The Agrinautica

   There's a particular day in English class in ninth grade I've found myself thinking about a lot lately. For whatever reason Ms Lesowitz asked a question that prompted people to express opinions on nazis. Many of my classmates took the opportunity to loudly exclaim their hatred of nazis. And yet. I remember looking around the room, and having this eerie chilling feeling that they weren't exclaiming their hatred for nazis because they thoroughly understood all that they stood for and rejected it on principal -- rather these rightious upper-middle-class American students were patriotically declaring what they knew was right and patriotic to declare, to evince hatred of the group that they knew it was right and patriotic to hate. In short, while hating nazis is the right answer, what they were doing I suddenly saw could very well be coming from a very nazi place, could be evidence of inclinations towards the very thing they were declaring to hate. That was Orange County, a very republican place, its very likely that a significant proportion of those students are in fact now "MAGA."

   Two or three years later I was in another English class, in summer school, making up for classes I'd missed during my year in Sweden. We were asked to write what we would do if we had been in Nazi Germany. I have no doubt most of my classmates wrote about what great partisans they would be. That's a noble thought, but trying to be realistic I wrote that I'd probably do what my actual ancestors did and get the heck out of there as soon as I saw which way the wind was blowing.
   Now I find myself here in Australia while America well and truly seems to be descending into fascism, and I really can't rule out there won't be some big crazy completely avoidable war involving the United States as the aggressor in the next year or two, and it feels like history is repeating itself.

   I just submitted my application for Australian citizenship.

Friday, October 28th - Departed Leeton around 10:30am and headed northeast towards Dubbo. The road was a two lane highway with a speed limit of 110 km/h with few cars on it, that went fairly straight through a savanna of eucalypts and farmland, punctuated with small freestanding mountainlets.



   After three and a half hours I arrived at the turnoff for "The Dish," and just a few kilometers later the Dish itself was looming up ahead like a giant mushroom. The Dish is huge. Wikipedia says its 64m / 210 ft but I think that's the diameter. The "stem" supporting it is clearly at least three stories tall and dwarfed by the rest. Leaving the parking lot one encounters signs admonishing one to put their phone on airplane mode or turn it off, and there are such signs throughout the public areas, because The Dish is a radio-telescope and they want to minimize interference.
   The Dish was featured in the movie The Dish, which I haven't seen, I already wanted to but now I feel I really ought to.
   There was a gift shop and small but informative museum section, a small 3D movie theatre that played short films about the telescope, an outdoor viewing area and a small cafe that served indifferent food. I was rather pleasantly surprised while gawking at the telescope to find it suddenly commence moving! Slowly the hole thing rotated around about 30 degrees with a whirring noise and then settled down quietly on its new location.
   When I went to sign the guest book I noted that the two people before me had my mom's maiden name, Ransom, which is also my middle name, but I hadn't seen who had signed it! It amused me though because that side of the family is all quite rather into astronomy and science and such (my grandfather had had a fairly big telescope, like bigger than any random civilian usually has, mounted in its own dome housing in his workshop.) So just to be cheeky I signed with my full name, but of course I'm sure they never came back and looked at it.

   From thence it was about an hour and a half onward to Dubbo. Checked in to the motel. This one is fairly nice, except that the only window is a floor to ceiling window with curtains and a solid blind that comes down from the top. I'm on the second floor (at my request), but unless I have the window completely closed everyone in the parking lot can see almost the entirety of the room which is a bit uncomfortable. But I don't like having the window completely closed like I'm in a tomb. Ah well I'm only here for the weekend.

   By a complete coincidence my team leader from the beginning of the week, big Dave, happened to be in Dubbo with his wife. He hadn't been with us for the last two days of teh week because he had to attend a wedding, which turned out to be in Dubbo (another beekeeper, "we buried him with his hive tool and smoker and a sprig of mallee flowers on the coffin"). So he and his wife invited me to dinner at their hotel's restaurant, so that was fun. Come all this way and have friends to go to dinner with!


Saturday, October 28th - In the morning I was walking along the downtown area when I came upon the Old Gaol (jail), which had been recommended as something to go see, and so I went in. It was something like 23 roo bucks admission, but the jail was very well maintained with good informative displays.
   As I was leaving I asked the girl at reception what else there is to do. Everyone always recommends the apparently big zoo here with big open areas you can drive or even walk through with animals, but I gather its African savanna animals that are the big focus and draw here and well I've seen them in their natural environment plenty of times, I didn't come to Dubbo to see what I can see in Africa.
   The girl recommended a Royal Flying Doctors Service museum which sounded good. When I got back to my room I looked up the caves I also wanted to go to, and I could make it to them if I left just then but with only a few minutes to spare for the next tour so that was chancy. So I booked at 2pm tour and proceeded to the Royal Flying Doctors Service museum.



   Because Australia has a vast vast expanse of sparsely populated area, many people live very very far from any medical services. Therefore in 1928 the Royal Flying Doctor's Service was inaugurated, they operate small medivac equipped planes with doctors and flight nurses staged at currently 23 bases operating 67 aircraft. The museum (also $23) had lots of display screens like a high tech control center, displaying various information or videos or with interactive displays on them. Altogether it was very well put together.

   And suddenly if I left just then I'd only get to the caves 13 minutes before the new tour time! I rushed out the door and leapt into the car. Scrupulously followed the speed limits of course because Australia is aswarm with hidden speeding radars. I'm very nervous because just coming in to Wellington, right where the speed limit went from 80 to 60 I looked up and saw one of the radar cars and I'm not sure if I'd entirely slowed down in time yet. They're devilish like that.



