What a weird world we live in. A couple of issues ago I wrote my column about mushrooms and how I would avoid scavenging them and stick to the greengrocer. And I don’t know what happened over at Clunes, but it is such an unfortunate situation that will impact on the lives of so many for so long.

Speaking of food or fresh food and in particular “The Fresh Food People”, Woolworths boss Brad Banducci was threatened with a contempt charge in a fiery Senate inquiry hearing recently.

I did watch the news program which was a bit theatrical from chair Nick McKim who took issue with the CEO’s refusal to disclose his company’s return on equity. I guess with the cameras around it was his time to show who had a big stick.

As it turns out the contempt charge, if he had have been charged, was six months’ jail time or a $5000 fine. I am sure ‘old mate’ who takes home $10.6 million in salary was quaking in his boots at the thought of the fine.

I am pretty confident just like the many inquiries that have gone before this current one, little to no action will happen at our (the customers), end of things. A bit of an apology and some head-down, bum up behaviour will be called for, before they get back to business as usual.

It’s like the whole petrol price rise débâcle that usually happens before a long weekend. That toothless tiger of an organisation, the ACCC, gets involved and really gets the petrol companies on the ropes, right?

The thing is that the ACCC’s parent is the Department of Treasury, which enjoys the spoils of our petrol consumption at an excise rate increase from 48.8 cents per litre which has just gone up to 49.6 cents per litre. So why would they bite the hand that throws the sausages?

And have you ever heard of surge pricing? This is a legal practice that enables companies such as airlines to put up prices when they are busy.

Imagine when we at TL HQ brought out that 104-page whopper of a paper in early February if we could have invoked surge pricing. Our advertisers would have laughed us out the door. We are local and real human beings whereas surge pricing is fabulous for the faceless AI bots that serve the mainframes of the airline computers.

And we go full circle to another grocery store, Blake Family Grocers. Daylesford’s small specialty grocery store going about its own business. The management team have long since decided to go cash free and what an uproar from the great unwashed.

Online diatribe like “they have to take cash it’s legal tender” were floating about. Well, no they don’t, they don’t have to take your cash or serve you if you’re being a dickhead, it is their business how they conduct their business and if you don’t like it, go somewhere else.

Don’t get me wrong, I want to see cash remain and I don’t want the bastards knowing everything, and I still do operate personally with cash albeit a bit less since the pandemic.

But you can’t tell a business how to run its business. You can leave feedback and advice, but a business is just that, a business not a community service.

For example, here at TL HQ we have had many suggestions on how to run the show over the years. And we have developed our business from the ground up taking on some suggestions and ignoring others, but the one rule we always invoke and is the only suggestion I have for other businesses, is the “no arsehole rule”.

These folks are painful, take up too much energy and will hassle you when it’s time to pay the ferryman – even when they are at the other side.

No arsehole rant over…

Japan is a country of juxtapositions. A Fuji photo booth sitting next to a plethora of vending machines offering porn magazines, smokes and booze in the middle of a rice paddy with a handful of workers and nobody else around sums it up for me.

My first interaction with the Japanese folk was as a wee boy of four out to sea with my dad and we happened upon a box-netting vessel just off the northern coast of New Zealand.

This led to some high seas swapsies with knives, food and ice. And when we arrived home Mum had to try to interpret how to cook a “Boil in the Bag” meal. This technology hadn’t made its way to NZ in the early seventies and we marvelled as she tipped the hot noodles on the plate. I must admit it was probably my first encounter with a noodle.

My next rendezvous with the culture was during the late eighties, this time as skipper selling to the Japanese market, making a killing and entertaining a bunch of Japanese for a weekend.

These fellas came over to see how we caught the fish and instruct us on how they liked to receive the fish. But the lessons were short and we mainly showed them the intricate secrets of the inside of the Houhora Tavern.

When I met Donna, a declared Japanophile, in the nineties, I went to the travel agent to enquire and pique my interest on the Land of the Rising Sun, but they had nothing, not even a brochure to give me.

