In your car and follow that star!

When the International Space Station recently emerged as a speeding star over the dawn horizon of the North West Aussie Pilbara region, my family and I jumped up and down like looneys (as far as my post baby bladder allows these days). We beamed our

Helloooooo!s

into the atmosphere and we were loud. So loud, we're sure they heard us. The ISS was being pursued at the time by the Space Shuttle Atlantis on the last days of what may well have been its final mission. Our view was awesome: rather gritty, a bit crusty, waves lapping behind us, tent thankfully sandfly proof. We were camping at our Indian Ocean secret spot along 40 Mile Beach near Karratha. And admiring its speedy passage across the sky smacked my gob harder than a flying sandcastle.

Meanwhile, I'm led to believe, down the road were a couple of grey nomads (and for those of you reading from the far reaches of the globe, this is a term of ...endearment? for wandering Australian retirees travelling about the country in their vans, campers, tents and other weird, wonderful getups.) They were having a few issues with their vehicle of choice whose brand shall remain nameless (and don't worry runaway 4wd types, it's not you!) They spent the night on a large station, surrounded by plenty of space and a few international travellers. Hmmm...an international space station of its own, one might say. So it's to these folks we turn: Geoff, Shirl and their not so trusty four wheel drive, Apollo. They have their own astronomical story to tell...and it's pretty, uh, far out...

Apollo and the ISS

Geoff had the radio turned up loud,
tapping on the steering wheel, royally proud
of his shiny sublimy four wheel drive,
‘Apollo’* took them travelling, fully alive.

Shirl felt it first and moaned out loud
Didn’t sound right even under the shroud
of blasting beats from the stere-e-ere-oh
and caravan wheels back there on tow.

But loy-a-lly she faced the music,
‘Geoff!’ she called, should he choose to hear it.
‘Geoff!’ again, ‘Can you HEAR THAT SOUND!’

But thumping his beat, didn’t turn around.’

This time Shirl cried out, ‘My dear!
Houston? GEOFF!! Got a problem here!’
Around spun Geoff, nose tapping the beat,
Shirl now squiggling in her seat.

She flicked off the music, speaking clear,
‘I said, just listen, to the engine dear.’

His face then blanched. Coconut white.

A rattle and thump, his wife was right!

So here they were two nomads bold
travelling the earth to lands untold,
through the dust and rickety gravel,
never did they think it would unravel.

Su-dden-ly, the plans had changed.
Something in the engine was deranged.
and caught on a road ‘twixt nowhere near,
landscape burnt, they felt the fear.

Then…just like a dream a sign emerged
beside the road both on the verge
of pondering, wondering about their fate,
sun now setting, getting late.

A station it was, with plenty of space
and dusk now coming was a race
to find a spot with Apollo intact
before a diff or engine cracked.

Soon found a paddock by the sea,
wide and vast as this land can be,
a scattering of vans spread far apart
by folks whose travels were an art:

A German couple in a battered van,
a family from France in a hired tin can
and way over there were a bunch of Swiss,
blonde and yodelling, hard to miss.

Vast amounts of space to camp
on which to muse beside their lamp.
‘Oh dear Geoff, maybe in the morning
someone can help us on sun’s dawning.’

‘Better still,’ mused Geoff-er-y,
‘the first night star’s above the sea.
Let’s make a wish from this vast station
for ve-hicular inspiration.’

They wished the star might ease their plight
and all too soon the dawn brought light.
Geoff woke first and mustered Shirl,
‘Look outside! Check it out my girl.’

Everyone else in the paddock near,
everyone was up and up they peered as a-
cross the sky a bright star moved,
followed by another one along its groove.

Curve balls over the daybreak light.
What an anomaly, a bit of all right!
And off the light headed north northwest
‘It’s a sign, it’s a sign!’ burst forth our Geoff.

They jumped in Apollo, perilous car,

‘Follow, follow, FOLLOW THAT STAR!’
Away from the station scattered with races
all peering up with glowing faces.

Out down the gravel to the nor’ nor’west

off to Karratha (just my guess).

If only they had known when they awoke

‘twas no bright star but full of folk -

astronauts not on vacation

but hurtling past on a fast space station,

speeding round out in the dark,

thinking life is quite a lark.

So, as a p.s. to this tale of Apollo,

the four wheel drive drove ‘til tomorrow

and up they went, not into town

and sailing into space you could see Geoff frown.

The ISS it took them far,

into orbit with their car

and with just a little less gravity

and wicked views, the world to see,

the four wheel drive was simply fine
and Geoff and Shirl had a whirl of a time.
Talk about nomads flying free
around the world dexterity.

