Today we drove from Port Augusta to Coober Pedy. Just out of Port Augusta we visited the Australian Arid Lands Botanic Gardens and stood where Matthew Flinders stood at the head of Spencer Gulf during his circumnavigation of Australia in the early 1800's.
We then stopped off at Woomera and see some of the early rockets which were launched from there since 1947.
Then it was on to Coober Pedy where we watched a beautiful sunset at The Breakaways about 30kms North of Coober Pedy.
There has been a bit of rain up this way so there is a good tinge of green about the place and it looks pretty spectacular. The flies were very friendly today so I am glad I brought the fly net with me.
Tomorrow we have a flight over Lake Eyre so I am really looking forward to that.
Bye for now
David Petherick
Wednesday, 27 April 2011
Larapinta Trail Charity Challenge
Well we are on our way to Alice Springs for the start of the 7 day Larapinta Trail walk on Sunday. My wife Mary and I are walking the trail to raise money for our respective charities. I am walking for People Outdoors, our disability respite program, and Mary is walking for our Chilean Women's Charity La Leona. It is a big country and a long drive but we also think it is a great way to gain some appreciation of just how big Australia is. The return trip from Geelong to Alice Springs is about 4,800kms!
On Monday we stopped in on the famous Stawell Gift Athletics Carnival to watch a few races and soak up the atmosphere. We also passed the Big Koala at Dadswell Bridge - there does seem to be a period in our not to distant past that we built a whole lot of "Big" things?
We then travelled on to Bordertown and visited former Prime Minister Bob Hawke's birthplace and the first house he lived in before spending the night in Murray Bridge.
Tuesday started with breakfast by the Murray River on a beautiful Autumn day and was followed by a very pleasant day in the Barossa and Eden Valley wines regions for Harvest Festival. We even spotted Maggie Beer at the Harvest Market at Yalumba Winery. We did manage to pick up a few nice bottles of red to sustain us on the trip as well!
Spent the night in Port Augusta and today we head off into outback Australia on our way to Coober Pedy for a couple of nights.
Australia really is a beautiful country and there is so much to see if only we make the time to see it. We really need to do this more often as it is a great way to recharge the batteries and to step back and take time to think. We need to keep encouraging all Australians to spend more time outdoors.
Well, onwards and upwards.
David Petherick
On Monday we stopped in on the famous Stawell Gift Athletics Carnival to watch a few races and soak up the atmosphere. We also passed the Big Koala at Dadswell Bridge - there does seem to be a period in our not to distant past that we built a whole lot of "Big" things?
We then travelled on to Bordertown and visited former Prime Minister Bob Hawke's birthplace and the first house he lived in before spending the night in Murray Bridge.
Tuesday started with breakfast by the Murray River on a beautiful Autumn day and was followed by a very pleasant day in the Barossa and Eden Valley wines regions for Harvest Festival. We even spotted Maggie Beer at the Harvest Market at Yalumba Winery. We did manage to pick up a few nice bottles of red to sustain us on the trip as well!
Spent the night in Port Augusta and today we head off into outback Australia on our way to Coober Pedy for a couple of nights.
Australia really is a beautiful country and there is so much to see if only we make the time to see it. We really need to do this more often as it is a great way to recharge the batteries and to step back and take time to think. We need to keep encouraging all Australians to spend more time outdoors.
Well, onwards and upwards.
David Petherick
Sunday, 6 February 2011
San Diego dreaming
Well I am here in San Diego posting this blog in the bathroom of my hotel room (so as not to wake my fellow traveller who arrived yesterday) at 1am. Perhaps this means that I may still be slightly jet lagged!
This morning we are off on a tour of camps prior to the American Camp Association National Conference getting underway on Tuesday. It is also Superbowl Sunday here so I am hoping we can find a sports bar to watch the game and get into the atmosphere a bit (go Steelers - who I discovered today have yellow and black as their colors and so are as good as a sister team to the mighty Richmond Tigers).
I am also reminded of a conversation I had with Don MacDowall back in 2008 when I suggested that a blog might be a good idea for the Australian Camps Association and he agreed but suggested that the biggest challenge would be finding the time to post regularly! I think it is now safe to say we have put that argument to bed.
