A Snog in the Fog for the Blog

Jean & I took a drive up to Ben Lomond - Tasmania's ski area. It was thick fog (thus the Snog in the Fog last picture). We hiked up the ski hill - measured it at nearly 600 feet of vertical. Beautiful tundra - though we could only see a few feet of it at a time. Wallabies all over the place - interesting animal to have on a ski slope.

Ben Lomond's Terrain Park. Really, this was the only feature that we could find.

Hard to tell in the picture, but the tuft in the middle of the moss is about 10 feet across.
The Snog in the Fog. One of the finest self portraits to date.

Aussie politics, etc.

Yesterday was a big day - a week of breathless buildup on TV with commentary, predictions, preparations for..............Budget Day!

The Government presented its budget last night - kept secret until the presentation in parliament, and with enough hoopla leading up to it that it could be the Super Bowl.

Aussie politics is really nasty. It appears that no matter how trivial the matter, the two sides call each other uninformed, idiots, make nasty comments, etc. It's pretty bizarre. And they do it while facing each other across the middle pit of parliament - and it's always associated with a personal attack on intelligence or integrity, not just a disagreement with the policy.

Current hot topics: Australia television is currently transitioning to all digital and the government has proposed providing free installation and set top boxes to convert digital input to analog signals for old TV's of "pensioners" - retirees. Given a recent fiasco with government sponsored installation of home insulation - that in a few cases was improperly installed and caught fire and burned the house down, there is a good target for the opposition. Apparently Tony Abbott (who might really be stupid) doesn't believe that old people need to watch TV. He might be right.

Then, there's a major uproar about a deal with Malaysia: Australia will send back to Malaysia about 800 refugees who sailed here without permission ("Illegal immigrants" in US - speak), in return for 4000 who have achieved legal status as qualifying for amnesty status (I think mostly from places like Afghanistan). Aussies have a strange mix of needing highly trained immigrants to keep the economy going, and not wanting to be the dumping ground for all of South and Southeast Asia's unwanted.

On TV: Netball. Never heard of it before. It seems to get more live coverage than any other single sport (though nobody seems to discuss it). Women play it. There's a basketball style net, with no backboard - seems nearly impossible to get the ball through the hoop unless you're within about 3 feet of the net. And, when you have the ball, you can't move your feet and the person guarding you appears to not be able to move either. And, you can't jump if you have the ball. It's really fast action with lots of passing and running by everyone not having the ball, until finally you throw it to someone standing a foot from the net. Then, everything stops and she hold the ball straight over her head and throws it upwards and it occasionally goes through the hoop. Seems very popular, though I'm not aware that anyone actually watches the numerous TV broadcasts.

Footy (Aussie Football) is great for my business. 18 per side on a field that's 200-250 meters long (I counted 10 referees at one point, but could only see part of the field). You can punch the ball (but not throw it), or kick it, or run carrying it - basketball-style dribbling it once every 10 or so strides (imagine dribbling an oversized football on turf). And, you can have large numbers of people converging at high speed on a long, high kick - imagine a punt that everybody can and does try to catch - or punch the ball away from somebody else trying to catch it. Lots of concussions, lacerations, and dislocated shoulders. Saw a guy dislocate a finger, and the trainer just ran out on the field and popped it back into joint while the guy was running along - slowed down, then kept on going.

And, lots of rugby - still don't understand why they dive over the line, even while completely alone, and slide on the ground holding the ball. May relate to the amount of Foster's ingested at half time.

Still working on the language

Discovered a few days ago, that when a patient is described as "average" - where not talking about the arithmetic mean. "Average" in Aussie seems to me right at the bottom of the barrel. OK, so that explains why the patient always seemed to look a bit worse than me.

Walking home tonight, beautiful clear night and I realized that the sky still has no constellations that I recognize. Where did that big dipper go?

There's a mountain bike race this Sunday - 3 man teams to do as many laps as possible in 3 hours. One of our nurses is the president of the Mtn Bike Club putting it on, and came rushing back from the triage desk today with the great news that she had found me a mountain bike to use and a team to ride on! One of her friends, just about my size, was out in triage with a broken clavicle - so his bike and spot on a team was mine. Should be fun.

Continue to get interesting cases: guy went to Fiji for a diving holiday, came back with abdominal pain, constipation, and fever. Pretty sure that it's typhoid - don't recall diagnosing that before.

