I ran into Tim Page at the airport on Horn Island in the Torres Strait a few weeks ago on my way back from my trip to the north-eastern Torres Strait islands of Boigu and Saibai islands that I wrote about here and here. Like a lot of people I was broadly familiar with Tim’s [...]
I wandered downtown earlier today to catch up with some friends & countrymen at the Prescribed Area People's Alliance Rally outside the John Flynn Church in the middle of the Alice Springs Mall. The main theme of the Rally was to celebrate - in an ironic sense - the second anniversary of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's "Sorry" speech to the Australian Parliament.
This weekend took me back to my childhood and errant youth, when I was a member of the St. George Motorcycle Racing Club in Sydney. My Dad and I tracked all over New South Wales going to all manner of bike races, including the last of the Speedway races at the Sydney Showgrounds and beyond.
We get into incredibly remote and exciting places like the Torres Strait - very few people have been to a place where they can look across to New Guinea while standing in Australia. So they are bonuses but doing the research and making new discoveries, and learning new things about natural history and ornithology and management - all sorts of things...
Ms SCRYMGOUR: You would not mind paying that amount of money if...Ms CANNON: If it worked! Ms SCRYMGOUR:...it actually worked and provided the kind of information you needed. Ms CANNON: I would not mind paying my $1.2 million if it worked...Ms CANNON: Oh, yes. It has not been a good process.
The chopper pilot and I were coming in at 2,000 feet off the mountain. We came right up behind a Wedgetailed Eagle (Aquila audax) and the chopper pilot said "Look at this – I’ve never seen this in my life!" We were no more than 60 feet behind him and this magnificent Wedge-tailed Eagle was turning his head to check us out in the chopper behind him. An unbelievable and absolutely memorable experience that will stay with me forever.
AMRRIC is covering a wider field now in that we are trying to help out with not only facilitating vets into communities but also to help the local Shires with legislation, trying to increase awareness at the Federal government level of the problems with animal management nationally and we are also trying to increase education of the community.
It is not right that these horrible things were done when the Church was supposed to be protecting children. I think it should be investigated, we shouldn’t just let it go. There was, and still is, a real fear of the church at times.
By the way, I'm only moving into a different house because my sweetie and I want to buy one together that is truly 'ours' if you know what I mean - Roger Stolle, Cathead Music with a new twist on why you'd sell a house
Every Secret Thing is one of the best books written about life in the Northern Territory since Xavier Herbert's Capricornia - that's a pretty big call but I reckon this book is just as funny, brave and deadly serious as that grumpy old curmudgeon's masterpiece.
