1: waterfall near Binna burra lodge
2: Lookout
3: secretly, Jules is a Melbourne Maoist, posing as a CIA-funded neo-con warmongrel.
4: one of the huge fig trees
5: On a 16km walk with river crossings
6: waterfall
Jules:
Poet, Warrior, Lover, Magician/ Technician, Travel writer, Court Jester and general pain in the butt. Drink less Coffee and read more Jules. The Hippie Conservative Libertarian with a climbing harness and an M16.
The outdoor instructor season is finished for 2 months, so Jules has set of southward with his mobile office, gear loft, kitchen and dorm (van). Many adventures and meetings are to be expected.
Thurs 4 dec 08
I have just had 3 great days at Binna Burra, Lamington Nat Park – at 700m altitude.
Hosted by Caz, a fellow outdoor instructor whom I met on a camp. She also guides adults on walks from Binna Burra lodge, a great old-style lodge that has been there since the 1930s. The jungle valleys and steep sides are covered with a network of tracks short and long , and she knows most of them, as well as the Geology, History and Botany of the site. It’s great to have a knowledgeable guide.
It’s a garden of Eden, with Crimson Rosellas (red), large Skinks, Woompoo birds that echo in the jungle, and huge fig trees with buttressed roots and matrixes of roots, big waterfalls , creeks with pools… The area is often covered with mist or rain, and can be up to 10 degrees colder than the lowlands. Just inland from the Gold coast and all it’s skyscrapers and feral animals. The road is long and windy enough to dissuade those who are not committed to walk in the jungle.
It lies on the “Scenic Rim” – a rim of jungly mountains 1000 m or so high which divides Queensland and NSW. With a few passes where roads get over.
I drive down to Nerang in the lowlands and load up my eski with food for my trip down south. I go to a net café where I catch up with my emails and send replies. Also look at my bank account online.
Then I drive the scenic way south, past the “Natural Arch” up to a very obvious mountain pass where the view opens up to a huge vista of the Northern Rivers area of NSW – my old stamping grounds when I was taking care of Dad in 2005.
I talk to a local who has stopped with his bike – it turns out he has cycled around the world, in about 4 years, staying with tribes etc. his website:
I have just had 3 great days at Binna Burra, Lamington Nat Park – at 700m altitude.
Hosted by Caz, a fellow outdoor instructor whom I met on a camp. She also guides adults on walks from Binna Burra lodge, a great old-style lodge that has been there since the 1930s. The jungle valleys and steep sides are covered with a network of tracks short and long , and she knows most of them, as well as the Geology, History and Botany of the site. It’s great to have a knowledgeable guide.
It’s a garden of Eden, with Crimson Rosellas (red), large Skinks, Woompoo birds that echo in the jungle, and huge fig trees with buttressed roots and matrixes of roots, big waterfalls , creeks with pools… The area is often covered with mist or rain, and can be up to 10 degrees colder than the lowlands. Just inland from the Gold coast and all it’s skyscrapers and feral animals. The road is long and windy enough to dissuade those who are not committed to walk in the jungle.
It lies on the “Scenic Rim” – a rim of jungly mountains 1000 m or so high which divides Queensland and NSW. With a few passes where roads get over.
I drive down to Nerang in the lowlands and load up my eski with food for my trip down south. I go to a net café where I catch up with my emails and send replies. Also look at my bank account online.
Then I drive the scenic way south, past the “Natural Arch” up to a very obvious mountain pass where the view opens up to a huge vista of the Northern Rivers area of NSW – my old stamping grounds when I was taking care of Dad in 2005.
I talk to a local who has stopped with his bike – it turns out he has cycled around the world, in about 4 years, staying with tribes etc. his website:
philosophy bit follows:
We talk a lot about various issues- dictators and how to deal with them etc, and finish up with Evil – I reckon Evil is inherent in all of us and we can choose or not to tap into “demonic forces” , and there is a continual battle between Good and Evil – as all cultures from Buddhists to Hinduism to Christianity to Pagan ones have believed. As well as writers such as Tolkien and CS Lewis. He has this post-modern idea that if only we could get to the “root causes” – better parenting/education in young years etc, we would not have to deal with the likes of Saddam or Milosevic or serial killers, and go to war.
Mmm yeah, and how is that going to happen ?… even if we has everything provided as in the sci-fi movie “Logan’s Run”, there would still be evil, though less. The sci-fi movie “Serenity” also postulates that when you try to anaesthetize people to much, you end up with a portion of the population becoming crazed killers, as a reaction, or side effect.
The main problem with his idea is that it denies the reality of the imperfect present, and the need to deal with an imperfect world and protect our loved ones, and democratic western civilization, via warfare and law enforcement, which itself is imperfect.