As I get to know the system better (and, the system and more importantly, the people in the system, get to know me) it works a bit better. No place for nursing orders, but post-its work really well. Have to call radiologist to get approval for CT, etc after hours - but, as long as you're half-way reasonable they always try to help - even though the available resources don't allow exactly what you want. Today, I even asked for a CT (Easter Tuesday is a holiday in Tassie - so we're on part staffing) and was told that an MR would be better (which I knew) and he'd just do that instead (the MR and CT techs are cross trained, so once a tech is in, both studies are fine).

Getting to know the other specialty Registrars better, also. And that smooths interactions quite a bit.

I've had the distinct impression that Emergency Med is a second class citizen/overpaid intern sort of attitude here. But, part of the problem, I suspect is that there is so much turnover in EM, that nobody gets to know the capabilities in the ED and it isn't to unreasonable to assume the worst. Until they get the resources, and permanent staff, I expect it won't much change.

Politically incorrect?

Sushant had one of our computers live streaming an IPL (cricket - Indian Professional League) game last night at work. I had some paperwork to do, so sat down and watched for a little while doing the paperwork - they flashed the score of one of the teams: Mumbai Indians. I thought gee, thats funny (and very incorrect) that a team from Mumbai would choose a name from American Natives. It took a couple seconds (after the words were already out of my mouth) to realize that the team was actually "Indian" - Sushant gave me a bit of a reminder lesson on how American Indians actually got their name.

Should I visit Tassie??

I'm sure some folks wonder whether a trip to Tassie would be worth it:

Tassie's pretty interesting - small towns, bush walking, sea kayaking, cycling, beaches, surf. There's a few things that you can't see anywhere else in the world - Devils mostly. And a few things that you'll see only in Australia: kangaroos and wallabies, eucalyptus (except southern California), white bellied sea eagles, kookaburras, wombats, etc.

But, everything I did, there was always something I'd done someplace else that was a little better and that I'd recommend ahead of coming to Tassie:

Birds: try the Chitwan in Nepal

Bushwalking: try Colorado, or Utah canyon country, or Nepal

Walking on the beach and watching waves: Oregon coast, or better yet - Tofino on Vancouver Island

Southern Hemisphere rain forest: South Island of New Zealand

Cycling by the ocean: New Zealand, Western Isles of Scotland, central coast of California, northern California and Oregon, and best of all: Newfoundland - pack ice, icebergs, whales, caribou, moose - all visible from the bike.

Mountain cycling: Colorado, Canadian Rockies, Morocco

Exotic cycling: Vietnam (don't do Saigon to Hanoi like we did. Stay 4-5 days in a few different towns and ride the back roads around the towns - fat tires on a cross bike.) Morocco.

History while cycling: Great Britain - do the End-to-End or shorter rides.

Sea Kayaking: Sea of Cortez, California Channel Islands, Vancouver Island, San Juan Islands, and again best of all: Newfoundland - icebergs and whales!

All of these are trips I've done - and there are lots more I'd like to do. All of these that I've done, I'd do again in a minute. But, Tassie is fine and interesting and if you're here, there's enough to do. But, I'd never make the trip back again - there's so much more and better closer to home.

Queenstown burned down

I stayed in a little town called Queenstown my last long weekend (and took care of a lady from there that I think had carbon monoxide poisoning - but couldn't prove it).

Yesterday, something caught fire in the central block of town - either started in or spread to a machine shop with acetylene torch cylinders which exploded. Apparently most of the downtown is gone, and what is left - including my hotel - has no windows from the explosion. Glad I missed that excitement.

I haven't heard of any injuries (happened at 2 am). Presume the hotel was empty - I was the only guest the night I stayed there.

Aussie humor hits back

"How does a New Zealander find a sheep in the bush?"

"Quite delightful, thank you."

I recall being in New Zealand years ago and noting that about half of all Kiwi humor was at the expense of Aussies - that's the first Kiwi joke I've heard here.

BTW, I was walking on a beach today in Freycinet (Fry - sin -eh?) National park and a couple of sea kayakers pulled up - from Boulder of all things. NOAA researcher currently working on American Samoa and over here for a couple weeks off.

GoodNewsWeek (sort of like Wait, Wait but spoken in Australian, much more rowdy, and on TV) made quite a lot of fun of the American poll that found that 1/3 of native-born Americans would not be able to pass the US citizenship test (even those real applicants who spoke no English are reported to have done better than Sarah Palin). About 1/4 of all the jokes tonight were about Palin.

"What's the One Thing Americans don't know about America?"

"That there are places other than America."

What would you like to give William & Kate for a wedding present?"

"A job."

Lionel Richie was the American of the 8 guest/contestants- pretty funny. Didn't know he did funny.

Global warming may just give Tasmanias a chance to see what it feels like to wear shorts.

