chickens and potholes, we found our way back onto a main road and came back down to Ubud via Tegalalang where the amazing rice terraces and world’s most persistant hawkers are (you want sarong? Only one dollar…). It doesn’t matter how much you say tidak mau (I don’t want it), they just don’t BLOODY LISTEN!

The cafe on the edge of the rice terraces

At any rate, we hid in a picturesque cafe perched on the side of the terraced rice fields (which had one of the cleanest toilets I’ve seen anywhere) and enjoyed the view and the coffee. Then it was back on the bike and down to Ubud for lunch at Dewa’s Warung in a side lane. Very very good and very very cheap.

We’re just filling in time now before we dive into Ubud’s main market for a bit of retail therapy and some more harrassment.

Tomorrow, we’re off to Lovina on the bus, so I will write more when we get there.

Namaste

• Bali
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gadget March 26th, 2008

Hi all,

I’m writing from Darwin on our way to Bali. We had a good Easter out at Ormiston Gorge, complete with an amazingly large Knob-Tail Gecko sandwiched in Gary’s front door (but alive), and an ever-visiting Perentie. Here’s the Knob-Tailed Gecko as we found it, sandwiched between the flyscreen door and the wooden front door, and the stalking perentie:

This is the Knob-Tail Gecko in Gary’s hand to give you an idea of how big they are:

We also went to Redbank Gorge and swum up the gorge using tubes. This is an amazing and permanent waterhole in the West Macs, and has one of the best camping areas in the NT. It’s right at the foot of Mt Sonder, too.

Last night we had dinner with Simon and out of the blue I created a label for myself and others like me: ADVENTURE GEEK. Syme is getting his brother to draw up a cartoon logo of an adventure geek. I’ll define this term later, as this is just a quick blog update while we’re waiting for Andy to arrive and go out to lunch.

I did try to find a geocache near Stokes Hill Wharf, but ended up tearing my skirt on a random piece of reo hiding in the scrub. Didn’t find the cach and now Gary thinks I am some kind of uber-nerd!

Oh well…

We’re flying out at 7.30pm tonight, so my next log on will be from Ubud.

Talk soon

• Bali , coffee & raisin toast , geekdom
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Amanda March 19th, 2008

Last weekend I began experimenting with the Cybertracker PDA database program. Although I am intending to develop a database for my work, I thought I would learn the program by creating a database for NT birdwatching. As I’m doing this in the evenings, it’s a slow process. I would’ve liked to have shown you a screenshot, but for some reason, the program won’t let me capture the screen. Anyway, it’s going to take me a while to get the whole database up and running. I also have to make a decision about how much detail I want in the way of descriptions, photos and birdcalls. If I decide to add them, it could take me a while.

On another geeky topic, Ben and I entered the world of geocaching yesterday. Well, we tried to. We tried to locate two caches using the PDA which has a GPS. There was one cache on Anzac Hill; the other (apparently) in front of the Alice Springs Post Office. We didn’t locate either of them. If  you’re wondering what on earth I’m talking about, check this website out: http://geocaching.com.au/ or this one: http://www.geocaching.com/ .

Not to be daunted, at lunchtime I connected the GPS to the computer and downloaded the co-ordinates for the Anzac Hill cache from the geocaching.com website, and with the GPS in hand strolled down the street to Anzac Hill. And found the cache!! A small clear, cliplock container with a few goodies in it, stashed on the hill. Wow!! I found it. What a super nerd I am. Gary is disgusted at me!

Chickens

I was informed by Rhiannon today that we are getting chickens tonight. I am worried about how Charlie and the cats will react to them – they’re only silkies. Although we want chickens, we were planning to build a coop once we came home from Bali and had planned the project. Oh well… Let’s hope it’s not fresh chicken dinner for our pets all round.

