Wet Walks and Wildflowers

It's been a long while since I posted about my walks in the bush, but I usually spend several hours each week enjoying all the natural bushland around here.

This weekend I've spent about 5 hours doing just that, walking 10km yesterday in Gooseberry Hill National Park, and another 9km today, on an annual community walk called "Trek the Trail".

Each year, the route follows a different section of the Railway Heritage Reserve, and this colourful map shows the route we followed this year, but is grossly inaccurate in at least one important respect: it was not bright and sunny!

Despite the rain, however, there was an excellent turnout of all ages, which meant that the artists and entertainers along the track had a steadily passing audience of wet but appreciative walkers.

This is my favourite time of the year for walking in the bush, because the wildflower season is just beginning, and I enjoy learning to identify a few more each year, and improving my photography of them.

On the up and up

As I've mentioned before, my natural tendency is to be a "glass half-empty" sort of person, so I've refrained from posting for a couple of weeks until my "bio-rhythms" (does anyone still believe in them?) return to the positive side, or my chakras re-align ... or whatever.* 

So today, for a change, I'm going to leave my latest exasperation with ODP/DMOZ until the very end of the post, and instead concentrate on  things which have lately made me remember that I am a lucky person.

1. I love where I live.

Kalamunda is an outer suburb of a big city, and might be nothing special except for the fact that each day I can go walking in natural forest and bushland just up the road, seeing native birds, animals, and wildflowers. 

Yesterday I walked for over an hour and a half without seeing anyone else, and yet scenes like are within a mile of my house.

True, it takes me an hour and a half to get to work, but that's only 2 days a week, after all, and trains are great for making a fidget like me sit still and actually read a book!

2. I enjoy my work (paid and unpaid)

My class of medical students are nearing their annual exams, and getting very anxious indeed about how much they have to learn. So for the past few weeks I've been giving them impromptu quizzes to show them that in fact they already know most of the material. It's been a cross between light relief and revision, because naturally, they all enjoy watching someone else having to act out a symptom or draw surface anatomy on themselves. This week they enthusiastically answered questions about blood results, tremor, and  Xray interpretation using coloured pens, scissors, butcher's paper and glue ..."Gen Y meets Play School".

One of my volunteer activities has been delayed for months due to an unfortunate administrative bungle, but last week the adult literacy tutor programme finally linked me with a student, and we begin our weekly lessons tomorrow. His main difficulty is with spelling and punctuation, so as one of Nature's inveterate typo-spotters and apostrophe police, I can hardly wait to get started. Fortunately, there are plenty of adult literacy resources on the internet, and I've already got some teaching material from the excellent BBC website.

3. The obligatory ODP/DMOZ whinge

On the whole, my strategy for enjoying the editing experience is working out OK. It's a lot more isolated than I like, and sadly I still hear too much about poor management and lack of respect for the volunteer community, but I learned a very painful lesson indeed, and no longer tilt at those windmills myself.
So in comparison to my ultimately futile indignation and deep disappointment at the way most of the volunteers are treated, today's comment is no more than a single raised eyebrow.

I'm puzzled to see that the much-heralded official DMOZ/ODP blog has become a succession of articles written by editors, when for many years there has been a publicly available, editor-produced ODP Newsletter chock-a-block with similarly worthwhile and informative pieces. Of course I completely support the wider publication of such efforts, as part of our ongoing efforts to make the directory better known and understood, but I thought the blog was meant to be something new.

Mind you, just over a year ago, the Editor-in-Chief promised weekly posts, so it has certainly been a relief to see more frequent entries, after many embarrassing months of silence. Perhaps the purpose of the blog has changed since it began, as AOL staffers have come and gone. Anyway, I'll now retreat under my Cone of Silence and resume my meditative chant. ;-)

Better still, I'll go and enjoy the late Spring sunshine in my back garden, eating mulberries from the tree and watching the honeyeaters on the grevilleas and kangaroo paws. 

*Personally, I blame the two long anaesthetics and the month of post-op complications, for the simple reason that it therefore becomes someone else's fault. ;-)

Community spirit

In common with most mammals and birds, we humans generally prefer being part of a pack.

Groups provide safety, companionship, and economy of effort, with individual members contributing to increase the well-being of all. All such groups have internal conflicts, but with a common goal and competent leadership, the overall community is not threatened by temporary disruptions or difficulties.

In the absence of mutual support and direction, however, the group can easily fragment into smaller factions which have to compete for the same resources.

