Willis's Walkabouts Newsletter 66, June 2013

Kakadu Management Plan and Bushwalking Strategy

Kakadu Management Plan

The current Kakadu Plan of Management is due to expire at the end of 2013. The new one will not be ready by then so the current one will remain in effect until the new one is finally approved. When Park Mangement first called for public input as to what should go into the new plan, they got very few (I think it was less than ten) responses. The latest Kakadu Management Plan Newsletter explains where the process is now and gives a link that you can use if you wish to make any suggestions.

Kakadu Bushwalking Strategy

I have been a member of the committee which has been overseeing the preparation of a new bushwalking strategy for the park for something like three years now. While most of what I saw in the draft in February was fine, there were some things which should be of concern to every one who may ever wish to walk in Kakadu. That document has been modified and the modifications, I believe, have now been approved by the Board of Management. I have not yet seen the final draft which will be available for public comment.

I had hoped to include a link to the draft plan in this newsletter and delayed it to see if that would be possible. I've had to give up so that I can get some information about our trips out while it is still relevant.

The draft will be available for public comment for something like four weeks. When it does become available, I will put out a special newsletter. Not putting in a comment will be taken as acceptance of whatever is published.

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Preventing Blisters & More

One of the places I advertise is in the Bulletin of the Federated Mountain Clubs of New Zealand, the umbrella body covering nearly all of the tramping and mountaineering clubs in the country. Browsing through the issues over the years I've seen that they face many of the same issues with development in parks that we do here. Their bulletin also has interesting information which should be of interest to many of you.

As an example, on page 44 of the March 2013 issue you'll find an article about Preventing Blisters. Use the arrow and scroll a bit further and on page 50 you'll find Uncle Jacko's Cookery Column. Before reading that one, I hadn't realised that some screw top gas canisters don't fit some stoves. If you ever use gas for cooking, it's definitely worth a read for that alone.

And, of course, if you're planning a bushwalking trip to New Zealand, browsing the past issues of their bulletin might give you some new ideas. Links to the more recent editions are on their FMC Bulletin page. If that's not enough, there is a link to a page giving you access to all the back issues from 1957 on.

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Capital Punishment — Not What You Think

Q: Do you believe in capital punishment?
A: No, my capital has been punished enough.

The first time I saw the lines above, it was in a joke. Sadly, it's not a joke anymore. It's not as bad in Australia but in the US, "keeping interest rates so low for so long means that the real rate (after accounting for inflation) is negative, thereby cutting significantly the real income of those who have saved for retirement over their lifetime." At the moment, we've got 2.5% inflation. A 2 year term deposit pays something like 3.75%. That gives you a real return of less than 1.5%. not good if you are retired and trying to live off your savings.

* As Low Rates Depress Savers, Governments Reap Benefits explains why governments around the world are so happy to penalise those who have saved for their future.

The world's economy depends on people spending more and more on things they may not really need. In America, personal consumption accounts for about 70% of GDP. In Australia it's over 50%. Economists and politicians tell us to buy more, buy more or no one will have a job. They measure the economy with "Gross Domestic Product", a tool which says that chopping down a forest is worth much more than leaving it there to protect a water supply, that repairing half the damage caused by a natural disaster actually increases GDP. I will admit that I don't understand all the details, but something has to give somewhere. (If you're curious, you can see how different countries compare with regard to personal consumption as a percent of GDP at the World Bank website.

When I finished writing the above, I couldn't help but think of a short slide show which was sent to me by someone who described it as "beautiful, powerful and sadly true." Click the link and see for yourself. Nature's Truth *.

Go Simple

If only we could....

* Simplifying the tax system would save billions of hours. The ever increasing amount of government paperwork individuals and businesses have to put up with is a tremendous drain on society. Tax law gets more complex with each passing year. Why not give some group a task of completely rewriting it, say down to 100 A5 pages, eliminating all the loopholes. Pay the people who do it a huge sum of money, payable only when it is passed into law. OK, it will never happen, but I can dream.