   The Wellington Caves are a complex of approximately a lot of caves in the vicinity of extensive limestone geology. As our tour group of about half a dozen of us walked up from the main building I marveled at the number of large holes in the ground, now covered with gratings, that just disappeared into the darkness below. A startled kangaroo bounded off and I wondered how they avoid accidentally just jumping right in to a huge hole in the ground.
   But apparently they don't entirely avoid that, and some of the first fossils of extinct Australian megafauna have been found here. Notably the Diprotodon, giant goannas, giant kangaroos, and marsupial lions. And I'm not makign any of those up!
   The first cave tour was the "Gaden Cave" that had a lot of interesting crystals and shapes of stalagtites, including one referred to as "cave bacon." Our guide for this tour was a nice youngish fellow who when he learned I was a beekeeper had lots of questions about bees.
   The second tour I signed up for started right after that one finished, it was the bigger "Cathedral Cave" and the group was much bigger. The tourguide of this group was a woman with the demeanor of generic overbearing primary school teacher. Cheerfully calling out fun facts but I feel like she was enjoying hearing her own voice more than anything else. But anyway the cave was fun, this one was more extensive and the centrepiece of it was a beautiful flow of crystals down from the ceiling of a very large chamber.
   Nearly everyone else on both tours were family groups but there was one fellow who seemed to be by himself, a fellow of his late twenties or so of sub-saharan-african appearance, though my assumption would always be that any such person is just a normal Australian even so. But because he was by himself I tried to strike up a conversation with him in the cave but he just laughed at my comment, but I found myself exiting next to him and said something again, this time he responded and I found he had a thick accent, so I asked him where he was from. Turns out he was from South Africa, had been here two months now, was on a working visa, is a veterinarian.



   Returning home I got a scare from that radar car again. I really hope I didn't get any tickets. I try really really hard not to speed at all here but they try really really hard to catch you in a slip up because it's seen as good revenue generating for the authorities.



Sunday, October 29th - Today I drove to the town of Nyngan about an hour and a half away solely because it's the closest town that seems to be indisputably in "the Outback" and I've never in ten years now of roving Australia been to the Outback.
   The drive was to the northwest, and the landscape was very flat. At first there were a lot of trees, then there were fewer trees but it was still more a savanna verging on woodland than plains. A number of roadkill kangaroos on the road, reminding me to be on the constant lookout for live ones, though they're usually only active at dusk. Did see a family of emus running across the road just ahead. Not very many cars on the road.
   Nyngan was a small town but it seemed to have a steady stream of other tourists (by which I mean there was usually one or two other cars at any given time) arriving at the central square. Families taking photos with the "big bogan" statue. I went to the museum which was very extensive and had a lot of stuff from the previous 140 years of the town in the old train station. Though it wasn't really in a coherent chronological order. I took a picture of the "Big Bogan" myself, dipped a toe in the nearby Bogan River and crossed the bridge to the other side in case anyone might in the future say the Outback begins across the Bogan or something. Found a "Welcome to the Outback" sign and took a selfie in front of it, and headed back to Dubbo.



   Looking for somewhere to eat today I noticed a place that had a way higher rating on google than anywhere else, at 4.7. It was this cute little Italian place with a chic open air eating area wih red brick decor, strings of lights (though I was there at 5pm and it was still bright as afternoon out), and a burbling fountain. I was the only one there when I arrived in fact but I'd imagine it gets pretty happening later in the evenings, it seems like a really nice place. Had some delicious pasta. So if you find yourself in Dubbo I recommend you eat at "Down the Lane"

   Tomorrow I'm off again, to Kempsey on the coast, about a seven hour drive from here!

   On September 19th they declared the Great Bug War to be lost. The invasive varroa mite, which will fundamentally change the practice of beekeeping and the whole economic equation of it here, was declared un-eradicatable. The mite only travels about 6km a year on its own but commercial beekeepers are very migratory, always chasing the flow. There were no-movement zones and significant rules about the mite checks one must do before moving even outside the zones, but widespread noncompliance and rule-flouting by beekeepers is widely touted as the cause of the eradication efforts failing. And I don't mean that these rules were disapproved by beekeepers, the overwhelming majority were in favor, probably even the people that broke them as far as their application to everyone but themselves. It was selfishness and greed that caused the effort to fail. Though I also think the biosecurity departments are a bit to blame because as far as I know they've never prosecuted anyone for breaking any rules, they like to be the good guys all around but if they'd come down like a load of bricks on anyone who broke the rules there would have been much more rigorous compliance.

   So it is perhaps suitably quixotic that now that the war is lost, I will be deploying into the front lines. They still need to do monitoring of where the mites are, how intensely they're spreading, etc, so I've been hired on to the emergency management teams operated by the New South Wales Department of Primary Industries (NSW DPI). The teams have been operating for awhile but my joining them has been delayed by my travels.

   Tomorrow (Monday, Sept 25th) I'll take the train 7.5 hours up to the nearest NSW DPI office in Albury, where they'll apparently have a rental car for me and I'll drive from there 5 hours to the town of Euston on the border between Victoria and NSW. This is right in the almonds, the big concern area for a super spreader event, and area of the most recent very concerning detections.

