Crashes, kills, stacks and new edibles (Rockhampton to Mackay)

Jul 27, 2014 | Ber fruit, bush cucumber, bush lemon, coal, coconuts, emu, fleabane, macadamia, Mackay, magpie geese, mangrove snail, mud whelk, pandanus, roadkill, sugar cane, Warm Showers, water, waterlily | 6 comments

On leaving Rockhampton we discovered this strange scene:

The local council had laid fake grass beside the Bruce Highway, then an alive grass had penetrated the fake grass and remarkably grew until the council then sprayed it with glysophate (a poison Monsanto tells us is safe, as they did with Agent Orange and DDT). Someone then stubbed out their cigarette butt and threw it into the mix. The logic of the city is beyond us. Time to reconnect with the intelligence of autonomous, uncivil things.

Not far north of Rocky on the Ridgelands Road we came across bush cucumbers (Cucumis spp.),

which weren’t quite ripe,

although we did find one almost formed and ready.

And not far on again we came across our first Ber fruit (Ziziphus mauritiana), otherwise known as Chinee Apple, Jujube, Indian plum and Masau.

These small trees from south-east Asia have naturalised in northern Australia. We look forward to trying them next time now we know what they are.

We had decided on the Ridgelands – Glenroy Station route to avoid the Road of Death, but our rather paltry map didn’t warn us that most of the way to Marlborough would be gravel.

After 70 kms or so of riding we made camp beside the road, bloody exhausted.

Being on gravel certainly slowed us down, which was only a problem of water. We filled up two bottles at the Glenroy Crossing of the Fitzroy River, just in case we needed them. Zero’s iron constitution surely wouldn’t have a problem drinking this water.

This was cattle station country, and we got a view into this altered ecology firstpedal.

We also got a view of our own vulnerability without water. We banged on this farmer’s door to ask for a tap.

No one was home, so we took his water upon ourselves. Thanks unknown farmer!

Relief!! We passed water-savvy emus,

and motorised ones.

Aching, dust-covered and sorely parched we arrived in the little town of Marlborough, pulled up outside the pub and were immediately greeted by Jeff and Linda, who invited us home for an impromptu party.

After a bonfire and rowdy dancing sesh with several locals and a Swede, we passed out in their backyard caravan and awoke rested,

ate a delicious home-cooked breakfast then farewelled our new friends (hi Digs!),

and ventured back onto the Bruce.

Over the 31 kms that we rode that day from Marlborough to Tooloobah Creek we counted 212 individual road-killed animals on the left lane, shoulder and verge alone. Assuming the other side would produce a similar number (it certainly looked like it), we concluded that on this stretch of the Bruce Highway there was one roadkill every 75 metres of bitumen. Staggering!

This number exceeds tenfold the bodies we encounted along a 60km stretch of the Hume Highway last December. We stopped to rest at Tooloobah Creek Roadhouse and after only a few minutes of sitting in the shade witnessed this:

We were only moments from being roadkill ourselves. No one was hurt, the owners were even fairly jokey about it, praising insurance and airbags. We walked away from the amounting spectacle, set up our tents,

and went in search of some tucker.

The next day, as we were packing up to leave Tooloobah we were greeted briefly by a southbound Frenchman, Stephane, who was on a solo mission to cycle around the world.

It was a long hot day in the saddle. Temperatures are again starting to climb in this region known as the dry tropics. But Bruce was fairly good to us, only once, and for just a short time, turning his shoulder away so we had but a few hundred millimetres of safe path to balance on.

We’re getting fairly hardy to such travel. Failing a capsizing caravan or some such unavoidable situation coming crashing down on us, riding defensively makes touring dead-safe in Australia, even on the Road of Death. A road that can throw up delightful pastoral vistas,

bush lemons (Citrus limon),

and crazy pandanus sunsets.

We arrived on dusk at delightful Clairview where the Great Dividing Range pushed the Bruce to the Pacific’s edge. Apart from the short leg from Marlborough to Tooloobah Creek we had been covering around 70 kms each day and were fairly sore. We pitched our tents at a free camping ground for an extended rest.

We spent the following day drifting along the mangrove shoreline, playing in rock pools,

and learning more about shellfish,

such as these mud whelks (Terebralia sp.), found around the hightide line on mangrove mud in north and eastern Australia.

We collected several, broke into their shells and cooked them on a public BBQ.

Delish! We followed the same procedure with mangrove snails (Nerita spp.),

which were also delicious, just more rubbery in texture.

There were no shops in Clairview, but on most days this little charity store on the beach opened to the public selling all manner of things including home-grown produce. Bless. Thanks ladies!