It’s a bit like saying to a cancer patient that we won’t be treating this cancer because it’s too messy and has too many side effects, and better luck in the next life when we will have this wonderful Utopian Brave New World where everyone is nice nice and no-one gets cancer. And pigs will fly…
Had Belgrade infrastructure not been bombed (circa 1998) for 6 weeks by Clinton and Blair, Milosevic would be dictator of greater Serbia and probably hundreds more thousands would have died in Serb ethnic cleansing…..
Some people object that a school bus, a passenger train were hit (by mistake) during this bombing amongst other civilian casualties, so “War is not the Answer”. Bollocks – what’s your alternative – watching ethnic cleansing go on undisturbed ?
As Margaret Thatcher would have said “There is no alternative”.
As it was, due to the lateness of the Anglo-US intervention, 200 000 civilians died in that civil war… and the toothless UN forces watched on as Serb snipers around Sarajevo shot old ladies and 14 yr old girls going out to collect water... I’ve talked to Serbs whining about how they were set upon by the anglo-US forces… whine away guys, I have very little sympathy – next time you have a maniac like Milosevic, form an armed militia and get rid of him instead of sitting passively.
All the unspeakable civilian tortures and mass killings of unarmed civilians by Serb death squads (Arkan and company) and regular forces happened 2 hours flight away from Paris, where I was at the time. Also ,I had visited the country in 1989, and knew several of the areas where fighting was occurring. It made me mad and sickened me, and even gave me nightmares. Mad at that clown Chirac for being all talk and no action. It was a turning point for many Europeans in the realisation that Europe could not even stop ethnic cleansing in it’s own backyard… and basically stood for nothing but empty talk (Blair being an exception to this).
Bah.. back to my road diary … had to get that off my chest tho.
I jog then eat some canned food and salad. Then sleep.
Mmm yeah, and how is that going to happen ?… even if we has everything provided as in the sci-fi movie “Logan’s Run”, there would still be evil, though less. The sci-fi movie “Serenity” also postulates that when you try to anaesthetize people to much, you end up with a portion of the population becoming crazed killers, as a reaction, or side effect.
The main problem with his idea is that it denies the reality of the imperfect present, and the need to deal with an imperfect world and protect our loved ones, and democratic western civilization, via warfare and law enforcement, which itself is imperfect.
It’s a bit like saying to a cancer patient that we won’t be treating this cancer because it’s too messy and has too many side effects, and better luck in the next life when we will have this wonderful Utopian Brave New World where everyone is nice nice and no-one gets cancer. And pigs will fly…
Had Belgrade infrastructure not been bombed (circa 1998) for 6 weeks by Clinton and Blair, Milosevic would be dictator of greater Serbia and probably hundreds more thousands would have died in Serb ethnic cleansing…..
Some people object that a school bus, a passenger train were hit (by mistake) during this bombing amongst other civilian casualties, so “War is not the Answer”. Bollocks – what’s your alternative – watching ethnic cleansing go on undisturbed ?
As Margaret Thatcher would have said “There is no alternative”.
As it was, due to the lateness of the Anglo-US intervention, 200 000 civilians died in that civil war… and the toothless UN forces watched on as Serb snipers around Sarajevo shot old ladies and 14 yr old girls going out to collect water... I’ve talked to Serbs whining about how they were set upon by the anglo-US forces… whine away guys, I have very little sympathy – next time you have a maniac like Milosevic, form an armed militia and get rid of him instead of sitting passively.
All the unspeakable civilian tortures and mass killings of unarmed civilians by Serb death squads (Arkan and company) and regular forces happened 2 hours flight away from Paris, where I was at the time. Also ,I had visited the country in 1989, and knew several of the areas where fighting was occurring. It made me mad and sickened me, and even gave me nightmares. Mad at that clown Chirac for being all talk and no action. It was a turning point for many Europeans in the realisation that Europe could not even stop ethnic cleansing in it’s own backyard… and basically stood for nothing but empty talk (Blair being an exception to this).
Bah.. back to my road diary … had to get that off my chest tho.
I jog then eat some canned food and salad. Then sleep.
2 comments:
Wow, Jules, are you getting philosophical or what... you're beginning to sound almost like me, with some different viewpoints on a few minor details... (Obviously that's not to be taken as an insult - I mean the fact that you sound a bit like me.) I definitely agree with you about Margaret Thatcher - she was as strong as our Aunt Margaret, whom I miss sorely...
Great pics and description, BTW...
You saw the film Logan's Run?? I must have seen it, I dunno, 25 or more years ago - it made a great impression on me...
BTW, you also visited Serbia in 1971, but you were probably too young to remember... I know, because I was with you, in fact I think it was around about then that you pronounced your first words... (I won't publish them on the Internet, that would be getting too publicly intimate.)
P.S. Try to get your it'ses and itses sorted out - it's the most common error in the English language...
thanks Marcus.
Jules
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