for bushwalking tragics

Time for a delicious account (would you like fries with that?)

2008-11-24T14:14:00.000-08:00

So I just set up a Delicious account via Firefox, which apparently is slightly differently configured from Internet Explorer. I've put a link to my blog, which takes me straight to my own page of bookmarks, very convenient. Adding new bookmarks is very easy, just copying and pasting a URL. I've more to learn about using this tool, so I won't deliver myself of any lyrical, impressive or imposing statements on the subject. Let's just see how this works...

Exploring in Korea

2008-10-25T21:22:00.000-07:00

My sister, artist Megan Jones , ( www.meganjones.com.au) recently took some of her paintings to the Korean International Art Fair, and after it was finished spent a couple of weeks exploring Korea. Here’s a selection from her account

“I went to the demilitarized zone, controlled by UN, South and North Korean forces, and US forces. It shows that the two Koreas have never signed a peace treaty, and are still prepared for war. To visit the Joint Security Area you have to be in a military bus, with U.N. soldier escort, and with military jeep preceding. North and South Korean soldiers face each other across the border, and photography is strictly controlled.
Following this I went down south to Jeju island, which is a self governing autonomous province off the south coast. It is a volcanic island, dominated by Mt Halla ( an extinct volcano) in the centre. Mt Halla is the highest mountain in South Korea, at 1950 metres above sea level. I climbed it- a 10 kilometre walk steadily upwards from where I got off the bus- and then down again ( a rise of about 1400 metres). It was extremely pleasant making my way upwards through forest in the mist, and then arriving near the top and finding that the mist cleared so that you could look out across to the sea.
From Jeju island I flew to Busan, and then caught a bus to Gyeongju, the previous capital of the unified Silla kindom, and home to many beautiful artefacts and mementos of the kingdom which held sway there for several hundred years. At Hae In Sa temple I saw the Tripitaka Koreana, the most complete set of Bhuddist scriptures printed in the ancient Asian world, and still preserved perfectly in a huge library of carved wooden blocks after almost 1,000 years.

After Gyongju I went to the Andong/Ha Hoe village mask festival ... Then I stayed in Jirye Artists Colony, sleeping in 300 year old traditional Confucian house in a small compound up in the forested hills beside a lake. It was so beautifully quiet and peaceful that I lay in bed on my futon on a heated floor and listened to the sound of individual raindrops falling. I came back to Andong with a Thai film crew.”

Photo shows mist on way up to Mt Halla. (When I work out how, I'll add a slide show of Megan's photos!)

Up up and away...

2008-10-14T19:35:00.000-07:00

If you're going to go up in a balloon - you are, aren't you? - it's good to know how it works. Watch this, uploaded from YouTube.

Singing friends

2008-10-13T18:20:00.000-07:00

Friends Deanne and Paul have put this little clip on YouTube. Have a listen...

Walking around Fiesole

2008-10-10T18:21:00.000-07:00

Excavations at Fiesole: photo by Camille Nurka.

If you've been to Florence (Firenze) you'll know what I mean when I say walking round the streets there has a certain craziness about it, and we perfected getting lost to an art form. So it's good to jump on a bus and head up to Fiesole, in the hills above Firenze. You can walk a winding track up to Monte Ceceri, through terraces planted with olive trees, and cypress forests green as green. I loved it up there on the mountain, partly because this is where
Leonardo da Vinci practiced flying with the various ingenious contraptions he made! Sooner him than me. Rock was quarried there too, and we photographed some old workings.
Down the hill, in Fiesole itself, is the Museo Faesulanum, an incredibly interesting museum built in 1912, a copy of a first century Roman temple. The ancient Etruscan and Roman artefacts inside were fascinating (jars, bottles, belt buckles, statuary, friezes - AND a reconstructed grave with skeleton and grave objects!), but even better were the excavated sites down the hill from it: a Roman theatre, a temple, baths, a house. We could walk all over it, and along the paved Roman road where sandalled feet had walked two centuries earlier. (Photo above right: rock works on Monte Ceceri: Camille Nurka)
A PS question: how do I upload a photo from my computer, then attach a label right underneath it, where it belongs? Can someone enlighten me?

Wikis, and a backward glance to Rss feeds.

2008-10-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

Forgetting about bushwalking just for a minute (oh no!) I want to record the fact that I've completed Week 5 of the Library2 course, on Wikis.
Wikipedia is quite a revolutionary notion, really, in a world still governed, at least externally, by authoritarian hierarchies. I'm relieved to read that it boasts a high rate of accuracy, and there are some checks and balances. I loved the Book Lovers Wiki at Princeton Public Library, though of course as it's discontinued I won't add a feed to my blog. Wookieepedia was fun, but Star Wars is all a bit of a yawn for me.
The State Library of Tassie site was a beauty. And Library Thing is a creative idea that I'll continue to visit. I've signed in, and added a few of my own books to a list which will grow in time.
So how might our library use wikis?
1. We already have our Readers in the Mist place for readers to place book reviews.
2.Heidi is designing a wiki for the Book Chains we've launched.
3. We can also put the monthly roundup of What the Staff are Reading, on a wiki.
Today, some of us at Blue Mts library had an intensive hour of help with some of these concepts, and I can't tell you how valuable that is! I understand the process, now, of linking other sites to my blog, as RSS feeds or blog links.