We bought a pinapple ($2), a dozen eggs ($3) and a whole pumpkin ($3.50) and feasted with our foraged shellfish,

and other bush tucker including panadus leaves,

and a bag of goodies Meg gleaned on a walk around the little town.

After a day of rest we left Clairview recharged with a morning’s bowl of oats, chia seeds, ginger, raisins and honey under our lycra,

ready for another morning’s ride and day of discovery.

Accessible waterlilies (Nymphaea spp.), and no possibiliy of crocs in this roadside dam about 20 kms north of Clairview!

We’d been wanting to taste the bulbous roots of this plant for some time, and we weren’t disappointed.

So many discoveries on this long leg from Rockhampton and I guess we were getting fatigued, a day’s rest probably wasn’t long enough at Claireview and after eight and a half months on the road we had our first accident. We ran into eachother trying to converse on the noisey Bruce and Woody, sadly, came off worst.

Meg was also brusied and battered and hurt her wrist.

We hobbled into Koumala and set up camp,

treated Zero to a dose of fleabane (Conyza spp.) that we found growing nearby,

and treated ourselves to another early night. We were, alas, repeatedly woken by trucks and cane trains operating all hours.

Macadamia nuts,

coconuts,

and even the promise of magpie goose (Anseranas semipalmata) eggs,

all mildly interrupted the dominant culture’s war on peoples’ health and the land as we rode into Sarina the next day,

and on to Mackay,

where the delightful Warm Showers host Jeanie met us and led us back to her home where we will rest and recover before returning once again to our home on the road.

Thank you Jeanie and Peppe for your über hospitality. It was so so lovely to meet you and two of your boys. Thank you for taking in our bedraggled selves and opening your peaceful, loving home to us,

especially when you where also hosting the delightful Igor and Luka, fellow cycle tourists from Switzerland and Italy.

We hope your life is filled with peace, too, dear reader. Much love from us in Mackay until our next update somewhere further north in a week or so.

Aaf xx

Darumbal food sense and other adventures (our week in Rockhampton)

Jul 19, 2014 | ABC, bush food, community gardens, Darumbal, grass tree, Harrisia cactus, John Pilger, media, poem, poetry, Rockhampton, Torres Straight Islanders, water lily | 0 comments

We spent the week resting, washing clothes, making bike repairs,

and getting to know a little about Rockhampton.

We visited the Wandal Community Garden,

and discovered a model for community food and wellbeing. Several neighbouring properties had been purchased together and their back fences dismantled to create a lovely large open common area.

Our friend from home, fellow community gardener and accessibility advocate, Fe Porter, would have been delighted to witness this garden. We were also inspired and we talked with some of the workers of the garden including Nick, a permaculturalist and disabilities worker,

and the garden’s manager, Tony, who’s been with the project since its inception five years ago, about the its evident success.

The garden features various annual vegetables, perennial fruits and a chook run, which doubles as a compost factory. People of all abilities work in the garden and steward its wellbeing. There is nothing like a garden to bring joy.

And we learned that now, in mid-winter, is the peak growing season for the mostly non-Indigenous foods grown there. There is talk to create a bush tucker garden at Wandal, which would no doubt extend the productivity of food to year-round. We left uplifted with loved food in our bellies.

Another place in Rocky we visited was the Dreamtime Cultural Centre.

Here we discovered an incredible diagram representing the traditional seasonal foods of the Darumbal people. This is such a fine understanding of the interrelationships between ecology, seasonality, biology, climate, diversity of species and nutrition.

Picture courtesy of the Dreamtime Cultural Centre

We learned that water lilies are a significant food and a sacred plant of the Darumbal.

Picture courtesy of the Dreamtime Cultural Centre

In the bush food garden we read that the white part at the base of the leaves of grass trees (Xanthorrhoea australis),

were chewed to quench thrist. We tried it and didn’t find the same juiciness we’ve found in lomandra and pandanus leaves, but nonetheless as we’re about to ride 300 km to Mackay with only the capacity to carry 5 litres of water, we duly noted this plant fact in case we don’t spy a tap.

And we found this sneaky newcomer in the garden, the moonlight or snake cactus (Harrisia spp.), which bears a red fruit that splits open when ripe.

We were escorted through the various parts of the cultural centre by our guide Wayne who explained that it was the women who provided much of the food within the tribe and were the ones who experimented with plants and mushrooms to find out whether a certain species was poisonous or not, and whether a poisonous plant can be made edible through various techniques and processes.