   This past Saturday my dear friend Billie came up to visit. She used to live in this area but since moving several hours East she hasn't been out this way in years -- usually I'm going over there to visit. But she was going to attend the airshow that's in this general area (well that's still an hour east of me) on Sunday she decided to come visit me. We decided to go visit some waterfalls.
   She arrived at 0800, and I think we talked over coffee for at least an hour before heading out. Then our first stop was the magic book shed in the next little hamlet over -- it literally just looks like a nondescript shed but has a "BOOK SALE" sign out by the street and when you go in it's densely packed with shelves of books! I bought a Bill Bryson book (A Walk in the Woods) and Billie bought three books -- we're both big fans of books. (:
   As for waterfalls, I thought I'd been to all the publicly accessible waterfalls but had more recently noticed one I hadn't been to -- "Sabine Falls," so we headed that way. To get there we a fair bit down a road I hadn't been down before deep into the Otway forest. The trail itself is official so it was well maintained, but because it's one of the lesser known waterfalls we didn't see anyone else there and it seemed much less trafficked, so that was nice. It was about a kilometer through thick foliage to get there. At the end there was a little viewing platform looking across across a foliage filled gorge to the waterfall. It was hard to get a good picture of the waterfall from there so here's the picture from my "Waterfalls of the Otways" book. It's apparently one of the tallest in the Otways.

   After we got back to my car we wanted to find another waterfall from the book, which has the details of 226 local waterfalls in it ... but the damn book, while it does have maps in it, it doesn't have the waterfalls MARKED on the map. It just has a generic regional map. And the waterfalls have their GPS coordinates (in a kind of weird half decimal notation without punctuation (that is without the degree symbol or the decimal dot) so it was hard to figure out how to input even one waterfall into the phone to find its location and not really feasible to figure out which waterfalls were where from leafing through it. But by looking at a different waterfall brochure I had (I've got all the waterfall stuff!) we determined there was another waterfall we hadn't been to not too far away, just off the Great Ocean Road (the GOR).

   So we drove down to the GOR and to the carpark for this other waterfall (Carisbrook Falls). The only other vehicle in the parking area was a van of the type people living the #vanlife live in, and moments after we parked a young man climbed out of the back pulling his shirt on followed by a young woman fixing her hair ... we suspect we interrupted their sexytime. It was a very short walk to this waterfall, during which Billie pointed out several interesting things about plants that I've already forgotten. Like Sabine Falls, this one also one couldnt' get very close, here's the picture I took from the viewing platform.
   Then we crossed the road and poked around the tidepools a bit before continuing on.

   We drove to the town of Apollo Bay and had a light lunch of prawns and scallops at a fish and chips place (actually the "fisherman's co-op" just by the marina). The view from here was really nice:



   The guy sitting next to us overhearing us talking about various trips we've either taken across Australia or want to take, joined our conversation with some recommendations of his own. He apparently has a youtube channel about his sailing adventures.

   From there we headed to a waterfall that we both actually had been to but not in a few years -- Marriner's Falls. My big book and all online sources reported it as closed, but we both had been there after the alleged date it was closed so were confident we could get in. I had stumbled upon it rather by accident I think and just stepped over the gate at the time.
   It was at the back end of the valley Apollo Bay is located in, at the end of the road. Even though it's been closed since 2011, the carpark is still maintained. One can no longer simply step over the gate, there's a tall fence, but we found one just needed to cross teh river (I kept my feet dry stepping across stepping stones, Billie just sloshed through it), and there was a decent trail on the far side. The trail was obviously not maintained by the Parks Department, there were fallen logs one had to step over or crawl under and blackberry brambles closing in on the trail enough to pluck at passersby -- but someone was obviously maintianing the trail enough that there WAS a trail through the blackberries. We suspect the landowner just beside the trailhead, who appears to host people in yurts on his paddock, is probably happy to keep the trail maintained as his private trail due to it being officially closed. Anyway the fact that some bushwacking was required made the journey all the more fun.
   Like all the best of these waterfall trails it led through a narrow gorge full of moss and ferns. The picture at the top of this entry is Billie during one of several river crossings. When we finally got to the waterfall, it was gorgeous -- a good flow of water coming down a solid cliff face like a wall, with moss and ferns on it. The waterfall fell into a pool of crystal clear cool water -- we took off our shoes and stood in it, it was very zenful and serene.



   By this point it was around 7pm, fortunately it's still light out late and it was still pretty well lit but we realized we'd have to hurry to get food before most kitchens closed at 8. So we hurried back out of there. It was after 8:00 by the time we got back into Apollo Bay but fortunately the pub there keeps its kitchen open till 8:30. It was a lovely evening and we sat in the outdoor area looking out at the rising moon:



   Unfortunately we still had to take the curvy road up through the forested mountains in the full dark of night, and me with only one working headlight. But that went without incident -- I did actually see a koala starting to cross the road from the other side, but there was nothing for it but to wish the fella the best of luck.

   Fortunately my housemate Trent had moved out literally the day before, so I had a guestroom for Billie. She departed at 6am for the airshow and I spent Sunday doing beekeeping stuff, and trying to recover my voice from all teh talking I'd done on Saturday! The end.

   This upcoming Saturday I'll be on a major Melbourne radio station garden show (talking about bees obviously), and Wednesday next week I'm presenting at a Melbourne beekeeping club meeting. That's all the latest!

   Legends of the Gunai People tell of a fearsome monster, like a giant man made of stone. Boomerangs and spears merely bounced off of him, and he'd prowl around at night and drag unwary travelers or children who wandered off away to its den to devour them. It sounds fearsome, though the only representation of the manxome foe google image search brings up is this decidedly dorky 1980s-eque monster.

   Meanwhile, this past Friday (the 17th), my parents and I woke up in a surprisingly decent motel in the town of Traralgon, and decided to head out for the den of the Nargun!