* The Government's Worst Face claims that, "Many Americans, left and right, feel ambivalence not just toward the I.R.S. but toward the federal government and the outsize part it plays in our daily lives." Replace IRS with ATO and you have Australia where the government impinges on our daily lives even more than it does in America. While we do need rules to protect people from various things, I think it's gone too far. I should be spending more time out bush and less time filling in forms.

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John Easton Memorial Walk

Jim Happ of the Maroondah Bushwalkers is organising a special Kakadu bushwalk in memory of my former guide John Easton who passed away on a bushwalk last year. If you walked with John and might be interested in taking part, please let me know and I'll pass your details along to Jim. Here's a bit of what he said when he wrote to me about the trip.

As a way of showing our appreciation to John and Robin for opening our eyes to the magnificence of walking in the Top End and Kimberley, we have devised a John Easton Memorial Walk in Kakadu National Park. The timing of the walk is tentatively for July 2014.

This set of backpacking walks has been designed to revisit some of John's favourite areas in Northern Australia, where he and Robin Baillie worked for a number of years as guides for Willis's Walkabouts. Although they worked in many areas of the North such as the Kimberley, Kakadu, and the Western MacDonnells, we have focussed on the Kakadu SW escarpment area for this Memorial Walk. Many of our members' fondest memories are of the Club trips John and Robin organised in this area about 13-15 years ago.

The draft of the plan at this stage is a walk of about 22 days broken down into 3 stages

1. Stage 1: about 5 days; from UDP Falls up Waterfall Creek to the Catacombs; across to Buffalo Pool; then to Piccaninny Pools and Emerald Pool; down Barramundie Ck to Maguk to pick up a food drop
2. Stage 2: about 8-9 days. up Gronophyllum Ck to Cascades, Graveside, then across via Surprise Falls to Twin Falls Ck near 603233. then Down to carpark, to be picked up by our support crew (doing day walks in Kakadu and Litchfield National Parks?). A side trip to Jim Jim Falls; then rest up at Garnamarr camp. This route look feasible (from Surprise Falls to Graveside is on one of Russell's walk itineraries; and has been reported in Wild Magazine); the other stretch looks similar country.
3. Stage 3: about 9 days. our support crew brings us back to the Trackhead near Twin Falls. Boat trip up to base of Twin Falls; then up well into Twin Falls valley, then due west over to upper tributary of Koolpin Ck, including Rainforest Gorge; down to main Koolpin Ck; then down via El Sherana to Sth Alligator crossing for pickup by support crew.

The walk is staged so that people may join in /leave at UDP Falls, Maguk, and Twin Falls. We are expecting a large number of walkers, so may have to break up into groups of say 12-13 members. I have lined up about 6 Maroondah leaders, most of whom have walked in this area, as Group Leaders. We may need to set off the groups staggered by a day, or start some off at different places (or anti-clockwise?) to avoid crowding the campsites and making it easier to get permits from KNP Rangers.

Note. This is not a Willis's Walkabouts trip. It is being run by the Maroondah Bushwalkers who have told me that they would be happy to welcome others who had walked with John and Robin in the past. As above, if you are interested, let me know and I'll pass your details along to Jim.

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Our Society

The Great Divide

* The Great Divide is a NY times series on inequality — the haves, the have-nots and everyone in between — in the United States and around the world, and its implications for economics, politics, society and culture. The series moderator is Joseph E. Stiglitz, a Nobel laureate in economics, a Columbia professor and a former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers and chief economist for the World Bank.

The link above will take you to a page which links to a variety of articles about the growing gap between the rich and the rest. You can read the first few paragraphs, then click if you want the full article. One of the more interesting ones noted that while people were worried about inequality, "the more people focused on inequality, the less they trusted the government." I suspect we'd find something similar here in Australia.