So if you see a funny shape
up in space, it’s the 'Great Escape’,
for Geoff and Shirl can still be found
following the space station round and round
          and round and…round and
                                     …round…
                                             and round...
                                                      and...round...

© Elise Batchelor ABC North West 26th May 2010
© Rob Whitehead 2010 - photo of the ISS and Atlantis
    in the predawn Pilbara sky
* Apollo: not the car's real name

Zorro of the North West

You know, I get it, I really do. Having been a Melbournian for twenty years, I understand the need to make haste for the pool whenever the sun peers out from behind a cloud. After all, that cheeky golden grin may only last five minutes. And there are three more seasons yet to expect in that day. Maybe four times over. And maybe including snow.

But when you live in the desert, somewhere like the north west of Western Oz in my home of seven years, oh how quickly you come to expect the heat. In summer our temperatures remain at about forty degrees celcius or so. I don't get in the pool now until it hits at least 37 degrees. Thus, when winter comes and the days (although still lurid blue and ceaselessly sunshiney) crawl below thirty degrees, the idea of swimming is simply ludicrous. Unless, that is, you're on holiday here. Unless, perchance, you're just visiting. Unless, oh yes, you're from Melbourne.

This poem is for my beloved Melbourne, for friends who visit and provide us a winter laugh by diving in deep. And for anyone else on our planet who would eagerly jump into the pool, in the Pilbara, in winter. I'll be in to join you soon! Try...November. 

Of course, by then we have cyclones. And they're another story entirely.


North West Superhero


The plane was right on time,
the heels were quite refined,
the general Savour Faire was ripper mate.
No one had drunk too much rum
with ties ad infinitum
arrived from chilly Melbourne to our state.

And out they stepped this pair
with faces worn by fear
of dodging trams and tumbling black umbrellas
in freezy winter breezes,
frappéd with chunky sneezes
and pale, these two were salty white, I tell yas.

She was, from head to toe,
dressed inn black, uh huh, you know
just how it is when you forget the sun.
Forget you ever could
go out without your hood,
without your bits snapped frozen - that’s the one!

He though, let’s call him Paul,
escaped the eastern squall
deciding that he’d try to match the trend.
A walking suit in I.T.,
today he’d donned a flannie,
a metrosexual sin, let’s not pretend.

So Paul and his dear wife
(so as not to cause strife,
let’s call her Flower, a floral pseudonym)
were here for seven days
the heady heat to praise
and had on their agenda just one thing.

And with their little boy,
the cutest cuddly toy,
Paul wanted but to live the tropic dream.
He stripped off instantly
for all the world to see
which caused a royal shock and some to scream.

(Now, just a small aside,
a turning of the tide
to put this keen display into perspective -
Flower: pragmatic, British
refined and never skittish
and Paul: stuck long indoors a corporate captive.)

But there he stood, defiant
and rather uncompliant,
gazing through the gates and not quite nude.
Not nood as one might say, but
Nyuuuude, called Flower, ‘Hooray!’
‘We’re here to swim!’ cheered Paul, ‘So let’s go dude!’

For them, the height of heat,
a temperature to beat
of thirty three, or two, or one, at dawn.
For them, insanely hot,
for Pilbara folks, quite…not
with me there in a jacket on this morn.

Too brrrrrrr for me by far
but Flower’s pool wear, it starred,
‘twas elegant with brimmed hat, sunnies, cream
and I shivered inside out
as I watched them swim about
living what we call the ‘Pilbara Dream.’

It’s the dream of bright hot days
of gold, that Yabu* haze,
of singing, dancing sunlight under trees
of floating through the water
and dressing as you oughter
in nearly next to nothing in the breeze.

And when they were all done,
their time out in the sun,
Paul joined his lovely Flower sipping tea,
‘My darling Paul, you’re burnt;
I thought you might have learnt
your skin can’t take this; you’re more pale than me!’

‘I know, but I’m the man!’
Paul took his darling’s hand
and then she burst out laughing through the air.
‘Oh Paul, you missed a tad
of sunscreen, my dear lad!’
‘So what?’ replied young Paul scratching his hair.

The feat, remarkable,
now irreversible,
a lightning bolt burnt right across his face.
‘My love, you look like Zorro
and probably will tomorrow,
a streak scorched Pilbara superhero. Ace!'

Well, Paul, now marked, was chuffed,

burnt beautifully, enough,

their lightning trip now took on greater meaning.