Observations on Tas

Walking & driving: the driving around town is pretty aggressive - diving into the roundabouts rather briskly - enough that if another guy were to make a mistake it's be tough to adjust. I'm still getting used to looking to the right - and having to look 3 entries away into the circle, because I'd still have to "give way" to a guy coming fast and aggressive from 3/4 of the way around the roundabout. Especially challenging to keep that in mind on bicycle when I've got to look to my left for a guy that will eventually catch me from the right!

And, as a walker - there is no thought of pedestrians have the right of way. Pedestrians definitely yield to the cars. Once every couple of days I'll see a car slow, or even stop to let a pedestrian across and it really messes things up because the other cars don't expect it to happen so there's sometimes a squeal of tires from behind the slowing car of the nice guy. Just stay on the sidewalk, mate!

Real estate:

The house across the street went up for sale last week. It's the most expensive listing in Harcourts' large Launceston catalogue - but with no price listed. In 2008 it was the "House of the Year" for Lonnie. From the road it's a very unassuming nicely kept up old house (1840 to be exact (with a flagpole that gets a different flag each day). Turns out that what I see is just "the cottage" - and connects via a glass passageway to "the house" which is a modern, glass-walled multilevel with great views. Totals about 3000 sq feet. The listing is for "expressions of interest" which will close at 5 PM on May 2nd. I gather that's sort of like a silent auction - our eBay in miniature. Love to see what it goes for. The pictures of the interior and the views are pretty spectacular. If your interested, got to: Harcourts.com.au and look for TLA 3001 or just rank the Launceston listing from most expensive and it's the first one.

I ate in a restaurant this afternoon, and realized that it was my first real "meal" in 6 days: up to now it's been a combination of cereal (wheat bix mostly), apples (I did buy a couple of expensive Florida grapefruits and a couple bananas - that are currently about $2.25 per banana! because 80% of the banana crop was wiped out by the Queensland floods), milk and cookies, peanut butter and jelly, and (real treat) exceedingly delicious submarine sandwiches that I buy on the way into the ER from the coffee shop/bistro right next to the hospital - very similar to Amante in Boulder, but more expensive.

Working 5 days straight, I only got in a couple of 15 - 30 minute short hard workouts, so today felt good to get out for 3 hours through the countryside/farms/eucalyptus forests and up into the hills - cold, overcast, a little rain but absolutely beautiful, relaxing, enjoyable ride with a few hard efforts during the last half. Had planned a little longer, but the road that I was on turned to dirt/mud so I turned back.

More flooding in the Northeast of Tas - hampered some of the medical transfers yesterday.

The Beach, the Southern Ocean

Not having done much running or hiking recently (a side effect of having an old dog) - and what hiking I did was on skis, so no downhill steps - yesterday's roughly 3300 feet up and (more importantly, I think) back down has generated massively painful quads today. Walking down steps is an ordeal.

So, I drove down to Strahan (I can't pretend to come close to the local pronunciation - something close to "strain" or maybe "strayin' ") and went for a walk on the beach. The beach is 33 km long - one of the longest in the world. I didn't quite make it to the end. I had read about it in a Sea Kayaking magazine article sometime back - there are no landing sites, and with the usual wave conditions of the Southern Ocean (no longer in the Indian Ocean down here - it's the Southern, or Antarctic, Ocean) - it's impossible to ever get a kayak on and off the beach, so you have to paddle the whole 33 km in one go, often in tough conditions.

Today was as good as it ever gets - very little wind, only small local waves, and a swell of only 3 meters with occasional 4 meter sets. But, the surf zone looked to be 3 or 4 hundred meters wide so would take 5 or minutes to get through. The break is typically 50% higher than the swell so you're looking at having repeatedly to try to get through surf that's well over 10 feet. Never happen - not with the strongest paddlers. 33 km to go to the next landing!

Strahan is a nice little seaport town on a quiet harbor. They've got a bunch of cruises around the (very long) harbor and up the local river, but all had left for the day and were long enough that I didn't want to stay for tomorrow's cruises. And the evening cruises only run during summer.

So, drove on to Queenstown - big Copper Mine that has torn up a very large area of the mountainside above the town. Currently shut down and a major restoration effort going on. Pretty old town, not very prosperous, but has a Wilderness Railway somewhat like the Durango narrow gauge.

Staying here in an old hotel with a grand stairway listed in the National Historical Register. They cut the wood locally, shipped it to England to be carved, then shipped the completed stairway back in 1904 to be installed.

I've got some pictures, but my camera battery ran out and I don't have my charger - so won't be able to download them until tomorrow.

One note from yesterday: the high boggy areas above treeline all have elevated boardwalks for hiking (Bushwalking) - looks like a major advantage for preservation of the environment. A step ahead of Colorado.