So, I did my first of 10 or so trips to Japan in 2003 and it was a different country then. I stood head and shoulders above the crowd and one little fella yelled to his mother while pointing at me “nan da are”, which loosely translated means “WTF is that”.

She hurried him away from the foreigner.

At first I was too afraid to go anywhere without Donna as it all looked the same, and in those times they spoke very little English. My language skills were also limited – I spoke enough Japanese to order a beer and then a few pints later, find the toilet.

But the further into the sake we got the more we connected with the locals, coupled with a riveting karaoke rendition of Danny Boy which somehow bought a bit of praise and respect.

In that short amount of time since 2003 things have changed, Google Translate ensures a relatively smooth interaction. Not like when I asked a rather surprised massage therapist to be my wife for an hour. All I wanted was to send my wife down in an hour – for a massage.

The kids have grown a lot taller on average and it seems that half the population of Australia is over there at any one time, so foreigners aren’t such a mystery. But it is still a special place in my heart.

We leave the big cities to the tourists and head to the country where not a lot of foreigners have found our little city of Matsuyama.

The culture certainly hasn’t changed a lot, the bars are still a fabulous way of engaging with the locals. I have even found one bar that only allows one patron in at a time – a fair dinkum cardboard and wood box that the dude sets up every night.

And cherry blossom viewing is amazing. If you were to place 100,000 people into a park, ply them with alcohol for an entire day in Australia there would be trouble.

But over there, no worries. There is no disrespect or fighting and harmony is all around as you look for the perfect blossom.

I am now a Japanophile rant over…

Fun fact. Kara means empty and oke is short for orchestra. So karaoke is empty music, or music without words. Te means hand. Karate. Lesson over.

Warning: The first three paragraphs of this editorial will probably put you to sleep!

Hepburn Shire Council has seven councillors elected every four years by the community to represent them on local public issues. They represent five wards. Birch and Creswick wards each have two councillors while Cameron, Coliban and Holcombe wards each have one councillor.

That was until the Minister for Local Government announced a new electoral structure for Hepburn Shire. The extensive report, found down the back of the Google where the elephants go to die, reveals a panel held an online public hearing for those wishing to speak about their response submission at 10am on Wednesday, April 26, last year.

Now, maybe I didn’t want to get involved or maybe I like to keep things the way they are, with an ‘if it ain’t broke’ kind of attitude, but for whatever reason it slipped my radar, unlike the Hepburn Shire locals who had their say, including the 19 preliminary submitters.

And then there were the 34 response submitters and don’t forget the three people who spoke at the public hearing. Follow the QR code below and checkout the riveting argy-bargy on page 24 of the document.

(But this is what I love about our region, we punch above our weight in folks trying for continuous improvement. To this matter I must admit I was asleep at the wheel while true public sentiment helped to shape our future.)

Now my nap at the helm is because it is boring, and after many punches in the gut I feel powerless, which makes me no longer give a good God damn. I do appreciate the folks who have taken an interest in the situation, as it has relieved me of my civic duty in doing the same.

But honestly, will it ensure my bloody bin gets picked up on schedule so I don’t have to take my rubbish and recyclables to the tip every other bin day? Or will it help fund the constant wheel balances from the potholes, or my skyrocketing rates bill?

I think not and at the end of the day I believe the council is there to provide the municipal services of roads, rates and rubbish. The councillors roles are to air out their respective community’s interests, and draw the attention of the council to those interests as a body through a democratic vote.

In plain speak it’s just meant to be a few well-meaning folks spotlighting community issues for the council to attend to and those folks get a little bit of coin for their troubles. A very little bit.

A big reason for my fogginess and not giving a toss attitude when it comes to HSC matters is that I can’t get past the last few years of financial blunders.

We must have some hideous sized holes in the books from things like the Daylesford Rex débâcle and now the rehoming of HSC staff to God knows where for 18 months or more so the town hall can be tidied up and maybe turned into a hub. And this was what The Rex project was meant to be in the first place.