Time for me to go back to bed and try to catch up on my sleep as my legs have pins and needles!
More tomorrow.
Dave P
This morning we are off on a tour of camps prior to the American Camp Association National Conference getting underway on Tuesday. It is also Superbowl Sunday here so I am hoping we can find a sports bar to watch the game and get into the atmosphere a bit (go Steelers - who I discovered today have yellow and black as their colors and so are as good as a sister team to the mighty Richmond Tigers).
I am also reminded of a conversation I had with Don MacDowall back in 2008 when I suggested that a blog might be a good idea for the Australian Camps Association and he agreed but suggested that the biggest challenge would be finding the time to post regularly! I think it is now safe to say we have put that argument to bed.
Time for me to go back to bed and try to catch up on my sleep as my legs have pins and needles!
More tomorrow.
Dave P
Friday, 8 October 2010
Respecting nature
Last weekend I had the privilege to attend Bob Cooper's Wilderness Survival Course at the Anglesea Recreation Camp here in Victoria, Australia. One of the key things Bob and his offsider talked about was respect for the bush.
This was in the context of walking gently on the earth and taking only what you need and also respecting nature enough to understand the potential consequences of being unprepared and making poor decisions whilst in the bush.
We heard many stories of people who perished in the harsh Australian outback because they did not show enough respect for environment they were travelling in.
On the course I learned and had the opportunity to practice some basic bushcraft skills such as navigating - with and without a compass - finding and collecting water and I even learned to start a fire from materials found in nature (yes including sticks).
In fact what I really learned was how little I knew and how unprepared I was previously.
But the main thing I learned was respect for the environment and even though I have some new found bush survival skills this does not mean that I will be blundering off into the bush Bear Grylls style eager to demonstrate my new skills - quite the opposite. I do plan to spend more time in the bush but I will actually be more cautious, respectful and prepared because the best approach is to avoid the need to use my new survival skills in the first place.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Fear and anxiety
One of my favourite quotes is by Dan Gardner (Risk. The Science and Politics of Fear, 2008) who said that "we are the healthiest, wealthiest, and longest-lived people in history. And we are increasingly afraid. This is one of the great paradoxes of our time."
This manifests itself in a number of ways. I am bothered by how many times I hear statements such as "we have had legal advice and we can't...". This bothers me particularly when it stops us from giving advice that we genuinely believe to the correct advice based on experience and the best knowledge at our disposal.
An example of this emerged after the terrible bushfires we had here in Victoria last February. I read about one local council that said they wanted to put in bunkers in their community but didn't because they could not indemnify themselves against any future claims. Leaving aside whether we think bunkers are a good idea in bushfire prone areas, what we seem to have here is a council that believes they are the best protection for their residents - but who can't or won't put them in because of the legal/insurance problems that they might cause.
While I understand their reticence, I am concerned that they felt they were unable to implement a policy that they felt provided the best protection for their residents because of what a court might do in the future.
This approach is now entrenched as the default position. Decisions made not based on what the best policy is in a given situation, but on whether the decision maker can shift the risk to someone else - and in this context I am talking about legal risk (liability) not actual risk.
When and how did this happen? It is all pervasive and I suspect it has snuck up on us.
I want to be clear that I am not advocating recklessness here - but the pendulum has swung too far in seeking to apportion blame for every accident and incident in society. Yes we want to learn from mistakes that are made and where it is proved that negligence caused the incident then yes there should be consequences. But when we as a society become afraid to do what we believe to be right because we are so concerned with being legally liable - then we have surely gone too far.
This manifests itself in a number of ways. I am bothered by how many times I hear statements such as "we have had legal advice and we can't...". This bothers me particularly when it stops us from giving advice that we genuinely believe to the correct advice based on experience and the best knowledge at our disposal.