Earlier in the week we had come across this publication, Notes on Some of the Roots, Tubers, Bulbs and Fruits Used as Vegetable Food by the Aboriginals of Northern Queensland, published in Rockhampton in 1866 and housed in the State Library of Victoria’s online database.

While at the Dreamtime Cultural Centre we met the delightful Grace who gave us a presentation on Torres Strait Island life, which by her account has not suffered the interventions, genocides and appalling control by the state that Aboriginal people have on the mainland. She told us that more or less traditional island life remains in tact and so too islander health as their traditional foods still constitute their main diet.

We asked Grace what she felt was the biggest threat Torres Strait Islanders faced and she replied, ‘western technology and food’. In everything Artist as Family attempts to do the problem of western technology and food is at the centre. How do we re-establish or re-model the grounds on which sensible cultures of place can once again be performed, where the food we eat and how it is obtained belies cultures of low damage?

Picture courtesy of Dreamtime Cultural Centre

While we stayed in Rockhampton we were interviewed by local ABC breakfast radio host, Jacquie Mackay, about our travel and the intention behind it. You can listen to the interview here.

For the week we spent at our dog-friendly solar-powered motel,

we were neighbours to George and Nita Corderoy, who were visiting family from Sydney. George is a descendant of the Darumbal people and grew up in Rockhampton. European colonisation all but destroyed George’s ancestors’ culture but growing up he and family would go out hunting and fishing for traditional foods. Nita’s people were from near Charters Towers but she was taken from them as a child and put in a church orphanage just outside Rocky as part of government policy that produced The Stolen Generations.

With free wifi in our room we were finally able to watch John Pilger’s recent film Utopia, which illustrates how the genocide of Aboriginal people continues today and reveals how Aboriginal babies are still being taken away from their mothers and families. Pilger’s film and getting to know George and Nita’s stories, inspired Patrick to write a new poem this week, which we’ll leave with you. See you in Mackay.

Australia

Is it possible
to see
to handle
cup close
and breathe in
the aggregating suffering
and sickness
manifest
from the first
great
frontier lie ––
a deceit
that forms
the very borders
of a country
spiritually adrift
where land
and its communities
are gunned over
by institutions
who perpetuate the injustice
of the entire invention
Terra nullius?

Is it possible to live
upon the thefts
and massacres
on top of the poverties
and apacing policies
that enact genocide?

What makes a nation?

Can anything good
be built upon such foundations?

Will spear
and dilly bag
filled with fruit
and root medicines
ever again walk free
across fenceless country?

What romance
what act of love
what sacred fire
and quiet kinship
can we commit now?

Is there anything salvageable
from such monumental lies
spun even larger by big miners
and their politicians
to call home?

Is not our compliance
our complicity
with this wealth
damage?

Australia?

Diurnal dreamings and cold mornings (from Gladstone to Rockhampton)

Jul 15, 2014 | bats, children's learning, crocodiles, fire, fishing, grass owl, ice, prickly pear, Road of Death, Rockhampton, Tropic of Capricorn, water lily | 3 comments

We left Mike’s on the outskirts of Gladstone and rode to Calliope where we lunched near this Georg Baselitz inspired nudist colony.

We were approached at this raucus place by a local journalist and our story was scribbled down beneath the utter screeching. We republished it in our last post. From there we had just enough daylight to ride to a free camp site on the Calliope River.

The gradual emergence of crocodile warning signs is certainly imprinting as we move north, but the locals don’t seem that bothered.

The Bruce Highway was just far enough away from our camp that it wouldn’t disturb our sleep, the ice however did.

So, on the coldest night in Queensland for 100 years, we camped beside this very minor crocodile haven and shivered like all good mammals to generate enough heat in our down to 0 degrees sleeping bags.

For the first time in his life Woody experienced the pain of cold fingers.

We stayed a few days at this beautiful spot. Collecting firewood and keeping the home fire burning was a serious preoccupation of the evenings and mornings. Woody practiced new skills. As the old saying goes – chopping wood keeps you warm twice.

Our second morning was just as cool and we wore our entire wardrobes to keep warm around the morning’s porridge.

While his parents packed up camp and dried out the tents, Woody fished for bream and catfish, which are apparently in the river.

Needless to say we went away fishless from this spot, possibly due to the sudden dive in temperature. We left with other catches though. One significant fortune was a morning of quietness on the Bruce, sadly at others’ expense. The highway had produced yet another stunning truck and car accident just south of us, and as a consequence we had the shoulder and the northbound lane completely to ourselves while the road was closed for several hours. It was enjoyable riding,

and we got dreaming again about an achievable utopia,

that is until a coal train ran paralell and more roadkill woke us from our fantasy.