There doesn’t seem to be any accountability because the faces have changed, people have moved on and the memory of the community gets dulled by time. My noodle scratching and propensity to run into the streets in my underwear and yell “I give up” goes even deeper.

After almost two and a half years I have managed to secure a planning permit to lop off a bit of land.

The property in question is a flat piece of land with zero substantial overlays in a township zone and the tiny subdivision was given the green light ages ago by Goulburn Murry Water. No wonder I have given up.

Just do the job rant over…

By the time you read this the feathers will have settled, the pink boas put away to live another day and the glitter swept from the floor.

My prudish inner self does have to ask about the dudes dressed as dogs in the parade though, I think they were maybe just a couple of chums who got mixed up in the ChillOut vibe. And after all each to their own, right?

I have seen those guys before in other ChillOut parades but have never gotten as close, almost close enough to get bitten. For now I’ll park that image way down the back of my mind where the elephants go to die.

Speaking of vibes and jarring segues, there is definitely an autumn vibe in the air, granted it’s still a bit hot to pay it too much attention, but the apples are definitely ripening on the tree.

Shortly the mushrooms will be out, and the foragers foraging, but not me. After last year’s deadly Leongatha lunch the only place I will be prospecting for non hallucinogenic fungi is Tonnas – where there is a fabulous range all sorted for you and grown in places with humidity control, not in the wild.

A lot of our local eateries like to put these naturally unearthed meals on the menu, which up until last year seemed like a fabulous nostalgic notion of nosh, but it’s no thanks from me.

I like my grub to be rummaged up the old-fashioned way, straight from a quality controlled factory just the way the good Lord intended. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against the nudity of food and I love the thought of kindly killed meats and naturally grown fruit and vegetables from the paddock to the plate.

However, when it comes to the subject of fungus the deadly ones look a little too similar to the yummy ones and there are not many people that I would trust to know the difference. Except for maybe our own Central Highlands fungi fanatic Alison Pouliot, who is not always on hand to pick my mushies.

But back to my autumn vibe. Some of the leaves have already started to turn on our trees and the harvest has started to make an appearance at our local markets.

I give the bird and spit in the general direction of Christmas and call this bit “the most wonderful time of the year”. In another month or so we will be able to burn our wood piles down the back of the yard while swilling red wine and gobbling down the last of the harvest offerings.

But for now, we are still in the thick of festival season, a plethora of culinary cuisine awaits our attentions and the days are still long.

Autumn vibe rant over…

I just wanted to throw a few numbers around.

4 website stories per day.

7 days per week.

10 locals employed.

11 years old this September.

108-page magazine.

300th issue.

17,000 unique website visitors per month.

And to all the corporate idiots who shouted from the rooftops “print is dead” as we started our fledgling magazine in 2013 with a rag-tag gang of volunteers – you just weren’t paying attention!

Numbers rant over…

I don’t need all the mod cons in my car. I have a little noise which comes from the passenger seat if I am about to run into danger, it normally squeaks “chout” an abbreviated “watch-out”.

Recently we have been looking at upgrading our ute and this is not a decision I take lightly as since the age of when I could afford it I have only procured new cars.

I never buy top of the range as I don’t see the value of something that I am going to flog to death once I drive it out of the showroom. And I only ever swap my cars after 10 plus years to get the most out of them. So now you can understand why it is such an important decision.

Since I was last in the market and settled on my Mitsubishi Triton, lots of things have changed in terms of cars’ technology and their shapes.

The market is teaming with SUVs which are a great invention for those of us who grunt when we get out of a low sedan, they ride well, don’t have the bounciness of a ute and we do like a good road trip.

The issue is that although they now come with air conditioning in the seats, (yes what an invention, no longer pulling your trousers out of your backside after a couple of hours on the road), they also come
with all the other whizzbangery.