And my bones chilled as they'd swum

but God, did they have fun

and ZORRO! of the north west flew home gleaming.

 

© Elise Batchelor 2010
* 'Yabu' means 'gold' in aboriginal Wongatha language

How to kill off a bougainvillea and other gardening tips

That I am no green thumb goes without saying. That I've just said it means, in some way, I'm feeling I must defend myself against the tragedy that is my horticultural prowess. I've killed off the indestructable, including a north west, hot pink bougainvillea. It died after several weeks of me tending to it with food scraps and water. I know, I know, the gardening gurus of you out there are probably wincing at the thought of such blashphemy. In addition, early on in our courtship, my husband procured for me two plants he believed it would be impossible for me to destroy: a polyanthus and a marjoram. I called them 'Polyunsaturated Marj' and killed them off with lightning dexterity.

I have a malady known as 'The herbivorous touch of death'. And although I've managed to grow four sunflowers (for my child's kindergarten project no less), they're now hanging by a six foot thread. I fear that once they've fully drooped to the ground, they will possibly mark the terminus of my green endeavours for all eternity.

So, no, I would not even call myself a 'budding' gardener. I'm the sort of green thumb even a garden gnome would abandon...

A Gnome's Tale

When I first stood, with bow in hair
and wat’ring can in hand,
a four year old in wonderment
in mummy’s garden grand,
I loved to stand beside her and just
watch as she sprayed water
and see her little plants grow big
just like her little daughter.

When I grew up and ventured out
to find myself a home,
I took my little wat’ring can
and bought myself a gnome.
When I moved in the grass was green,
the flowerbeds were bursting;
I knew I should just water them
in case they were a-thirsting.

I loved to watch the water spray
out of the plastic spout.
My gnome would watch o’er all my plants
and use his gnomish clout
to warn away all bugs and snails
as gnomes are wont to do
and urge my flowers up to the air
into the looming blue.

I watered them at dawn, oh yes,
and I watered them at night, with my
watering can in overtime
in watering delight and
I watered purple irises
and sunflowers as they arched
towards the glorious sun above
not wanting to be parched.

But two weeks after I moved in
I walked into my garden
and from beneath me heard a voice
so small, ‘I beg your pardon,
Miss Leesie, something’s going wrong’,
my gnome spoke, head a’tilting,
‘Your lawn is browning by the day,
Your garden, it is wilting!’

The horror oh the horror!
He was right and started crying,
my sunflowers drooped like little boys,
my irises were dying,
my daisies hung like limp balloons,
my gerb’ras were like mush.
I grabbed my trusty watering can,
declaring, ‘You’ll be lush!’

In feverish pursuit of life
I ran from plant to flower.
I watered like a crazy woman
hour ‘pon hour ‘pon hour.
My little gnome sat helpless
as he watched me go berserk,
I thought of mummy’s garden
and I knew this had to work.

But two days on and all worn out
I saw it come to nought,
for even though I’d watered long
and truly ruly fought,
my garden had all withered
like a mushed up painter’s palette;
it looked as if I’d taken to it
with a hefty mallet.

I tried to make it grow again
and watered it twice daily
and added sheep, horse, cow manure
and songs, I sang them gaily.
By now my gnome, nose deep in poo,
he stank to highest heaven,
so we moved out of number eight…
and moved to number seven.

Again, the pattern did repeat:
I watered, then things carked it.
My gnome would weep, expletives beep,
I didn’t understand it.
It seemed I saw a pattern then,
as we tried different pastures,
from town to suburb, beach to hills,
I’d cause the same disasters.

So we moved to a hot place where I
planted twenty cacti.
I was so sure I’d have success
But you know that in fact I…
couldn’t grow a bl**dy cactus,
even in the desert,
and then my gnome abandoned me,
unfaithful bonsai squirt!

It seems that when I breathe upon
a lawn or flowers blooming
or when I smile upon a plant
its final days are looming.
My gnome he walks upon the earth
to tell his tale of woe,
he begs for shelter and conveys
what everyone should know -

the more I stare ebullient
upon your leaves all waxy
the faster you’ll be calling me
the quickest passing taxi.
The greater is my wonderment,
the wider is my smile,
the faster will your garden wilt -
you’ll make me run a mile.

My gnome he goes to jungles lush
and warns the natives there.
He traipses into florists
and they stand wide-eyed and stare.
And when my gnome he visits you
to warn you in one breath,
I must admit, he’s right, I have
the herbivorous touch of death.

© Elise Batchelor  2010