   Our route east took us first on the Princes Highway (which I note here is no longer the M1 but A1), which incidentally is the same highway that passes just close enough (but not too close) to my own village much further west. Then we headed onto smaller country roads and headed up north. As you can see on the map above there's a broad plain in this area that is I think one can say the heartland of Eastern Gippsland. I'm not sure I would have known how to get around this area without the ever trusty GPS but most of the small towns we passed through and other landmarks I recognized as having previously been to with my good friend Billie. She's from the town of Maffra you can see in the middle of the area in the above map.

   At the Den of Nargun, one is driving on a country road amid private paddocks and then quite suddenly one enters state forest and comes to a parking area with picnic benches. There was only one other car there. It was already rather warm (80?) and still only early in the day. There's informational signs mentioning the traditional beliefs about the Nargun. Among the Gunai People, we learn, the Den of Nargun was a sacred place and only women could go there, and, according to the sign, to this day men of Gunai descent respect that tradition and don't visit the site. That made me feel mildly guilty but if they really objected I suppose they'd have had the site closed down, as has happened with some other sacred sites (notably the famous Ayers Rock Uluru). Though their wishes aren't always exactly perfectly respected. Anyway here we were.



   From the picnic area one proceeds down a trail which very shortly is making a very steep descent into a narrow canyon. Down at the base one suddenly finds oneself amid a shady forest in which everything seems to be covered in moss or ferns (picture from previous visit). This is a relatively unique ecological refuge of relict plant biology from Gondwanaland the ancient south-hemisphere supercontinent. While down there we encountered the one other visitor, a bearded man by himself who was friendly, he was just about to start heading back up the canyon side when we came down.



   It's only a short walk up the valley to where the Den is. As we were walking I heard noises across the creek on the far side of the narrow canyon and spotted what looked like a large goanna (monitor lizard), I'd say it was at least three feet long. An informational sign said there were water dragons in the area so I suppose it was that. We saw (presumably the same lizard?) on the way back again as well.

   The Den of Nargun itself is a cave under a waterfall by a large pool. The waterfall was only barely flowing but the pond was as full as ever and cool and placid. I kicked off my flip flops and waded out into it, it was nice and refreshing.


Took this picture looking back towards my parents. Here's a picture from a previous visit looking from their location towards the waterfall.

   After enjoying the cool serenity of the Nargun Den Pool for a bit, we headed back out and up to the car. We though about eating as it was getting towards lunch time but decided to continue on to our next destination on the assumption it might be cooler there, as the day was already getting a bit warm.

   As we drove from there to our next destination, the Raymond Island ferry, we noted that now the outside temperature was getting up toward the mid 90s. Fortunately the AC in the car worked fine. "This is odd," dad pointed out looking at the weather app, "it says there will be thunder tonight but '0% chance of rain'."

   Arrived at the unfortunately named town of Paynesville and found there were picnic tables right on the shoreline. So we had our lunch there (cheese sandwiches as usual) and it was nice and not too hot. Walked to the ferry and realized I've been here too before, when I went boating with Billie and her friend the chancellor we boarded the boat here just beside where the ferry comes across.
   This is a small ferry that only holds about a dozen cars, and doesn't charge pedestrians or bicyclists. It goes back and forth across a (50 meter?) channel pulled by a chain (or mabye it pulls the chain? anyway its on a chain rather than using a propeller like a normal boat).



   So we ferried across to do the famous "koala walk" on Raymond Island. Walking around just among the several blocks nearest the ferry stop, even though there's as many houses as any old suburb, there's enough trees that it feels like a forest, and we saw maybe between 6-12 koalas sleeping in trees. For me the highlight though was actually an echidna we found snuffling along someone's front lawn. The creature, like a giant hedgehog with a cute proboscus-like nose, evidentally accustomed to tourists, hid its face for about a minute when we first approached and then got over it and jsut went about its business letting us get within feet of it taking picture. Neat.



   After this we took the ferry back to Paynesville, had ice cream, and proceeded on the two hour drive to our destination for this evening, an Airbnb in the town of Marlo (which I'd never heard of) on the coast two hours drive to the east, at the mouth of the Snowy River. After we'd passed the nearby town of Bairnsdale we were for the first time in new territory to me! I'd only been further east in Victoria briefly, when we went by boat to the town of Metung on the previously mentioned boating adventure, but soon we were past that town too!
   I definitely noticed that east of Lakes Entrance on the eastern side of the Gippsland Lakes (this giant lagoon), the populated part of Victoria seems to have ended. There's still a few towns out there but its not like Gippsland west of here with large swaths of farmland. It was beautiful country of forests and low intensity pasture land.

   Arrived at our bnb in the town of Marlo. This not a single residence like most Bnbs we've stayed in but a four unit "retreat" that was really nice. There was a pool and bbq area and almost uniquely for anywhere I've ever stayed I think, the other guests (families with kids) were very friendly and acted like we were all there together. It was a really nice place, would definitely recommend it for anyone headed that direction. The owners whom we met later were also really nice.