There are lane wandering warnings, entertainment system controls that would have a professional film editor scratching their heads, and handling controls that change from sport to rough for those on the road that have the time to think about the road surface or even give a crap.

The roads around here would have you spinning that dial, hardening up the suspension to get through the potholes and back to sports mode for the odd bit of tarmac that hasn’t suffered the rigours of
the road trains.

But the one thing all the SUVs that I have looked at have in common are pretty homogenised bodies. My first car was a Morris 1100, it was a flat-looking thing that did its job.

In fact it was so flat the bigger 1800 version was nicknamed the “Land Crab”. Back in the eighties I would never have considered a new car, I always had the arse hanging out of my pants.

Besides, as a young seaman I spent a lot of my time on the water part of the earth, so a big investment didn’t make sense.

But back in those days we were spoilt for choice with the most vibrant cars to choose from including the American models, Australian Holdens and Fords and English cars like the Triumph and MG brands.

At one point in my life, once every week for around six months, I would go to the Auckland car auctions on a Wednesday night where my uncle and father divulged a few tricks and tips to buy the cars for a bargain.

Like crossing the spark plug leads to make the car run rough and putting off the other buyers. Or pouring a small spoonful of oil over the manifold so about the time the vehicle was presented for auction the manifold had heated up and smoke billowed from under the bonnet.

I would buy these cars for a bargain, quickly repair their newly discovered faults, drive the 200 kilometres to my hometown of Whangarei and make money at the Friday auctions.

A history I am not necessarily proud of, but it was colourful, and it was not like I was stealing things, it was just a way to get a bit more of a bargain.

Yes, on reflection it was bad behaviour.

Because of the boringness of the new car designs I have decided to hang on to my old ute, after all it runs nicely, has always been well maintained and I don’t need “whizzbangery” I have a Donna.

Without her observations and remarks, I would be running red lights, crashing into buildings and taking out the elderly. New car rant over…

(Ed’s note: Hmmm. Who has been in a car accident, or two? Kyle or me?)

What a rip-off this summer has been – and in the wake of the Bureau of Meteorology declaring an El Niño event underway on September 19 last year, which should have meant a hot dry summer.

Our weather bureau was a few months behind with their declaration from the other bureaus in the world, so a considered declaration I suppose. But none of it makes sense, with a lot of rain, jumpers and jeans on every other week and sometimes a “feels like” temperature of 12 degrees.

And who invented a “feels like” temperature anyway, it either is or it isn’t. I wish
I could say “Sorry Constable, it only felt like I was doing 60” when I was actually
doing 80 according to his speed camera.

Or follow a recipe that calls for a low cooking temp of 120 degrees and I burn the dish because the oven temperature “felt cold” but was 200.

But back to the weather. As I write this Cyclone Kirrily is getting set to flood the hell out of Far North Queensland and hopefully this time the mainstream media won’t make the same mistake as they did with Cyclone Jasper.

The problem with Jasper was that they got all the news presenters to wade out into the storm and report live on TV on, let’s face it, initially a bit of a fizzer of a cyclone.

The networks then flew them all back home and missed the big show, the terrible flooding. And by then the airport was washed out and roads closed, so it was local media only and the thousands of hours of amateur footage to go through from the flood victims was all they could go on.

By the time we go to press it will be interesting to see what happened in terms of reporting from Kirrily. There has already been a lot of speculation about whether it will form a cyclone or just be a bad weather system.

So, an interesting fact. A cyclone doesn’t just form, it becomes a low-pressure system which rotates clockwise and when it reaches the magic number of around 960 millibars it is then recategorised into a cyclone – thanks Wikipedia.

But I digress. Back to home. Those of us who have lived around the district before 2019 know the weather of the Central Highlands can deliver a beautiful, long summer worthy of having a pool installed, and used for at least a few months – unless you have something really heated or room for one inside. I do know of one house in Glenlyon with an indoor pool. Not sharing names though.