The Freedom of an Armed Society

* The Freedom of an Armed Society explains that, in America, even after the recent shootings, gun ownership remains a mark of liberty." It also suggests that "weapons stifle the expression that the true American project requires." Think it can't happen here, think again. In NSW, the Game Council is pushing its 'Be safe, be seen' program onto children as young as five, encouraging them to hunt. The Shooters and Fishers Party have an agenda of having shooting introduced as an approved sport in our schools. I'm not sure how long it will remain on line but ABC Four Corners ran a program on 10 June called The Hunting Party. "Firearm ownership is on the increase again and part of the reason is the increased popularity of hunting. Most hunters say they want the government to open up National Parks for sport and they now have the political power to back their demands. In NSW, the Shooters and Fishers Party has the balance of power in the State's upper house. Some of their key demands involve making guns easier to obtain, and winding back restrictions on some semi-automatic weapons."

'Following' is now the hallmark of a triumphant individuality.

* Go the Same Way, or Go the Wrong Way suggests that "Gone are the days when 'conformist' was a slur. Now, if you're not following the crowd of five-star dispensers, you are a tasteless, undiscriminating shlub." The article refers to America but the world is now wired together as never before. How true is this in Australia?

What Our Words Tell Us

About two years ago, Google released a database of 5.2 million books published between 1500 and 2008. You can type a search word into the database and find out how frequently different words were used at different epochs. Looking at different kinds of words gives some interesting insights into how our society has changed over the years.

"Over the past half-century, society has become more individualistic. As it has become more individualistic, it has also become less morally aware, because social and moral fabrics are inextricably linked. The atomization and demoralization of society have led to certain forms of social breakdown, which government has tried to address, sometimes successfully and often impotently."

The full story * What Our Words Tell Us * is well worth a read.

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Nature — A Celebration

Flower Power

The Sierra club website has a page called 7 of the World's Strangest Flowers. The name describes it. Worth a look.

Anyone seriously interested in Australian native plants, especially those in WA, should have a look at Florabase. This is the best reference site for WA flora that I've found.

Wonderful photography

Three great videos:

• Wild Sweden
  If you look at this short YouTube video, you'll understand why I'm so keen to go back.
• Dakuwaqa's Garden - Underwater footage from Fiji & Tonga
  Underwater footage shot whilst scuba diving in the Fiji islands and Tonga. Featuring colourful coral reefs, huge schools of tropical fish, sharks, humpback whales, underwater caves, scuba divers and much more marine life from the south Pacific.
  I'm not a diver but this short video made me think maybe I should take it up.
• Goshawk
  This short video clip from the BBC needs to be seen to be believed.

And a power point presentation. Life is what you make of it *
Good photos and a message to remember when life gets a bit tough.

Mother Nature at Her Loudest

A warm welcome for the Brood II cicadas, one of the longest living insects in the world, seen only once every 17 years along the East Coast of America. When I read * Here Comes the Buzz, my mind drifted back to summer sounds when i was growing up on the edge of a park in New York. Then my mind turned to the Build Up here in the Top End and the near constant droning of the cicadas we get every year. I enjoy it along with the very relaxed style of bushwalking that suits this time of year.

Here's an ad about the Build Up I ran in a couple of bushwalking club newsletters. The special offer that was included in that ad says just what I think of this time of year.

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Looking Back

The World's Oldest Home Movie

San Francisco, 14 April 1906 This film was "lost" for many years. It was the first 35mm film ever that has come to light. It was taken by camera mounted on the front of a cable car as it`s traveling down the street. You feel as if your really there, standing at the front looking down the street, amazing piece of historic film. The number of automobiles is staggering for 1906. Absolutely amazing! The clock tower at the end of Market Street at the Embarcadero wharf is still there. .... How many "street cleaning" people were employed to pick up after the horses? Talk about going green!

This film, originally thought to be from 1905 until David Kiehn with the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum figured out exactly when it was shot. From New York trade papers announcing the film showing to the wet streets from recent heavy rainfall & shadows indicating time of year & actual weather and conditions on historical record, even when the cars were registered (he even knows who owned them and when the plates were issued!).. It was filmed only four days before the Great California Earthquake of April 18th 1906 and shipped by train to NY for processing. Amazing, but true!

