Firstly, I have sort of been on work experience in the Otway’s, not in the burning bush area you understand but in the area as they say. I worked with a lovely guy called Hillman from Indonesia, and he was sort of a joy to work with. He was like a little clockwork toy as he went up and down the hills at the same pace with never a hint of stopping or hesitating. The job was to survey the vegetation not as species but presumably the mount of cover that the plants gave to the ground as well as measuring the amount of leaf litter the width of three trees and the number of trees that fitted in this funny little measuring thing.
The first thing that needed to be done was to measure 100 metres along the transect, this was Hillmans job as it sometimes meant crashing through wiregrass or going uphill or downhill twice rather than once. While he was doing this I would measure three trees by giving them a big hug with a tape measure, which is not easy if it’s a bloody big tree, and it’s surprising how many ant highways there are on one tree. After doing the tree hugging exercise I had enough time to do the tree size thingy which meant using this bit of equipment that measure tree width by holding it up to your eye at a fixed distance as measured by a piece of string. apparently it was designed to measure the width of trees in plantations to see if the tame trees were of suitable width for harvesting. In the wild however they tend to be slightly non uniform this means that skinny trees close count as biggies and huge monster trees far away don’t count at all. When Hillman returns from the arduous task of marking out the transect the real work starts in that every three metres a stick was put vertically to the ground and the number of plant touches recorded at given points. As well as measuring the depth of leaf litter thirty-three times it proves to be a rather tedious exercise when it’s done five or six times a day for four days. Hillman never seemed to tire of the tedium though and he was my inspiration. Still the evenings were most convivial with Australians, Indonesians, English and a Costa Rican batting the breeze.
On the Saturday after a quick rub down with the Sporting Life (I think it’s now a defunct racing and football paper of the 60’s) as opposed to the film This Sporting Life which is not so good as a rub down, it was back to the more serious side of life. Namely THE BALLARAT BEER FESTIVAL, which this year was rather naffly deemed to have renamed the rat as Beerarat. The only complaint really is the lack of shade in the arena but that was solved by going under one of the numerous feral trees that surround the oval. Needless to say the beer was on the whole really good though some were decidedly average. At $50 a pop it’s not a cheap exercise though a thoroughly enjoyable one.
The real highlight came on the Sunday when Hol, Birgitta and myself went to Melbourne to see The Pigram Brothers, which have to be one of the best non-famous bands in the world, well in Australia at least. They are from Broome and we have seen them several times at the Pearlers venue so it was easier to travel to Melbourne from the rat than drive to Broome. They were meant to be on stage for an hour but by the time they did their encores it was probably an hour and fifteen. Well worth the money, it was free. What more can you ask.
Finally, a bit of news from the old dart, Hollys dad joined the Titanic club when he was aboard a boat off the coast of Brazil when the damn thing sank below him. He managed to save his credit card and passport but precious little else though he did get some stuff back when the salvage crew got to work, but him and his fellow wader counters were shaken but stirred a little bit.
The first thing that needed to be done was to measure 100 metres along the transect, this was Hillmans job as it sometimes meant crashing through wiregrass or going uphill or downhill twice rather than once. While he was doing this I would measure three trees by giving them a big hug with a tape measure, which is not easy if it’s a bloody big tree, and it’s surprising how many ant highways there are on one tree. After doing the tree hugging exercise I had enough time to do the tree size thingy which meant using this bit of equipment that measure tree width by holding it up to your eye at a fixed distance as measured by a piece of string. apparently it was designed to measure the width of trees in plantations to see if the tame trees were of suitable width for harvesting. In the wild however they tend to be slightly non uniform this means that skinny trees close count as biggies and huge monster trees far away don’t count at all. When Hillman returns from the arduous task of marking out the transect the real work starts in that every three metres a stick was put vertically to the ground and the number of plant touches recorded at given points. As well as measuring the depth of leaf litter thirty-three times it proves to be a rather tedious exercise when it’s done five or six times a day for four days. Hillman never seemed to tire of the tedium though and he was my inspiration. Still the evenings were most convivial with Australians, Indonesians, English and a Costa Rican batting the breeze.
On the Saturday after a quick rub down with the Sporting Life (I think it’s now a defunct racing and football paper of the 60’s) as opposed to the film This Sporting Life which is not so good as a rub down, it was back to the more serious side of life. Namely THE BALLARAT BEER FESTIVAL, which this year was rather naffly deemed to have renamed the rat as Beerarat. The only complaint really is the lack of shade in the arena but that was solved by going under one of the numerous feral trees that surround the oval. Needless to say the beer was on the whole really good though some were decidedly average. At $50 a pop it’s not a cheap exercise though a thoroughly enjoyable one.
The real highlight came on the Sunday when Hol, Birgitta and myself went to Melbourne to see The Pigram Brothers, which have to be one of the best non-famous bands in the world, well in Australia at least. They are from Broome and we have seen them several times at the Pearlers venue so it was easier to travel to Melbourne from the rat than drive to Broome. They were meant to be on stage for an hour but by the time they did their encores it was probably an hour and fifteen. Well worth the money, it was free. What more can you ask.
Finally, a bit of news from the old dart, Hollys dad joined the Titanic club when he was aboard a boat off the coast of Brazil when the damn thing sank below him. He managed to save his credit card and passport but precious little else though he did get some stuff back when the salvage crew got to work, but him and his fellow wader counters were shaken but stirred a little bit.
There's always something that spoils the idyllic life in the woods, in this case March flies, they are like Horse Flies only slower and with a nastier bite, and funnily enough they are never alone. This one, rather ambitiously decided to burrow through my boot. I now have to buy a new pair of boots bugger it
There's always time for a trivia night, Kylie in the foreground is slightly fuzzy but thats OK as she has a triathlon the following day. As for the quiz it was a Rockwiz thingy with a band and stuff, very well organized and the common theme is plenty of food, beer and wine. We came fifth and yes there were lots of people taking part.