• Central Australia , domesticity , geekdom
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Amanda March 12th, 2008

I’m just back from my first bush trip back at my new (old) job. It wasn’t a huge and dramatic job – just an overnight trip to Hart’s Range, about 215 km NE of Alice Springs and out to a few outstations around the place. The work went really well – fantastic, in fact. Enjoyable company (one of my colleagues went with me), the Aboriginal people I worked with were great, and the landscape … awesome.

For those of you who don’t know, Harts Range is a spectacular outcrop of quartz and mineral-rich mountains, well known by fossickers (see here for info about fossicking around Harts Range http://www.nt.gov.au/dpifm/Minerals_Energy/index.cfm?header=Central%20Harts%20Range ) and also known for its picnic race carnival held every August http://www.hartsrangeraces.org.au/aboutus.html. It is dramatic and beautiful country where there’s been lots of mining (and there still is ongoing mining exploration), and a history of human habitation which extends back about 8,000 years. Not far away on Alcoota Station, Sydney University has a permanent fossil dig as well.

 As the area has slightly higher rainfall than Alice Springs, it’s been well loved and occupied by Eastern Arrente people. They call this area ‘Rainmaker Country’ after the big dreaming story that travels through the range country. The Arrernte name for Harts Range Community itself is Atitjere (a-DITCH-air-uh).

One of the highlights of the trip was found on the way back from Engawala Community on a random hillside: a monument to the local football team, the Alcoota Crows, made out of stones. All around this area were silcrete cores and flakes and stone knives and other tools – and now contemporary Aboriginal people had made it into a shrine to their local footy team…. As an anthropologist, I love it!

The other great thing we discovered was the Spotted Tiger Camping Area, just south of Atitjere Community, not far from the racecourse. Located in a valley dotted with Bloodwoods and Ironwoods, this FREE camping area has pit toilets and showers powered by chipheaters. It’s well maintained, quiet and right near a fossicking area AND … the gully behind the camping area (SW) is full of birds first thing in the morning. Pete and I sat and watched birds over our breakfast, as well as admiring the sun coming up on the ranges.

Anyway, was a good short trip. How you can’t enjoy bushwork this good, I’ll never know.

• Central Australia
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Amanda March 8th, 2008

It’s been a busy week for both of us.

Gadget went to Katherine for a leadership course. In preparation for the course, he did a Myers-Briggs personality test and then the consultants running the course added their own additional test questions and personality categories to expand on Myers-Briggs. The result: Gary is a Thruster-Organiser. When he told me, I laughed. And so did everyone else. 

A Thruster-Organiser of sounds like someone you’d either findworking in a brothel or for NASA. You can just imagine what fun a bunch of male rangers would have had with the term Thruster-Organiser. Surely there was a better word than ‘thruster’ that could have been used! Gary, I suspect, quite likes being able to refer to himself as as thruster. I guess it’s a bloke thing.

At any rate, he drove to and from Katherine (1100km each way with 3 other rangers = lots of sick jokes and farting, I believe) between Monday and Thursday this week. Then on Friday he had to go out to Ormiston to move some of his belongings in to town – another 260 km. So he is a tired boy. On Monday he takes up residence in the Tom Hare Building (the place I have just vacated) to begin his new position as Chief District Ranger of Watarrka National Park. I guess there will be a fair bit of to-ing and fro-ing to Watarrka for us over the next few months. I will have to see if I can do some work down there once we come back from Bali in April. But I hope the West Macs mob are still going to invite us to their wonderful social gatherings. Hint. Hint.

For myself, I found the first week back at AAPA strangely comfortable and empowering. It is a buzz walking into a place and knowing deep in your core that you can do the job, do it well and instantly connect with your creativity to do it even better. I feel a lot better and happier this week than I have felt in ages. I suspect it won’t last, so I guess I’ll enjoy this while it’s here. I know I’m probably harping, but it’s been like coming home. I wasn’t expecting it to be so renewing.