Another useful edible that we have followed along the roads through many climate regions is prickly pear (Opuntia stricta), and although not currently in fruit it is worth noting the places it keeps cropping up.

Just north of Raglan, after passing four car-struck grass owls (Tyto capensis) within 15 kms,

this striking survivalist,

this overgrown side lane,

and this intriguing weed (does anyone know what it is?) [Thanks for the answer Diane Warman, see comments]

we stopped under the Bruce, which we have started to call the Road of Death. We thought it lacked some structural and spiritual integrity so we performed a little healing ceremony,

and went to investigate the water lillies (Nymphaea gigantea) that we had initially stopped for. According to Lenore Lindsay, ‘Water lilies yield edible pods, seeds, celery-like stalks and tubers‘. We weren’t about to taste these particular ones growing in the toxic runoff from the Road of Death, but these autonomous edibles are just beginning to become common south of Rockhampton, and so we begin to build our knowledge of these age-old popular foods of the Darumbal people.

Rockhampton, more or less, is situated on the latitudinal circle-line of the Tropic of Capricorn, a line that is supposed to signal our departure from temperate to tropical climates.

But life is more nuanced than a line, even if this line is supposedly moving north at a rate of 15m per year. We have been passing through many subtle climate changes over the past eight months, each triggering transformations in the biosphere. A little exhuasted and in need of an extended rest from the road (and our performances upon and beside it) we have stopped here, in this motel on a weekly rate, to recharge and take a look around Rockhampton.

See you in a week!

Local, slow and youth: recent AaF media

Jul 13, 2014 | Gladstone Observer, media, News, Slow Magazine, story, unleash magazine, Zephyr | 2 comments

We stopped in Calliope to look at a local bat population when Nicky Moffat, a young Gladstone Observer journalist, pulled over and asked what we were up to. This is her/our story:

A little while ago Greg Foyster wrote a story on our food-cycling expedition and published it in Slow Magazine. No online version is available, but the magazine can be found fairly easily in Australian newsagencies.

Thanks Ian Robertson for taking this picture.

And back a few months NSW’s Youth Action invited Zeph to tell our story from his perspective in their online rag unleash magazine. What resulted is Zeph’s first published article. Go Zeph!

Read the whole unleash issue. Zeph’s article can be found on page 14 of the PDF.

Our medicine is free and found in both our food and physicality (from Bundaberg to Gladstone)

Jul 9, 2014 | brushturkey, Bundaberg, bush tucker, chickweed, citrus, cycle touring, free camping, free food, free shower, Gladstone, guava, Indigenous Australians, Kalki, op-shopping, passion fruit, rabbits, sugar cane | 2 comments

The days here in Queensland have been sunny and warm but the nights very cool. Before we left Bundaberg we went op-shoping for some warmer clothes. Woody scored this great vest.

Outside an opshop we met Clint, a local Kalki man. We got talking about bush food and he noticed Woody’s amber teething necklace. He told us that witchetty grubs (Endoxyla leucomochla) are a natural anaesthetic and that teething babies were traditionally fed the grubs to numb the gums. Clint also told us he is a kind of pastor but that he didn’t need to preach to us because we already knew our path. That path, for now, continues north on some quieter roads.

Building knowledge on the life forms around us that provide food fit for human consumption free of monetary interference and ecological damage is another path we’re simultaneously following. Finding ripe passion fruits fallen onto public land on the outskirts of Bundy may not seem like much,

but first sights can be deceiving.

We had a quiet ride to Avondale passing more of Queensland’s great obesity fields,

but we skipped on the pesticidal cane, picking roadside citrus instead.

When we arrived in the one-pub locality of Avondale we had Zero’s basket half-filled with autonomous medicine,

and we were greeted with the prospect of a free camping spot and shower.

Not only is Avondale generous to travellers, it is also good to itself, recognising that community protection from greed and ecological intransigence is sound, long-term thinking.

We found a kitchen bench and got on with preparing dinner with some store-bought produce.

We woke with the sun after our first night’s sleep in our new tents. After many years of camping, the old ones had become irreparable. We donated them to a Bundy opshop as they would be great as children’s cubbies.

We started the day by collecting onions that had fallen off the back of a truck. No, really! Out of all the conventionally-grown vegies and fruits, according to the US Environmental Working Group, onions are the least contaminated with pesticide residue. For dumpster divers and others who rely on conventionally-grown foods this list is probably as good a guide as any.