The hot news in Tassie is a proposed detention center for refugees. A bit of a fight between the NIMBY group, and those who want it for the jobs and income it will provide. Refugees seem to be a big deal here - with not an excessively welcoming attitude. In 2007 they came from China, Malaysia, East Timor in Indonesia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, North Korea, and Lebanon. I've heard that Afghanistan is now heavily represented. Oh, and a big brouhaha about a Tassie government minister who let slip that a shadow minister had applied for a job and was only ranked 4th among the applicants - should've been confidential. Remember that Tassie is only 500,000 people - half the size of Denver. So, State Government is drawing from a small pool of competent people and well, it's small townish.

Australian News

Listening to ABC news on the radio is a bit different: one news station for the whole country (not unlike NPR), but because the population is so spotty, it can also do a lot of local news too. There's really only 5 major cities (Perth, Brisbane, Adelaide, Melbourne, and Sydney). So in about a minute, you can cover traffic for the whole nation. Since there's only 6 states and one territory, you can add 2 more small cities (Darwin and Hobart), and include all the state capitol weather reports in another minute. Neat.

The Aussie news seems to be about 1/3 - 1/3 - 1/3: Oz, US, and the World. With US news being financial, political and a few horror stories thrown in to make you glad that you live in Oz and not that horrible place the other side of the Pacific. Easy to keep up on what's happening at home.

Back to the place where I stayed last night and enjoyed the pumpkin strudel. Talked to the woman of the couple that owns the place and she explained that in Australia, pumpkin is usually thought of as part of the main meal - rather than considering it a "sweet" or dessert (as in pie) as in the US.

There were 3 guests at the hotel last night. Me, and two women (not traveling together). One was quite silent and spoke only 3-4 words that I heard - I think in American. The other was quite a chatty Aussie and went on quite a political discussion with the proprietors at breakfast this morning. After apologizing for going on about politics (Oh my, It's too early for politics), you then plunged back in on "That despicable Tony Abbott - you do think he's despicable, don't you?". I actually learned a bit by listening in.

The proprietor also introduced me to "Shazam" an app on his Android that he used to "listen" to something that was playing on the radio, that then somehow in about 15 seconds was able to "think" with its mother website and identify the song and the artist. How cool is that? Wonder if it works with Classical? If you can do that, they've gotta be able to do it with "dog". This bark means "I'm hungry", that means "It's mine," and the ever-popular"Squirrel!!!!!".

toxicology

It's a little harder to get a new liver in Tassie: you can't buy a bottle of Tylenol down here. Partly because it's named Panadol - but more importantly it comes in a box with no more than 24 tablets, all in little individual bubble packs. So, if you want to kill yourself, no gulping the whole bottle. You've got to individually unwrap each pill, one at a time - and you've gotta do more than one box probably. It rather take the impulsive swallow a bottle approach out of play.

Neat.

Footy

On today's ride, stopped for a little lunch (seemed to be french fries soaked in grease rather than cooked in oil) at a game of Footy - I believe that's Australian Rules Football. I'm not sure what was going on - there was running, some tackling, a lot of kicking (punting in American style football), and there were an awful lot of people on the field - I believe about 18 per side. Wasn't too crowded, though, since the field appeared to be about the size of a typical 18 hole golf course.

I was surprised to flip on the telly just in time to hear that some guy was going to sing the national anthem before a horse race - and it wasn't Waltzing Matilda! I've been misinformed.

Lonnie Floods

I rode down to the Cataract Gorge. It seems that about a quarter of the population was there watching the floods - including a number of folks that I knew from the hospital.

The weather service was off by a long shot on predicting the size of the flooding (they predicted 7 meters, but it only got to 3 meters) and it never got close to going over the levees. There were some closed roads and bridges, but no evacuations or buildings damaged.

However the Gorge was pretty spectacular. It wasn't the ground shaking sort of volumes like the 200,000 CFS flood when we were in Maine, but the smaller volume squeezed down a pretty narrow canyon.

For comparison, take a look at the pictures that I posted a few days ago. And, remember that in the video looking down towards the bridge, 2 days ago a tourist boat came to about where the prominent large wave is today.

In the still picture, notice that the chairlift is still running over the river. The outdoor swimming pool is just left of center in the picture, but under enough water that we couldn't see the tops of the very large swing sets by the pool.

Life in Tassie

Interesting differences in life: Grocery stores. To motivate the return of grocery carts, same system as often seen in Canada: The carts are clipped together and you insert a $1 or $2 coin to release the clip. When you return the cart and clip it back to the row of carts, you get your coin back. Save on the carts floating through the parking lots, etc. They all get returned inside the store.