I spent a couple of days organising my new (old) office, trying to get the computer applications going, remembering how to use the database and Mapinfo, and then went out and organised some consultations at Harts Range. There’s so much work to do – so many interesting places to go and loads of mining exploration applications. Next week, I’ll be going up to Harts Range overnight for a site clearance.

This morning I’ve downloaded Cybertracker software for the PDA. Cybertracker is a database/GPS program that allows you to swiftly collect georeferenced data in the field on your PDA. The scientists at PWS use it for fauna & flora surveys and veg mapping. I am going to adapt it to use for applied anthropological fieldwork. I guess I will have to sit down and design a database over the next week or so from the list of landscape items that comprise sacred sites in the NT, and trial it in the field. Anyway, I have some work coming up in the West Macs, Papunya and Kintore (never been up there before), and possibly Nyirrpe in which I can test it out on. I am hoping I get the Nyirrpe certificate so I can visit Newhaven, a private conservation area co-managed by Birds Australia and the Australian Wildlife Conservancy. In using Cybertracker, my plan is to design a trial birding database using Central Australian species lists that I already have along with silhouette icons and other graphics. Once I’ve done my learning on the birding database, I’ll do the sites version.

I know, I know … what a geek I can hear people saying.

But it’s fun.

• Central Australia , corporate culture , geekdom
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gadget March 4th, 2008

It’s not a life, it’s a journey …

Gadget and I are so sick of hearing social commentators, marketing promotions, politicians, our work colleagues and anyone else saying the words: it’s a journey. We groan when anyone utters those words now.

Yes. We know it’s a journey. Everything is a %^&*ing journey. And yet, in describing EVERYTHING as a journey, the import of the words ‘it’s a journey’ is so much less. It’s like using f**k as a noun, verb, adjective and pronoun. If you use f**k so often, when you really need something potent, it ceases to have punch. What do you say when you drop a brick on your toe: oh pooh! Hardly the same impact.

Who do we have to blame for this? New age gurus and self-help books? Buddhists? I suspect it’s marketing spin doctors. But I digress….

Jobs And Things

Today was my first day back at AAPA. Actually, I went back into the very same office I was in four and a half years ago. It was a little strange: strange in the fact that it was both familiar and comfortable, yet disquieting because of the ease which I felt and confidence it brought me. I wasn’t expecting to feel this way. I’d been feeling some trepidation and uncertainty about whether I was doing the right thing, going back to work somewhere where I’d previously worked. Perhaps, when I’m onto writing my twentieth Authority Certificate, I will feel less comfortable and more bored.

Having an office again rather than a noisy cubicle feels so … well … empowering. It’s a good feeling to make the space your own. Like moving into a new house. Of course, I had computer hiccups on my first day - I had half of the programs I needed missing, including the all important AAPA database and GIS program. And I discovered that they don’t use the full MS office suite. Bugger! I needed Publisher to do some work on Big Books. I’ve been given my first Certificates to do: Ormiston Gorge and a roadworks on the Papunya-Kintore road. I’m looking forward to getting out to some places that I haven’t been before, exploring, birdwatching, going to some art centres and meeting new people. I’m also looking forward to introducing the world of geekery to AAPA: using PDAs and Cybertracker for fieldwork, podcasts, corporate blogs and wikis, along with Big Books, the art of interpretation etc. More on my adventures as they arise.

We said a couple of weeks ago that there was something on the horizon for Gadget: well, he’s now Chief District Ranger at Watarrka (King’s Canyon) for the next six months. This means he comes into town -although there is frequent travel to Watarrka- and for the very first time ever we get to live together. Yay!! He’s away at the moment, doing a leadership course in Katherine, which I am a bit jealous of. I would love to do something like that. You get a four thousand word analysis of your leadership style/personality based on an online questionnaire. Anyway, I guess this means that we’ll be spending a bit of time down at the Canyon over the next six months. Who knows what’s going to happen after that. It’s a journey…

Oh my god. Did I really just say that?

• Central Australia , corporate culture
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