But since December 2019 the summers here have been diabolical with “bite through you” south-easterlies being a common thing where the southern side of the Ranges stop and give way to the historically dryer northern side, as in Lyonville to Glenlyon.

Traditionally the weather is like chalk and cheese, especially during south- easterlies even though as the crow flies it’s only around 10 kilometres, but these days we seem to get more water-laden winds from that direction. And, of course, there is no truth to climate change, said tongue firmly in cheek.

So, as we say hello to the last month of the summer I say what a bloody scam. I bought a few new pairs of shorts in readiness and some banger uber-cool shirts from the Mill Markets and have only had a couple of times to trot them out.

Cruel Summer rant over…

As we all settle down into the rhythm of 2024, it is worth considering our New Year’s commitments and resolutions and if they are likely to be stuck by, or just drunken rhetoric and false promises.

Some statistics say that over 90 per cent of resolutions have been parked or failed by February and about eight per cent travel the course of the year.

If it is a fitness promise you made there is only yourself to blame if it fails and as to why we make these stupid ‘guaranteed to fail’ promises to ourselves, I guess it is the same reason we continue to buy Lotto tickets, chasing the elusive better life.

In terms of fitness my go to is Pilates. “What’s that?” I hear you ask. Well mostly the guys out there. So a quick bit of history from the ever-reliable Wikipedia.

Pilates was developed by Joseph Pilates from Mönchengladbach, Germany. His father was a gymnast and his mother a naturopath.
Pilates developed a system of exercises while interned for four years during WWI intended to strengthen the human mind and body, believing that mental and physical health were interrelated.
Pilates accompanied his method with a variety of equipment, which he called “apparatus”. Each apparatus was designed to help accelerate the process of stretching, strengthening, body alignment and increased core strength started by mat work.

The best-known and most popular apparatus today, the Reformer, was originally called the Universal Reformer, aptly named for “universally reforming the body”.

So that’s Pilates, and by and large I seem to be one of the only blokes in the class while I see other 50-somethings getting around with bad backs and stiffness in the legs, knees and hips.

I started my Pilates journey when my back went on the blink. Bulging disc – you know the sort of thing. Very painful. I worked for quite a while with my surgeon to try and avoid back surgery but when it became inevitable I continued doing Pilates right up until the day of surgery.

(I know not everyone can afford private health cover but I can’t afford not to pay it now after starting it at the age of 30. And it worked out well. When I booked in for the surgery it was pretty much “what day next week?” and then “morning or afternoon”. It finally paid off.)

Anyway, I was given a post-surgery plan by the surgeon and as soon as I was able I was back on the Reformer and as a result I cut down my surgery recovery time by about half.

The sport is truly amazing and gets you thinking about how you move around including stopping you from lifting a fridge or table without thinking – classic big boy behaviour – and it has truly extended my flexibility and core strength.

But still it’s overwhelmingly a woman’s game and of course there are lots of jokes from my buddies about me sitting down the back of the class watching for the downward dog, but if they paid attention, they know that would be a Yoga move.

Pilates terms are more “the nutcracker” – which when you think about it is really a bloke’s move, or the “hello boys” as we stretch our thighs. And if you get the right trainer, hello Erin, it is a lot of fun while getting fit.

There are plenty of Pilates classes around in our villages and towns with an explosion in Daylesford among a plethora of other fitness pastimes, so there is no excuse not to get active in whatever sporting vocation you choose.

Yes, the first five minutes for the first time can seem daunting, but most of the fitness places also have breakaway social groups, so go on, get in amongst it.

Move into the New Year rant over…

Christmas started way too early this year with the first signs, including mince pies, making their annual debut hot on the heels of the Halloween landfill which wrapped up in early November.

I don’t know how those nice people at the supermarket checkouts keep a smile on their faces and put those bloody hats and reindeer ears on every year. And keep listening to that infuriatingly sickly, looped yuletide music that wafts through the aisles. And a special shoutout to always happy Maree at the Daylesford Coles.