   Walked to the Marlo pub (called the Marlo Hotel of course). We'd called ahead to make a reservation even though it seemed like a small town, but the day before the first place we'd tried to go to, on a random Thursday in Traralgon was all reservationed up. Arriving at the Marlo pub and seeing all the cars parked out front I began to be nervous that there wouldn't be room (actually, writing this nearly a week later now, I remember being worried, but I thought I called in a reservation. Maybe I didn't? who knows). Anyway it was packed but it was a big place and I found us seats around a barrel by the rail on the edge of the back veranda, overlooking a lawn (with one random electric car charging station that was in use!), and beyond it the river, and forest covered hills on the far side.
   I held down this seat while my parents stood in line to order the food. I had identified a lamb tangine on the menu I thought looked really good and I think had re-stated my desire for that to my mom as she went to stand in line. Seeing a specials board I hadn't seen before I commented "oh they have a cubano sandwich" just as an observation. When my parents had ordered and joined me I learned dad had thought I had changed my mind and asked for a cubano sandwich. I actually don't terribly much like sandwiches in general and was getting a bit tired of the cheese sandwiches we were always having for lunch and had NOT intended to order a cubano sandwich so I was actually very disappointed by this but whats done is done so I did my best to act like it wasn't a big deal though I felt pretty disappointed. As luck would have it, when the sandwich came it was actually absolutely delicious. Altogether the pub seemed to have really good food and a really good atmosphere. Definitely recommend.



   As we were eating, we had a good view of where the sun was setting behind the hills across the river. Dark thunderheads were gathering in that direction and so the sunset was a beautiful combination of the golden glow of the sun breaking through and illuminating some clouds while around it the dark purple thunderheads loomed dramatically. As we finished our dinner there were smoe flickers of lightning over there, that ramped up to fairly constant flickers of lightning and soon many people were at the rail watching the show.
   After dinner it was a short walk across the lawn to some steps that lead down a short tree-covered slope to the road along the waterfront. It was still nice and warm, a lovely summer evening, and just down here where we now were on the waterfront (of the river) there was a narrow pier sticking out into the river and about half a dozen kids around 12ish were out there in their bathing suits enjoying jumping into the river. I reflected it was the kind of classic childhood moment they'll probably cherish in their memories forever (or perhaps one of many memories of doing so to be remembered in aggregate). The sun is setting around 8:30pm-ish around here these days and the sun was just setting. We watched the flickering horizon for awhile. Further down the river it looked like there were some adults out swimming or chilling in the water. As I said it was a warm summer evening.



   We walked back to our hotel. The other guests were still hanging out in the bbq area. Presently the lightning was all around us and we went out and watched for awhile as flashes lit up the sky all around us. Oddly there was hardly any sound of thunder, and only there merest smattering of rain.

   Geoff Downwad (72) got a shocking surprise this month while mowing the central park lawn. He's mowed the central park lawn whenever it needed it for at least fifteen years now, without incident, but this time was different. On Monday, March 7th, just after five PM, he had just begun when, driving his ride on mower under one of the bottlebrush trees, and watching the grass he was mowing not, unfortunately, the tree he was driving under, he practically hit a hanging beehive with his face!
   He was able to drive the mower to the edge of the park while receiving twenty to thirty stings from his angry pursuers. After shaking off all the bees he walked directly to the health clinic [local readers will be aware that the health clinic is literally across the street] to get checked out. Though it was after five, Dr Jared was still there and was able to immediately examine Geoff, put him on some of the monitoring equipment, and give him some antihistimines. Though Geoff initially felt alright, after a few minutes he started to feel faint, so Jared gave him an injection of adrenaline, which Geoff described as “not the most comfortable experience I’ve had Kris, I’ll tell you that!”
   Dr Jared felt Geoff should be monitored overnight, and by coincidence an ambulance happened to be right there after having brought up a patient from Apollo Bay for transfer onward to Geelong, so Geoff, now feeling pretty decent, was taken to the Geelong hospital in the ambulance, and was home the next day by lunch, feeling fine.
   Shortly after the incident, Geoff's grandchildren Michael (8) and Sienna (12) went down to the park to find the bees with their father Joe Habib.
   “I arrived and the mower was just parked, and there was a zigzag where he had cut, obviously they were chasing him” Joe reports.
   “I can’t believe how big it was!” Michael exclaimed about the bee colony.
   “It was massive, but you couldn’t see it very well because they were hidden so well in the tree” Sienna explains.

   I myself was driving home that day around 6pm, after another long day of beekeeping, on the final stretch of the Cape Otway highway, looking forward to maybe taking a nap on the couch when I got home, when my friend Joe Habib called me. His father-in-law had been attacked by bees in the park and sent to the hospital in an ambulance!? Yes of course I'd proceed directly to the park.
   I soon found myself looking at a very impressively large “exposed colony” of honeybees – that is to say, rather than in an enclosed space they had built their honeycombs hanging from a branch with only the leaves and branches as covering. I estimate by the size that it must have been there for months, and the fact that it went unnoticed is a testament to the docility of these bees – numerous Sunday markets would have happened right around them without anyone knowing there was a colony of bees there. It wasn't until Geoff Downard practically hit them with his face that they had been discovered. However, once discovered, we couldn't let the colony remain in this potentially dangerous place.
   “Do you think we should remove it now? ...or some other day?” Joe asked me. I still wanted to take a nap, I'd just wanted to go home, but I looked at the sky –overcast– and the temperature –cool–, the hour and a half or so of remaining daylight, these were actually perfect conditions to remove the colony. “Let's do it now” I said with a sigh.
   I didn’t have my beekeeping equipment with me but after a visit to my place and Joe’s we between us got together everything we’d need, including the nice “bee vacuum” Joe had made to capture bees live. We drove his white Sprinter van up to the tree so Michael and Sienna could sit in the cab and watch us and got right to work. While Joe vacuumed bees from the outside I carefully sliced off an outer layer of comb and carefully removed it while he vacuumed the bees thus exposed. The bees were docile enough that I was able to take my gloves off to take the accompanying picture. Michael and Sienna described watching the bee removal as “pretty cool” and “interesting,” and Sienna got a 27 minute video (“it took longer but I stopped and started the video a few times”) of the whole operation.
   It was very nearly dark by the time we finished. We quickly put the equipment in the back of the van and then discovered a problem we hadn’t anticipated … the kids wouldn’t let us into the cab of the van because we were covered in bees! Eventually after we got them all off of us and turned around several times so they could see to their satisfaction that we weren’t covered in bees they allowed us to get in. For added protection they had managed to pull a spare bee suit over them both. We only had to drive a short distance to the nearest suitable place to reinstall these bees (they needed to be moved far enough that they couldn’t fly “home” though so locations within town were out), next to the hives I already have behind Ripplevale. We unloaded in the dark by the headlights, once again had to remove bees and turn around until the kids approved, and we were finally able to return home.
   The kids didn’t get any stings, Joe got one sting on the ankle (“and I swelled up more than Geoff!”). Geoff got off so well due to his immediate medical attention, I for one have never heard of a bee attack in which someone got such immediate medical attention!
   I asked Michael if he was going to remove the next colony himself, he laughed and said “nah, but I’m going to be a bee man when I’m older!”
   Geoff is fine now with no lingering animosity towards bees, and everyone lived happily ever after.