An example of this emerged after the terrible bushfires we had here in Victoria last February. I read about one local council that said they wanted to put in bunkers in their community but didn't because they could not indemnify themselves against any future claims. Leaving aside whether we think bunkers are a good idea in bushfire prone areas, what we seem to have here is a council that believes they are the best protection for their residents - but who can't or won't put them in because of the legal/insurance problems that they might cause.
While I understand their reticence, I am concerned that they felt they were unable to implement a policy that they felt provided the best protection for their residents because of what a court might do in the future.
This approach is now entrenched as the default position. Decisions made not based on what the best policy is in a given situation, but on whether the decision maker can shift the risk to someone else - and in this context I am talking about legal risk (liability) not actual risk.
When and how did this happen? It is all pervasive and I suspect it has snuck up on us.
I want to be clear that I am not advocating recklessness here - but the pendulum has swung too far in seeking to apportion blame for every accident and incident in society. Yes we want to learn from mistakes that are made and where it is proved that negligence caused the incident then yes there should be consequences. But when we as a society become afraid to do what we believe to be right because we are so concerned with being legally liable - then we have surely gone too far.
Friday, 10 July 2009
Are we raising our children to be frightened?
I was recently in the airport waiting to fly home when I heard a mother yell at her daughter, who was about 5 years old, "don't wander away or you will get snatched (kidnapped), kids get snatched all the time you know". The child had moved about 2 metres away from her mother and the comments really grated on me. Maybe we have always invoked the bogeyman to get our children to do what we want them to - but I am not sure it is either effective or appropriate.
Apart from this not being true (kids getting snatched all the time that is) - it did make me think about how much we as a society focus on fear. This is particularly important for us in Victoria after the tragic bushfires of 7 February this year.
With the experts telling us that climate change means we can expect more extreme weather events in the future, there is the very real possibility that we may have a public loss of confidence in the bush. If this leads to even more people staying at home on their PlayStation's or Nintendo instead of getting outside then I think the long term consequences will far outweigh the actual risk of being outdoors in nature.
To respond to this heightened anxiety we will need to focus on the benefits that come from being involved in outdoor programs, while at the same time being able to demonstrate that as an industry we have responded to the changing environment and that we have taken all reasonable steps to ensure our programs are safe and that we have reviewed and revised our programs accordingly.
Apart from this not being true (kids getting snatched all the time that is) - it did make me think about how much we as a society focus on fear. This is particularly important for us in Victoria after the tragic bushfires of 7 February this year.
With the experts telling us that climate change means we can expect more extreme weather events in the future, there is the very real possibility that we may have a public loss of confidence in the bush. If this leads to even more people staying at home on their PlayStation's or Nintendo instead of getting outside then I think the long term consequences will far outweigh the actual risk of being outdoors in nature.
To respond to this heightened anxiety we will need to focus on the benefits that come from being involved in outdoor programs, while at the same time being able to demonstrate that as an industry we have responded to the changing environment and that we have taken all reasonable steps to ensure our programs are safe and that we have reviewed and revised our programs accordingly.
Tuesday, 11 November 2008
I am home
Well I have arrived safely back in Australia (a couple of weeks ago) and I am at the stage now that when I wake up I don't wonder what city I am in - I am home.
I had a great trip to Canada - what a beautiful country - and then on to New England for a short visit - more beautiful countryside and Autumn colours. The hospitality we encountered was first class and I had the opportunity to meet and learn from lots of wise and knowledgeable colleagues while we were there.
I know look forward to opportunities to share what I learned to our colleagues in Australia and hopefully we can implement a number of the ideas we have picked up.
I even bought some cookies from a young woman working for the Obama campaign in New 
Haven and so I feel that I made a contribution to his election.
Haven and so I feel that I made a contribution to his election.I also couldn't resist the chance to get myself involved in a debate between Republicans and a lone, but quite passionate, Democrat in New York. That is me on the left of the photo in my 'Mystic Journey' tee shirt.
The 'Mystic Journey' was a bit of a theme for me for the whole trip - I bought the tee shirt in Vancouver in Stanley Park at the start of the trip and used it to remind myself to try to stay 'in the moment' throughout - to fully listen to what I was being told and to learn as much as I could - hopefully I was able to do that at least most of the time.
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