(If I worked in a shop listening to that music I would apply for some sort of post-traumatic stress payout – but that’s just me, a bahhumbugged, emotionally numb bloke that winces at the sight of tinsel.)

Speaking of Coles, the other day while shopping for a bachelor’s handbag in Daylesford I had to brush past a scrawny, potty-mouthed idiot of a woman around the cheese section. It must have been the day she had run out of calm-down medication.

The thing was, that the usually large aisle had been turned into two aisles with Christmas chocolates and other seasonal rubbish, which makes for a close-quarters situation between fellow shoppers.

Anyone who knows me knows that I am the biggest physical distancer around. Particularly post pandemic, I can’t air kiss and hugs are something I do around 3am after a skinful, unless it’s with the wife on the odd auspicious occasion.

So, back to potty-mouth who screeched at me “you had to come down this aisle, didn’t you?” and due to the proximity of the cheese counter being next to the hot chicken counter my retort was “yes, I did”.

She then told me to “fornicate off” and then rudely added something about being fat and a woman’s anatomy. You get the idea. I remained polite. I thought perhaps she was having a bad day and to cheer her up I went with flattery.

And with imitation the sincerest form of flattery my considered response was “fornicate off yourself ”. I might have added “this is my town.”

This would have to be the first time I have ever had this sort of encounter in a supermarket with someone I don’t know. Usually people wait until they know me a little before they tell me to “fornicate off.”

And the only time I have experienced a little bit of argie-bargie was over the last four pack of lavender-scented toilet rolls around the middle of March 2020.

(It was toilet paper war time and there was not a sheet to be found. Until we entered a country store down the coast where a bloke was putting out a stack of the aforementioned lavender toilet rolls. I asked him why he hadn’t nabbed them for himself? Allergies apparently. I hate to think what that meant… but I digress.)

So this is Christmas. The season for peace for all mankind, and womankind, and goodwill for all unless it doesn’t suit you.

And the most magical time of the year keeps on giving with my most recent exposure to a shopping centre.

Santa and his Kodak elves had set up camp in order to snap photos of the line-up of little darlings perched on his lap. How is that still legal?

Anyway, one of the little cherubs was next and he was all dressed up in what looked like Christmas pyjamas – even his parents were dressed like that. And then he decided to have a meltdown.

Even with the intervention of two elves and Mrs Claus the whole show quickly turned to custard. In my day…

For me, Christmas is a good time to kick back for a bit, unwind and reflect a little. I hope the holiday season brings you whatever it is it means to you and I’ll catch you in the New Year.

Christmas wishes rant over…

RECENTLY we got ChatGPT to write up a piece of editorial, which it quite frankly penned from its electronic anus. See below.
The horse has bolted out of the stable gates and spilt the milk which was in the bottle with the genie – who just won’t get back in. I am talking about artificial intelligence (AI) and its role within our society.
This stuff is here to stay. There is no pulling the plug and it is likely to become self-aware within the next decade or so. In terms of medical breakthroughs it will be nothing short of a Godsend, of that I am sure, however when it, AI, no longer needs us to keep its battery topped up and feed it information, what happens then?
Right now, here at little old TL HQ we get paid a small fee by the tech giant Google to put up four stories a day onto Google News Showcase, 365 days a year and we are a small community newspaper. Imagine all the other newsrooms and sites that are getting paid by Google to do the same but on a massive scale of seven or more stories a day per organisation year round.
Think about the massive scale of information that is feeding the monster and the frightening part is that started last year and will now go on almost indefinitely or until we are no longer required. So in a manner of speaking it’s like the AI baby is in the high chair and we (the news organisations) are feeding it with lots of yummy news to grow up to be a nice and strong cyborg.
Apparently, one of the new AI applications we should see rolled out shortly is the lack of pricing on the shelves at the supermarket as we hurtle towards “smart pricing” (SP). SP will determine how often you buy a product or if you rely on a certain product, and will price it accordingly. There will be no visible pricing, just a barcode you can scan, and the pricing is decided for you along with stock and availability.
The way forward for me is to legislate against the corruption of power from the people that own the tech (our future masters and commanders). To pass laws on what is coming will take years to implement and argue about, and we do have time, but we need to start now. Don’t get me wrong, I am looking forward to the “I” part, that is the intelligence bit of it, because that part of the human brain seems to be
diminishing into the phones, tablets and TVs that deliver our entertainment. Please young’uns, get off your phones and enjoy the world as it is. Look at that young fella who rescued the bus driver and all the kids onboard in America as he was the only one not staring at a phone. Hold this guy up as your saviour of the future, the Kyle Reese of your generation – think human enemy of terminator from the
future goes back to save himself dude. The end is nigh rant over