   I was planning on writing the sequel to last entry the next day but gosh it's been a busy week and I've either been busy or exhausted from being busy every evening.

   Anyway so continuing from where I left off, I was hanging out with friends in the mountains of east central victoria (kind of like how in California we consider San Franscisco to be either about the center or even northern "northern california" when it's really only half way up, here in Victoria when people talk about "Central Victoria" they are usually referring to an area around the center of western victoria. Really Melbourne itself is about the center of the state (or north of melbourne), but the east side of the state seems to be generally disregarded the way we disregard northern northern California).

   Last Sunday the plan was to just four-wheel-drive down to an abandoned steel waterwheel way out in the bush but.. only two of us would make it that far in the end ::the narrator says in an overly dramatic tone::

   First we visited the dam site again because the two friends who had joined us halfway through the day before, councilwoman Kerstin and her boyfriend Dan, hadn't seen it yet. After this Billie's twin Lek, and Sel, departed on an important mission to console a friend who'd just been dumped by her deadbeat boyfriend. The remaining four of us proceeded up the dirt roads and fire roads to the east of the reservoir lake.
   Shortly after we turned off the main dirt access road onto a slightly more four-wheel-drivey road, we crossed a patch of thick mud Kersten and Dan's car became stuck in (wish I could remember what kind of car it was, which might inform the reader as to how well it could have been expected to handle adverse conditions, but I don't recall becaues everything about cars make me snoooore. Billie's car, however, is named Surf, because it's apparently a Hilux Surf which is the Australian name of the Toyota 4Runner, if it interests any of you to know these things). Quickly noticing they were no longer right behind us Billie somehow pulled a U-ie and returned to the scene, where we found them stuck in the mud. They were able to reverse out of it relatively quickly and it was decided that we'd all get in Billie's car, so the other car was parked at a convenient wide place just near there and then...and headed
   ...Billie's car wouldnt' start. She'd had some trouble with the (alternator? the battery not charging while driving as it should) of late. The timing and location of this problem coming up was really remarkably ill-chosen. We had jumper cables and at any of the other many times we'd stopped and started throughout the last few days we'd have had another vehicle to jump it but now we were quite pointedly on the wrong side of a mud puddle the other car couldn't cross!



   Fortunately after a little fiddling we got Billie's car started, and Kerstin and Dan and their two dogs (a greyhound and one of those small curly haired dogs that looks like some kind of teddy bear crossed with a dog.) got in and we proceeded. However, now in an unfamiliar car on a rocky ride sometimes proceeding down slopes at a precarious angle the greyhound was breathing heavily enough that Dan thought it was stressing out and about to hyperventilate or something. So they all got out and Billie and I proceeded down the track a further few hundred meters to see if it got any better, but it didn't, so we returned, re-collected them, and returned from whence we came, back across the mud puddle, and then bid adieu to them and they parted company with us.


   From there Billie and I proceeded up the main gravel road to the nearby summit of Mt Useful, upon which stood a fire tour, some communications antenna, and a whooole lot of guys with mullets and southern cross tattoos, wearing plaid jackets and shorts standing beside their four wheel drives drinking beer. Like literally 80-90% of them had mullets. There was a magnifiscent view from here looking south into the lowlands.



   From there, having studied the map a bit more, we determined that there was another route to get to the steel waterwheel (not that Billie's hilux couldn't have made it down the other track without a hyperventilating greyhound, though her truck is not currently in tip top shape, but mostly I think we had become a bit demoralized with the first track we attempted after having to abandon it halfway so taking a different route was at least a change of scenery.
   This new route proved do-able, the dirt track following along the steep side of the river valley. And it always amazes me that 4x4s going opposite directions somehow manage to pass eachother on these roads. One such vehicle that came past us happened to be some of Billie's former coworkers with DWELP (Bureau of Land Managment equivalent). They gave us permission to bypass the "trail closed" tape they'd just put across the trail to the waterwheel, advising us to just not lean against the bridge rail.
   Shortly later we came to the trailhead. There was space to park a few cars by the river, though we were the only one, and sure enough yellow caution tape blocking off the start of the trail at a footbridge across the river which made out of one solid log. We ducked under the caution tape and didn't test the structural integrity of the hand rails.