No wonder there had to be laws created to regulate driving habits. This is insane. Good thing they couldn't go very fast.

This is a fascinating movie. A camera on the front of a street car 107 years ago. Look at the hats the ladies were wearing and the long dresses. Some of the cars had the steering wheels on the right side, I wonder when they standardized on the left? Sure was still a lot of horse drawn vehicles in use. Mass transit looked like the way to get around. Looks like everybody had the right of way. This is almost certainly the oldest "home movie" that you will ever see!

Early Bushwalking in Australia

The Greenaissance website celebrates bushwalking in Australia. There are lots of old newsletters and some great stories — a great site in terms of the history of bushwalking in Australia, especially in the Blue Mountains. This is a site to be browsed at your leisure whenever it takes your fancy.

History Brought to Life

The Rijksmuseum in The Netherlands had an idea: Let's bring the art to the people and then, hopefully, they will come to see more — at the art gallery.

They took one painting of Rembrandt's from 1642, 'Guards of the Night', and brought to life the characters in it, placed them in a busy mall and the rest you can see for yourself!

Australian History — Something for Everyone

If you have the time, you could spend days exploring The Discover collections at the State Library of NSW. Scroll down the page and you'll almost certainly find something of interest.

History in our Lifetime

If you are over 40, you can remember a time before mobile phones. If you are over 50, you can remember a time before personal computers. A 1976 Apple-1 computer recently * sold for US $671,400. Who would have believed that way back when it first came out.

Going back a bit further, you come to 1963. It "was the year President John F. Kennedy traveled to Berlin to proclaim "ich bin ein Berliner" and the year he gave his famous American University speech arguing that peace was "the necessary rational end of rational men." It was the year the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke from the Lincoln Memorial of a "dream deeply rooted in the American dream." In American history, 1963 was a year rich in speeches. But of all the signature speeches that year, it’s the one that has been all but forgotten that might have transformed the country the most. Fifty years ago, on Memorial Day in 1963, * Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a speech in Gettysburg, Pa., that foreshadowed profound changes that would be achieved in only 13 months and that mark us still."

This story is an American one, but there are parallels here in Australia. Sometimes it's seemingly small things that have the gratest impact.

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News About This Newsletter

Contents

Before I finish one newsletter, I'm already working on the next. I often find that I've got too many interesting things for a single newsletter. I'm also always looking for other interesting items I can add. I'm particularly interested in environmental issues, especially those which might affect bushwalking and in the technology which is shaping our lives. As I said in the last newsletter, Suggestions welcome.

Sending the newsletter

The program I use to send the newsletters is hosted on the same server that hosts our website. The newsletters are sent from walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au. This is the contact address on our website. If you would like to continue to receive these newsletters, please include this address in your "friends list" so that it isn't blocked.

For some reason, some servers block the newsletters no matter what you try and do. I send these in small groups from my normal email. It's not a simple problem. If anyone thinks they might have an idea how to overcome the problem, I'd love to hear from you.

Emails sent to walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au are currently automatically forwarded to rrwillis at internode.on.net. If you want to send an email to that address, replace the word "at" with the symbol @. I am trying not to put that address any place where it can be harvested by spam bots.

We don't want to add to the mass of email spam. If you don't want our newsletter, please send us an email and let us know. We'll then delete your name from our newsletter list.

Our email address is walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au.

Note. The program we use to send this newsletter has an automatic delete at the bottom. Clicking that link will delete you from the mailing list on the server but it will not delete you from our main database. My newsletter mailing program will not allow the auto delete to send me an email notifying me that a deletion has been made. If you want to be removed from all further mailings, please send an email to walkabout@bushwalkingholidays.com.au

If you know someone you think would enjoy this newsletter, please forward it to them. The more people who get it, the more likely it is that I'll be able to run the trips which might interest you.

Best wishes to all,
Russell Willis

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