200 words on Kyle Barnes in Glenlyon, Victoria please…

Kyle Barnes had always loved living in Glenlyon, a small town in Victoria, Australia. He had grown up here, playing with his friends in the local park and exploring the nearby forests.
As he got older, he became a familiar face in the community, known for his friendly nature and willingness to lend a hand to anyone who needed it.
One summer day, Kyle decided to take a hike in the nearby mountains. He packed a backpack with some water, snacks, and a first aid kit, and set off early in the morning. As he climbed higher and higher, he marvelled at the stunning views of the surrounding landscape. But as he reached the summit, he heard a faint cry for help coming from a nearby cliff.
Without hesitation, he rushed over to see a hiker who had slipped and fallen injuring her leg. Kyle quickly assessed the situation and used his first aid skills to help the woman, making sure she was stable and comfortable before calling for help.
Thanks to Kyle’s quick thinking and bravery, the hiker was rescued and taken to the hospital for further treatment.
Kyle received numerous accolades from the community and was hailed as a hero for his selfless act. But for Kyle, he was just doing what came naturally – helping someone in need.
Words: ChatGPT (Ed’s note: “Friendly nature?” Talk about fabrication.)

DONNA and I have decided to hit the road for a bit of time away over
winter. We did the same journey a while back but this time it has to
be planned within an inch of its life.
The problem is that we will be away for one production of The Local and we will
be outback in the north-west, which has been devastated by floods that no one much
over here has heard about – but they covered the same land mass as the UK.
The hardest thing about the journey is that places like Fitzroy Crossing are trying
to get on their feet, swamped by tradies fixing the buildings and roads up and there is
not much in the way of accommodation or communication.
We were going by way of a caravan, however most of those for sale claim to
have done the big trip once and I don’t want to make that mistake, so it is a frumpy
motel trip for us. I have secured accommodation in all the places that are hard to get
and have invested in Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite internet. Meaning that particular
edition of The Local will be beamed up to the cosmos and back down to our printers
(what a ride).
Around 20 years ago, which seems like only a couple of years to me, we embarked
on the same journey which ended up getting cut short by a family emergency. I was
working selling luxury motorboats under the Westgate Bridge at Pier 35 Marina.
I mention where I was working because I can draw a parallel to the type of car
I was driving which was a gold Hyundai Sonata. Most of my clients were mega rich
and had gloriously lavish cars, boats, houses and toys. When I saw this thing twirling
around on a display in the car showroom, I had to have it for its ostentatious colour
and the fact the body design was extremely close to the Jaguar of the day. And then
there was the price, a modest 25K, more of a me price.