Various autonomous species have accompanied us along the roads from central Victoria such as the scavenger ravens and crows. But this mushroom, Pisolithus sp. is one of the hardiest of them all. The preferred medium on which it builds its life is bitumen and its spores are carried by motorists, trucks and more than likely the humble treadlie.

We arrived in Rosedale a few days too early for Friday night bingo,

pitched our tents at the Ivan Sbresni Oval,

and while we brewed a billy, Zero got to work flushing out some local rabbits.

While he continued to hunt we processed his game, these non-industrial gifts of the land, as both food and textile.

We skinned and salted the pelts and poached the meat briefly,

before removing the bones and tossing the tender meat through a pasta dish of raw chopped garlic, olive oil, salt, kale and zucchini.

The next morning Woody had a lesson on herbivore dung recognition, an education in craps, scats and animal fats,

before we hitched up our gear, set a drying rack for the pelts,

and again drank the sun north. Another autonomous species which has become a favourite free food since Kempsey is the cut-and-come-again guava, which never seems to stop fruiting.

Just when we thought the season had ended, along comes another tree laden. This harvest was made just south of the micro town of Lowmead.

In this area the land was no longer flat and caney, but undulating and scrubby.

These country roads have been a pleasure to ride, and even though the townships themselves offer little cultural nourishment,

generosity always sticks its head out. The hotel staff kindly let us recharge our batteries while we had a beer and got talking to some of the locals. Brett, a retired army man, took us across the road to a friend’s house so as we could collect mandarins from her garden, and the pub was giving away grapefruit from another local’s tree.

We were going to camp at Lowmead but Brett told us about a free campsite 17 kms away on the Bruce Highway and we still had the afternoon to play. He warned us that the road to the highway was partly unsealed but not too rough. The complete lack of traffic was wonderful.

We arrived at the highway campsite to this laden orange tree to complete our three-day catch of free and preventative medicines.

But just to be sure we had enough vitamin C we gathered and hoed down a handful of chickweed that was growing at the rest area.

After little sleep (how have we made the same mistake twice to camp beside the Bruce?) we returned to the intense highway,

and rode to Miriam Vale where we discovered a little knowledge regarding some of the bush tuckers we’ll likely see more of as we continue north.

While exploring the public gardens Woody asked for his favourite bush tucker to chew on – the starchy base of lomandra leaves.

A little on the nose we booked a cheap room in the Miriam Vale Hotel, which came with a gorgeous view.

We had a 50 km ride to Tannum Sands, with little on the way to hold our attention, or time,

except of course for the inevitable memorials, which kept coming at phenomenal rates.

We arrived in the late afternoon. Patrick went for a spearfish, returning fishless and blue from the cold ocean. Near where we were to camp at Canoe Point we spotted this fine creature,

the Australian brushturkey (Alectura lathami), which according to another Indigenous man, Barry Miller, who we also met back in Bundaberg, is really good tucker. Woody took his afternoon nap while the rest of us went about our business.

We cooked dinner and waited for dark before we set up camp.

Having earlier seen a council warning sign we went to bed a little nervous about crocodiles, but after some cursory phone research we discovered attacks by crocs in Australia have only occurred in or on the edge of water, never through a tent and never this far south. We awoke to a beautiful, unlawful camp ground,

and conceptually snubbed our noses at all the rip-off caravan park operators in the country wanting to charge us $40 a night for a patch of dead ground near a toilet block surrounded by caravans and motor homes.

From Tannum Sands we looked across the water to the Boyne Smelters, one of the industries that has made the small city of Gladstone momentarily affluent and no doubt permanently toxic.

For the next two nights we stayed with couchsurfing host Mike Koens. Mike lives just outside Gladstone with his housemate Paul, dog Rocko and three cats Girlfriend, Boyfriend and Thor. Mike works for Boyne Smelters as an air-conditioning and refrigeration man.

He told us that Gladstone’s mining boom is well and truly over, the housing market has slumped and he has begun his own transition to a more environmental life, collecting solar radiation and water from his roof, growing his own wood to heat his house and starting to grow his own food.

While we stayed with Mike we helped him turn his soil, removing couch grass from where his crops will soon thrive. We also helped him chop wood and we cooked for him. It’s no accident that synthetic medicine goes hand in hand with industrial food and energy. The pharmaceutical industry thrives on an unwell population that eats empty and lifeless food and uses cars for all travel.

“Is there anything you might do today,” the writer Padgett Powell timely asks of us, “that would distinguish you from being just a vessel of consumption and pollution with a proper presence in the herd?” Yes there is Padgett, thanks for asking.

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Month: July 2014