Adding to My Blog List

2008-10-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

Now I've started a list of blogs I'm following.
To find them I went to google, putting in, for example, bushwalker blogs as a search term. That led me to some interesting blogs; I copied and pasted their URLs into my blog, via My Blog List.
Now I'll add a few more!

Let's go to the cold country.

2008-09-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

The Snow-Gum by Douglas Stewart

It is the snow-gum silently,
In noon’s blue and the silvery
Flowering of light on snow.
Performing its slow miracle
Where upon drift and icicle
Perfect lies its shadow.
Leaf upon leaf’s fidelity,
The creamy trunk’s solidity,
The full-grown curve of the crown,
It is the tree’s perfection
Now shown in clear reflection
Like flakes of soft grey stone.
Out of the granite’s eternity,
Out of the winter’s long enmity,
Something is done on the snow;
And the silver light like ecstasy
Flows where the green tree perfectly
Curves to its perfect shadow.

Photo by Tim Best, 1972: uploaded from Flickr.

The steep, steep sides of Cinque Terre

2008-09-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

Walking along the tracks cut into the hillsides of Cinque Terre, on the Mediterranean coast of Italy, could hardly be called bushwalking, and there were quite a few Aussie accents to be heard on the track as we walked: but what staggeringly beautiful views of the ocean, the hillsides terraced in olive trees and grapevines, the pink buildings clinging for dear life to the rock. The walk goes from Riomaggiore on the Southern end, up to Monterosso to the North. At Vernazza you can fall into the blue, blue Med if you were smart enough to bring your bathers. (I wasn't).
We also rode bikes in the hills above Cinque Terre. The weather was a bit on the wet and foggy side. The young Italian who rented the bikes to us looked doubtfully at the sky, and said, "Be careful. The weather can change very suddenly here." We found he was quite right. The fog rolled in, the rain came down, and to add a further element of drama, the track we rode on was littered thickly with big round seed-cases, and there were frequent mud puddles. Not quite picking my way through these hazards I cannoned into an electric fence at one point, and my daughter watched me catapult over the fence and down the forested side of the hill. She was just adjusting to her new status as an orphan when I clambered back up, sustaining lots of electric shocks as I dragged the bike free of the electric wire. I'm afraid it was never the same again, and nor was I. I did wish that someone had a camera handy though. Photo by Camille Nurka, 2005.

A view from the Larapinta Trail, N.T.

2008-09-21T22:45:00.000-07:00

The McDonnell Ranges west of Alice Springs are not really desert country, as you can see from this shot by Janice Hughes, taken August 2008. There were squillions of dramatic sights along the Larapinta Trail; this is just one that I like.

The Larapinta Trail (oh, and RSS feeds too...)

2008-09-18T05:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve just learned how to attach some RSS feeds to my blog, which is pretty exciting, though the ones I’ve chosen are a bit ho-hum. Are there RSS feeds from a bushwalking site, is the question on everybody’s lips. I will hunt about.

I also uploaded a photo from Flickr (the shot of Mt Sonder, see below), but to be honest it feels a bit tacky taking a stranger’s photo, so I won’t be doing any more of that.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I include a photo taken from the Larapinta Trail in central Australia, by my friend Janice Hughes. Walking out there you really notice the quality of the air, and the light: dry and crisp. The Larapinta Trail was only recently opened to walkers (2002), and my friends and I did it the easier way, a supported walk with Shane Fewtrell’s Alice Springs-based company, Treklarapinta. (www.treklarapinta.com.au) . Sleeping every one of those eight nights in a swag under a starry sky was very special, and I plan on going back for more of that.

View of Cradle Mountain from Marion's Lookout

2008-09-09T22:37:00.000-07:00

Those tiny figures on Marion's Lookout were walking from Cradle Mountain to Lake St Clair, Tasmania. Peter, one of the walkers, took this gorgeous photo. Check out the luminous blues. The water in the tarns we met on the way was freezing, so I declined the invitation to swim.

Uh-oh, Bad Title Alert...

2008-08-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

I thought it was a breathtaking stroke of genius calling my blog "These boots are made for walkin'" (especially in purple font) ,but I have since discovered about 3,786 other blogs similarly titled. Who was it sang that song? She's got a lot to answer for, that's all I can say. Anyway, I now blaze forward under a new banner.
Impressed to see that Alba (see previous post) has the courage to meet the considerable challenges of the hallway, where unseen dangers may be found at every turn, and mortal wounds sustained: her derring-do far exceeds that of Vicki and myself, who prefer the tranquillity of the bush.

Why walk?

2008-08-26T02:45:00.000-07:00

That's a fair question: why walk in wild places? Trains, planes and automobiles can take us nearly anywhere we want to go, much faster too.
I recently heard several walkers talking on an ABC Radio Eye program. One talked about walking in the Wollemi and the Blue Gum Forest. Another, amazingly, walked right across the Simpson Desert, dragging a sled across the sand with the supplies that would keep him alive. Another talked about Mungo National Park, over on the far west side of New South Wales. Another talked about the Larapinta Trail, west of Alice Springs. And the Overland Track in Tasmania, linking Cradle Mountain with Lake St Clair.
The best way to connect deeply with these majestic places is on foot. Driving through them is like getting a 2-paragraph summary of a novel. Flying over them can be jaw-droppingly amazing, but it's still a summary, albeit full of design elements and geological formations you don't see any other way. Only by walking in a place can you intimately know it and respect it. I want to talk about some of the places I've walked, in this blog.
Do you walk in wild places? Why do you?