MAYBE NOT SO GREAT AFTER ALL

In WA they've got a Great Southern wine region. Here in SA there is a Great Southern Railway. And there's another mob called Great Southern who look after investment schemes in assorted corners of 'rural' Australia. The schemes include timber plantations that have gobbled up big chunks country everywhere from WA to NSW and the Tiwi Islands to Kangaroo Island. According to some observers the fate of some of these tax minimisation cum investment outfits doesn't look too flash. Businesses come and go. Nothing new there. But if these schemes fail, what happens to the trees in the ground? What about the productive land covered in Blue Gums busily sucking the water table dry? On what balance sheet do the losses to nature and the community appear?

HOLLOWMAN HOLLOWAY?

For the latest non-news in the unconscionable treatment of Arkaroola and its natural wonders see here. That the SA Government and it's Minister for Mineral Resources should dither around for so long betrays a crippling failure of leadership, vision and basic logic.
Paul Holloway talks legal argy bargy when what's needed is a clear decision to protect one of the State's most significant environmental and tourism assets. Not just that but he also goes for a gold medal in duck shoving: "The challenge for Marathon Resources—in fact, for all explorers in this region—is to show how the mineral and energy resources can be extracted from this region in a manner that preserves the environmental and scenic values."
No, sorry Minister, the real challenge here is for the SA Government is to carry out its duty to defend a properly established and internationally acclaimed wilderness santuary. The idea that any mine could be put within Arkaroola's highlands without affecting their integrity is simply laughable. And besides, don't we in SA already have more than enough mines, alternative uranium deposits, geothermal projects etc, etc to be going on with?
For more on the whole fandango see Bill Doyle's site.









Doug & Marg Sprigg, operators of Arkaroola Sanctuary with a geological mosaic put together by their father and sanctuary founder, the late Reg Sprigg.

THE ART OF TREES

Cliff-top Sugar Gums, Cape Torrens Wilderness Protection Area




Every visit to Kangaroo Island adds another twist to my sense of the place. Out west near Cape Torrens we were confronted by a gutsy coastline. Giant cliffs. A vastness of sea and sky. Waves bashing onto the rocks below. But all I wanted to look at were the trees. In most parts of the island the shoreline is wind-blasted and shrubby at best. Here, just metres from the cliff edge, there were stately gums and broad bushy sheoaks. By some quirk of topography these trees are sheltered from the worst of the winds from the south and west, though the prevailing breezes have nevertheless done some fine sculpting. (Above)
This alertness to things arboral was perhaps prompted a friend's win in the Penneshaw Easter Art Show. Michele Lane's painting of Pink Bay is as much a study of passing light as anything else. But the other star of the picture is the dense canopy of narrow-leafed mallee, a species that covers many parts of the island like plush rug. How rich and wondrous are the island's diverse native habitats. With every passing year these expanses of native veg grow in significance. Meanwhile the dreary local tassie blue gum plantations seem more and more problematic.























Evening light, Island Beach

IRRESISTIBLE FORCE MEETS IMMOVABLE OBJECT?

FANCY A PLACE ON THE COAST?

How about 660 hectares on the southern side of the Fleurieu Peninsula? There's some impressive creeks and scrub, your own stretch of the Heysen Trail, plus a couple of k's of coastline in the backyard. All this, just an hour and a bit's drive south of Adelaide. We're talking here about the western chunk of Mt Scrub, a grazing property that last changed hands in 1895. If you have a few mill' lying around, it could all be yours.

Parsons Beach, looking west towards Mt Scrub

THE McGREGORSPHERE

Artist, writer, photographer, Antarctician, friend, comrade-in-authorship and all-round polymath Alasdair McGregor has just launched his own website. It gives a quick sample of his endeavours in many disciplines. Those who admire Alasdair's preternatural gifts as a painter will be especially interested to see a cross-section of major works on show. A computer screen doesn't really do justice to his big, radiant oil paintings - but it's great to have the opportunity to see so many of them again and reconnect with their scope and verve. Later in 2009 Penguin will be publishing Alasdair's next biographical opus: Grand Obsessions: The life and work of Walter Burley Griffin and Marion Mahony Griffin, as well as bringing out a paperback edition of his acclaimed earlier biography: Frank Hurley: A photographer's life.

Alasdair McGregor: Grass Trees Northern Flinders Ranges, South Australia, oil and acrylic on canvas, 107 x 91cms

IS THERE NO ESCAPE?

I would never admit it publicly, of course, but given my vocation there are times when going bush can begin to feel like work. So where does a fresh-air fiend go to frolic? In my case it's occasionally onto the water. And to be specific - given an aversion to getting wet - onto a boat on the water. Accordingly, four day's sailing on Boston Bay at Port Lincoln comes very close to being a holiday. It was race week in Lincoln, which meant my contribution was as moveable ballast. In between all the leaping about there were stints on the gunwale when I could enjoy the scenery.

The bay is a terrific place to sail - four times the size of Sydney Harbour - and though we never left its surrounds I was reminded of the times past when I'd sailed out of the bay to cruise the gulf beyond. On the longer beats to windward I had time to stare down into the deep green waters of the bay and dream innocent, carbon-neutral dreams about sailing to the distant islands.

However, even in sunny, far-flung Port Lincoln, there are reminders of the world we have created and the kind of thoughts that, for me at least, begin to feel like work. In our races we were often passed by large fishing boats ferrying pallet-loads of frozen pilchards to the tuna farms beyond the bay. A fellow crew member reckons that 5,000 tonnes of pilchards a week are used here fatten up the tuna ready for export. 5,000 tonnes every week. And I couldn't help thinking to myself that a downturn in the Japanese economy and a little less demand for our tuna might not be such a bad thing for the planet.