Although I have some idea of an engine room in a boat and a little less but
passable knowledge of what is under the bonnet, I never looked at my Hyundai’s
power plant. It blasted along the freeway, had Bluetooth and a good CD player. It was
only when I took off on a slippery road up a hill, I realised it had front wheel drive.
Anyway, one winter’s day Donna and I decided to hit the road and took six
weeks off work to drive up the guts through Alice Springs, turn left at Katherine, pull
into Darwin and then follow the road until we got back. We had no plans and no
particular timetable. Our accommodation was a tent and we booked into powered
sites so we could run the heaters, fans, TV, phone chargers and electric blankets. I kid
you not. Gotta have some home comforts.
Now around sunset at most of these caravan parks a stir begins to happen as
the women attend to the meals and the older blokes start to roam. At first it’s just
a couple and the group grows as they walk around, stubby in hand. These guys are
harmless enough, they just enjoy talking about what septic system you have onboard
your RV and how many miles to the gallon you do, that sort of thing.
One evening while partaking in a hashish farewell gift for the trip, this throng of
blokes came over the hill into my powered tent site, looked around at our abundance
of appliances and then drew their gaze to my shiny new Hyundai.
They started asking what I had under the hood…questions like the economy
of the vehicle and even what sort of tyres I had chosen for the journey. Drawing a
complete blank from me they tutted and almost as one mumbled about safety and
young drug addicts.
There won’t be any intentional ingesting of illegal substances on this trip, even
vaping, and it should be just a very relaxing, pleasant and long, long drive.
Long drive rant over…

I AM never too sure when to stop saying Happy New Year. Is it after the first day of
the New Year or do we wait about a week or so?
I watched the TV with interest as the year drew to a close, we were all encouraged to cook up heaving
tables of food for the big day. We were meant to waddle around visiting people, imbibing ourselves
to the point of alcoholic poisoning. And then wake up on New Year’s Day to find the message had
dramatically shifted, to the reality of the diet, exercise and home gym equipment advertisements.
Hot cross buns miraculously take the place of the chocolate Santa sacks and although the wrapper has changed to a bunny, the chocolate rabbit looks suspiciously like a reindeer when denuded from its casing.
So, it’s onwards and upwards into the great unknown of 2023.

Will Covid finally settle down into a garden variety common cold? And are we able now, after three
years, to get on with our lives and hug strangers, travel and not lurch away when
children get too close?
When I celebrated 2019/2020 New Year’s Eve, myself, the wife and a couple
of mates welcomed the New Year watching fireworks from the safety of a highrise
apartment in Melbourne. Right on the chime of midnight we kissed, hugged, laughed
and cheered.

A big difference to the latest celebrations as a bunch of neighbours sat
around the balcony at TL HQ and one remarked “oh, it’s five past midnight, we
should go home” – an anticlimax of a midnight celebration if ever I have seen one.
But maybe that’s the key. 2023 was not so much back slapping and celebration,
more a “by the way“ comment.

We kind of slipped into the year gently without huge expectations and less pressure on the resolutions or maybe it’s just my age.
Our Christmas break was a lot of fun as Donna and I winged our way to see our
whanau (family) across the ditch. It was great to finally catch up with everyone.
My niece Melissa, pictured, is a single mother, a demure woman who has a pighunting
dog and a 303 bolt action shotgun. As well as long walks down the beach,
photography and sunsets, this pocket rocket likes to kill her own lunch up in the
mountains behind Kaikoura. She sometimes gets a bit lazy and instead of hiking the
40 kilometres into the bush, she and her girlfriend get a lift on a helicopter to a bush
hut where they kill wild deer and boars. (A sort of a chip off the old block, really.)

The name Kaikoura means literally to eat crayfish, so not keen on venison, I
asked Melissa if she wouldn’t mind grabbing me one and like that I found three large
crustaceans flapping away in my sink the next morning without a note.
However, I am the son of a cray fisherman so I know a thing or two about
cooking crays (not). So, after 10 minutes Googling the subject, I drowned them in
freshwater, chopped them in half, cooked them on the barbeque and gorged down on
two and a quarter, leaving three quarters for my traveling companion. Yumbo.
So that was my memorable end to the year and I hope we are off to a better 2023
and the sadness of the last three years is now behind us.
Happy New Year rant over…
(Ed’s note: Hmmm. The only thing Kyle kills for lunch is when he barbeques the life
out of sausages and chops.)