   Personally I much prefer hiking over 4x4ing and it was really great. It was a nice sunny day, the birds were chirping, flowering plants were all around us. As we hiked we reminded eachother several times that this was prime snake weather and season, and sure enough, by and by "snake!" Bille exclaimed, holding up her hand for me to stop. There across the trail in front of us was a large snakeB that she identified as a tiger snake, which is fairly venomous.
   Without further incident we reached the steel waterwheel, seemingly completely by itself in the wilderness, though after some searching I found evidence of a building foundation nearby. I climbed up into the waterwheel and Billie took a photo of me there that I think would have been a cool photo.... but her phone was accidentally smashed at work the next day and she hadn't sent it to me yet.


And I took a photo of the informational sign because I rightly foresaw that this same information wouldn't be as readily available on the computer internets

   From there we proceeded west along the 4x4 tracks, which included some crossings of severel-foot-deep rivers but Billie's truck had them well in hand. Just past one river crossing, quickly climbing again, I saw this perfect photo opportunity. Well it would have been better if half the photo wasn't in shadow but hey one can't help that. But 4x4s camped in a remote river bend, insanely steep 4x4 track running up the mountain behind them, this is the Australian offroading dream:



   From there we proceeded to Billie's place, ate the rest of the venison burrito/taco fixins, and I headed off, it being now around maybe 6pm? Which was way too late to catch the last ferry so I had to drive right through the dark heart of Melbourne which was as stressful as I expected. I think you can maybe get right through the city by taking a tollroad but I'm too cheap for that (despite that I'll pay $72 to avoid the whole thing via ferry, but tollroads are bougousie tools of the capitalist pigdogs! ..plus also I haven't the faintest idea how you actually pay the toll since there aren't toll booths and its deducted straight from your soul or something), but without taking tollroads one has to zigzag through surface streets with cars opening their doors along the curb edge (or "kerb" edge as these spelling maniacs spell it), nightmare inducing "J-turns" in the inner lanes, trams, and all kinds of other mischief. I took two wrong turns due to incomprehensible signage, may have been going wrong way in a major street for a moment, I'm not sure it was dark and terrifying, but anyway eventually survived the city to come out the other side and continue home, the end.

   Things are now the worst they've ever been here in Australia. I quite rather I told you so about this facepalmably preventable circumstanes in light of there being a vaccine and all. The current outbreak is almost entirely in the state of New South Wales, which is Australia's most populous state (and 65% of its population live in Sydnay).



   The political leader ("Premier") of NSW, "Gladys" Bariunpronouncable, has spent most of the last year saying the state I live in, Victoria, was too heavy handed in its lockdowns, and in this anti-lockdown spirit she was then far too slow to put into effect meaningful lockdowns to stop this outbreak.



   As you can see in the above chart, we had the biggest previous outbreak in Australia but we turned it right around with heavy lockdowns, I really don't think this new outbreak is going to reverse course the same way since I think they let it get too bad there before doing anything about it. As you can see we have a very small bump here, almost entirely from incursions from NSW (though I think they've closed the border but enough people still have excuses to come through that they keep bringing cases in). Easlier in the week I think Melbourne went into lockdown (where 70% of this state's population live) but the rest of the state ("regional" victoria) was just under the usual mask mandates.
   As of Saturday morning we (my friends) were expecting regional to go into lockdown at midnight, and thus the lads were discussing doing something like going bowling while they still could, though it being for once a nice day where I felt I could go outside without dying of cold, I was intent to do some beekeepinh. But then at around 11am there was apparently a "pressie," (press conference) in which it was announced the whole state would go into lockdown in just two hours (!!). I wasn't watching but this was suddenly being commented on everywhere. I had already been planning on going to the hardware and some other stores so I headed out to do that before they closed.
   I live about an hour from town so it was just shy of an hour till lockdown when I got off the highway into town and immediately I saw something bizarre -- traffic was backed up right into that roundabout, which never even comes close to happening.



   While stuck in this traffic I sent a voice message to the standing facebook chat-group of my friends exclaiming about the traffic, and one of them happened to take and send a screenshot of the traffic which is convenient now for a visual aid. I had just come up the M1 "Princes Highway" coming up from the south there and gotten on to what is labeled as "Waurn Ponds Dr" but is actually still sign posted under its old name as the A10 "Princes Highway" (as in you get off the Princes Highway onto Princes Highway, which confused the hell out of me the first time I tried to go into town, and caused me to accidentally get right back on the M1 highway instead of going into town). I quickly abandoned all hope of going to the shops because that appeared to be where all the cars were going -- inbound into the city other than turn lanes into the shopping center were still free, but I kept looking nervously at the outbound lane thinking "how am I going to get back out of the city???" -- if you look at the above map and keep in mind we drive on the left, you'll note the traffic on the outbound side there. I ended up hanging a right past hte shopping center there and was able to proceed out the east side of town, but I was just amazed and flabbergasted by the several-kilometers worth of completely backed up traffic.
   Obviously with the two hours lockdown notice everyone in town had thought ot rush to the town's biggest shopping center ... no doubt to completely ransack the toilet paper (or "bog roll" as they amusingly informally call it).


   Anyway, so yeah now we're in heavy lockdown ... which barely effects me really. Only allowed out of the house for permitted reasons, but essential work is one of them and as an agriculture ("primary production") worker I'm essential, but I do have to carry a work permit with me at all times (which I issue myself, though John Edmonds the other beekeeper I've been working for half time will presumably also issue me one).

   In other news I got my second vaccination dose two weeks ago or so, so there's that.

   I really don't know when this lockdown will ease -- I frankly don't think they'll get the lid back on this outbreak, I think it's already too out of control in NSW. Up until now Australia did not have continous community transmission, just a steady flow of people coming in from abroad and sitting in quarantine with it, and occasional outbreaks from things like taxi drivers who had driven quarantinees or air crews, which were quickly got under control. But I think now it's gone out into the community to an extent that won't be stamped out.