On the other hand, the North American observation that it is better to put the milk in the grocery bag before putting in the bread - hasn't been noticed here (maybe they think that since Tassie is on the bottom of the world the milk will tend to float out of the top of the bag). Repeatedly I've ended up with flat loafs of bread when the bagger throw the milk in on top of the bread. Gotta remember to hold onto the bread until last in the check out lane.

More on Aussie terminology: Speedo bathing suits are commonly called "Budgie Smugglers" (after a somewhat infamous event where a guy was caught trying to smuggle small birds, called Budgies, in his underpants). There's been some commentary over Tony Abbott, the leader of the opposition political coalition, prominently being pictured on the beach wearing his "Budgie Smugglers."

Contact info, trip to Australia, initial impressions of Tassie

I'm finally connected to the internet and have a phone: 011 61 04 87 230 034 if anyone wants to call. And I'm on Skype at rabbott1020 as rick abbott.

The trip seemed to take forever, but was actually not too bad - managed to sleep at the right times so that I had a 6 hour block and woke up at 6 am Australian time. Had an 8 hour layover in Sydney and went downtown, cruised around, listened to some Aborigine music on the waterfront and got some walking exercise.

Launcestone is quite an old town - early 1800's. 60 years older than Boulder! Lots of old houses, businesses, and churches. Ornate wrought iron seems to be the theme. Brick, stone construction. Metal roofs. But the interiors are quite modern in many of the buildings and homes. The house I'm living in is small - the size of one floor in our Boulder house. But recently remodeled. Fancy appliances (cooktop has a touch screen control panel, and touch sensitive burners that turn off automatically when you remove the pots & pans). Nice little backyard. The street runs across the face of a ridge (with 18% grades on the streets running up the ridge! Yeah, 18% really.) and I've got nice views across town, and down towards the harbor.

Lots of funny little things to notice that are just a bit different from the states:

Sports - lots of general news coverage of cycling. Good week for Tasmanian cyclists: at Paris-Nice this week Richie Porte took 3rd in the Time Trial, and Matt Goss won a stage - both Launceston boys. Then there is the high school lawn bowling tournament, lots of horse racing, lots of cricket news, and apparently about 29 different variations of Rugby. Then there's net ball. It got TV coverage and appears to be a hoop and net like basketball but no backboard, played by women, mostly tall, ball a bit smaller than a basketball - here's where it get weird - you can't move once you get the ball, and you can't move if you are guarding the person with the ball, so everybody else runs around, then if you finally get the ball to a player within about 8 inches of the net the player and the guard both stand there doing pretty much nothing until she throws the ball into the net. Anything from more than 8 inches away seems to have near zero chance of going through the hoop! Maybe there is something different that I don't understand.

Lots of betting shops - presumably on sports.

Tiny little mailboxes - with stickers on them that say "No advertising or catalogs accepted." The mailbox appears to have room for about 10 letters and nothing else. I guess the Postal service doesn't deliver the junk mail if you say you don't want it. What would LL Bean do????

Pedestrian walk signals - First, you can't turn (left) after stopping on a red light. Then, people actually obey the green pedestrian "walk" signals - even if there are no cars within sight, people stand there and wait (and rarely do you see someone cross between intersections - maybe never). Then when the light changes, you only get a couple of seconds of green walk, then immediately goes to flashing red - no darting across later. Understandable, since the cars have been waiting to turn and their time to turn coincides with your time to cross the side street. Step lively there, mate.

High heels - lots of them, really high (with short skirts).

I filled up the tank on my little car (about 10 gallons if I did the calculation correctly) for $82 (US and Australian dollars are within a penny of each other right now). I've never put $82 worth of gas in a tank before - not even the bigger tank on my minivan.

it's a 7 minute walk from my house to the downtown mall. Quicker to walk than to drive & look for a parking space. Really nice to be able to walk to stuff. The mall is a bit shorter than the Boulder Mall, but with a shopping area around it that is somewhat bigger than downtown Boulder. Quite a range from really fancy upscale stuff to sports recyclers to Target to a Sports Authority (?same company as in Boulder?) to a pretty upscale bike shop to fancy restaurants to take-aways with the usual Indian, Chinese, and falafel. I feel right at home.

The city is built at the end of a flat, broad, agricultural river valley - big enough for small ships on the river. 2 smaller rivers join here to form the big river. The part of town that I've explored so far is built on the very steep hills around the smaller valley. I haven't been down to the flat part of town yet (except late at night when I was lost.).

I've got some pictures, but having trouble downloading - will load them later.