   And vaccine hesitency is, I think, even stronger here that America even. Big protests today in Melbourne and Sydney about the lockdowns, like god forbid the government even try to stamp down on this lethal plague...

   We have a bit of a rodent plague here right now. It's not as bad down here as it is in New South Wales but still, I seem to have at least one mouse living in every room. They're always darting between furniture out of the corner of my eye, I hear them chewing on things all night and lie there hoping they're not in the act of ruining something, and in the morning I find their poop all over the table and counters. I realize now what a "bread box" is actually for -- and not having one I've taken to storing my bread in the microwave.

   Legendary cat Cato doesn't actually live with me unfortunately, he lives at work. Every now and then I glance outside and see the neighbor cat Bailey walking by, and throw open the door calling out to him "Bailey come patrol for mice!" And, lo, he immediately changes direction and walks right in, and then he proceeds to walk the perimeter of my house sniffing around at all the nooks mice could be in. As he passes the kitchen I'll open the undersink cabinets and he'll walk in and sniff about and then come out. Once he's done a thorough inspection he proceeds to the door to be let out. He does this so purposefully it's like he's a pest control professional just doing a routine call, and it really makes me think about how really this is exactly why we domesticated cats in the first place and maybe it's deeply ingrained in their instincts as essentially a job.

   This morning after hearing particularly insistent gnawing in the kitchen I traced it to a box of pasta I hadn't known was there (it was among some things my Russian friend had given me before evacuating last year), I quickly tried to close the box to trap the mouse but it successfully lept out.
   Ereyesterday I heard rustling from the small box I put recycling in in the kitchen. I also went to quickly pick up the box but much to my alarm I fekt something strugging against the hand I'd placed under the box -- it had been under the box. I whipped my hand away doublequick because I'm not keen at all to get infected with something by a mouse bite.

   I've been lucky on occasion though, I did successfully catch one in a box, and in a stroke of remarkable luck (good luck for me, particulary bad luck for the mouse), I heard rustling in a box of crackers, I quickly picked it up but the mouse lept out. flying through the air right into a pint glass half full of water, from which it was unable to extricate itself.

   Now many people might find this very convenient indeed, since drowning is a common method of killing mice, but it feels a bit barbaric to me. I'm actually a big softy in fact, or maybe I can blame it on my vague pseudo-buddhist philisophies, I feel I cannot kill anything _directly_, but I can feed things to other things because the circle of life. I've attempted to feed mice to Cato in the past and have wished I had a snake just to feed the mice to it (though apparently feeding live mice to snakes is illegal in Australia, which.. comeon people, in nature things eat eachother, you can't deny the cycle of life!). My current preferred method of disposing of mice is to simply place them in the greenwaste bin. If it's mostly full of stuff I dont' worry too much, but currently it's mostly empty and there's two mice living in there, and now I find myself looking around for some past-its-prime fruit or vegetables to throw out to feed the mice in the Greenwaste Gulag. It may well be that they will be crushed by a trash compactor in the greenwaste truck but, well, that's still easier on my concience than if I offed them myself.

   16 days until catastrophic visa failure.


   I feel like people here went through about three stages so far as far as general feelings about lockdown. In Stage 1 everyone was terrified, it was new and crazy and scary. In stage 2, after about a month people started geting tired of the masks and restrictions. They eagerly looked forwar to this being over. They talked about it being over constantly. Then they eased up restrictions, too soon as it turns out, and we got the second bigger surge. Now we're in a third stage, acceptance. Not of death like certain American politicians, but that this is not going away. We automatically put on masks before we go out in public, we don't notice everyone else wearing masks. After shopping for half an hour in the grocery store the other day I asked myself "is everyone still wearing masks?" and I had to look around, and, yes, everyone was wearing masks. But It hadn't even registered until I thought to look. Books and movies that show pre-pandemic life of people casually mingling in public seems cringingly weird now.
   The local grocery store still has signs on smoe shelves that say rationing of certain products is still en effect, which still strikes me as a bit surreal.

   Today I had to drive to Melbourne again to deliver some honey. Melbourne is still a locked-down area, which means I need a travel permit issued by my employer to get through the checkpoints back out of Melbourne, or face a $6,000 fine. Because of the nature of my job, I can issue myself the permit, so I downloaded the template from the government website, filled in the requisite information, and signed it twice, as the employer and employee. But then, a bit worried that the police/military manning the checkpoint would be suspicious of my self-signature, I printed a second honey invoice for the receiver to sign, so I'd have a signed delivery receipt to prove I'd just delivered honey. And then for added measure I tossed my fire brigade hat in the passenger seat so the authorities might look on me more favorably.

   At the checkpoint, there's a sign that says "cars: left" and "trucks: right." There's much more traffic on the car side, and I noticed plenty of personal cars zipping into the truck side. I hope they're not getting away with that I grumbled to myself.
   They run the checkpoint like a DUI checkpoint (indeed they use their DUI charterbus for whatever tehy use it for at checkpoints), sending about ten cars at a time into a side lane to be checked and letting the others go while they do that. Two of the past three times I've been through here I've actually just been waved through. This time as I approached I saw they were waving cars into the inspection lane, dang, guess I wouldn't shoot on through this time. Then I realized that in fact officers had just walked into the "truck only" lane and were waving all the non-trucks from that lane into the inspection cue! I cackled with glee at them not getting away with it. And then I was waved through without being inspected myself.