At this point, astute and/or regular readers (usually one and the same, of course) may assume that I am about to launch into yet another analysis of the often self-defeating management policies at ODP/DMOZ, which relies for its success on a vast and diverse community of volunteers.

No, surprisingly enough this is the last mention of ODP in this post!

One of the ways in which groups can increase cohesion and participation is through non-essential, enjoyable interaction where the goal is not survival but increasing trust and bonding within the community. This is the basis for all those corporate/team-building activities which often make such entertaining documentaries.

I have never been lucky enough to go on a work-sponsored weekend of wilderness camping, abseiling or SCUBA diving, but I have taken part in many less commercial group events, and they were certainly great fun.

Last year I posted about participating in a mass sporting event for charity, and for the last few years I have taken part in the annual community walk down a very scenic abandoned railway line.

This year I added another group event to my calendar: the annual Trek the Trail, an historical walk through native bushland in the steps of early settlers and engineers.
Unfortunately it was not a sunny spring day, but several thousand of us braved an icy wind and constant rain to walk the 7 km down to Mundaring Weir. Local artists displayed craft and sculptures along the way, and volunteer groups were on hand to help with road crossings and provide impromptu entertainment.
Historical markers and descriptions of the wildflowers made it educational as well as entertaining, and there were all sorts of activities for children. It was wonderful to see so many families taking part, despite the weather, and I shall certainly be attending next year.

Blisters and bin-bags

I have just returned from participating in my first mass sporting event, and it was great!

Six of us entered the Perth City to Surf as the "Hills Hikers" team, to do the 12 km walk. Only one of our group had done it before, so although we all walk regularly in the bush, we weren't sure what to expect. Waking to a forecast that included a Road Weather Alert and warnings of strong winds and thunderstorms was a little off-putting, but we all met up at 7am and piled into one car for the trip down to the City. I was surprised to see small groups of people in jogging/walking gear on every city block as we looked for somewhere to park, and when we reached the starting point the size of the crowd was truly eye-popping: despite the rain, about 22,000 people had turned out for the event!

The runners set off first, followed by the walkers, but for the first kilometer it was more of a stroll, because of the crowds. Quite a spectacle though:

By the top of the first hill, the crowd had thinned out, so we were able to pick up the pace, aiming for a steady 6km/hr. For dedicated people-watchers it was a fascinating experience. All ages were represented, and although most people opted for standard exercise clothing, there were the usual smattering of costumes and silly accessories, not to mention the use of large garbage bags as an alternative to the blue plastic rain cape supplied to each participant. In fact the threatened storm did not eventuate, and although we had a fierce headwind the whole way, there were only a few rain periods. Spectators braved the weather to cheer us on, and volunteers provided drinks every 2 kms.

One thing surprised and disappointed me: many hundreds of the garbage bags and plastic capes were removed as people found them too hot, and they were just discarded on the spot, blowing down the road, into people's gardens, up trees and into ponds and pools. Similarly, at every drink station, and for a hundred meters thereafter, plastic cups littered the road and footpath in their thousands. I can understand the most serious runners having no time to use one of the many bins, but surely the fun-joggers and all the walkers could afford to break one stride?

We all wore nifty transponders on our shoes, which were programmed to our race numbers and triggered as we crossed the Start and Finish lines. The official times have not yet been posted, but we were pleased to reach the end in close to 2 hours. In view of the many hours of walking I do every week, I was very disappointed to develop blisters under both feet, but of course I never walk on bitumen or concrete, so after about 8km of that, my feet were complaining. The logistics of transporting 29,000 carless people back to the city were mind-boggling, but in fact the queue for free buses moved along fairly quickly due to a sensibly blind eye being turned on the number of standing passengers in each vehicle.

I'm rather stiff and sore, but thrilled to have done it, proud to have helped a good cause, and found the whole experience very rewarding. I plan to do it each year if I can.

Fresh Air and Exercise

Well we've moved from autumn into winter, and I have sadly neglected this journal.
Surely it can't be because I have mellowed to the point of having nothing to rant or be opinionated about? That would indeed be a matter for concern, what with my having so recently embraced this wonderful way of sharing my frequently discontented thoughts.
No, that can't be it, so I'm going to play it safe and blame the weather.

It's been superb.

Far too sunny to stay indoors wittering on about something inconsequential. So I've been going for lots of walks in the bush with one or other of my dogs. (Two is too many to handle when there may be disapproving hikers, or enticingly chaseable wildlife.)

I am fortunate to live five minutes from the northern end of a famous 1000km walk trail called the Bibbulmun Track, and in fact the first kilometer of it passes through a local park, so it starts off very sedately. As it starts to wind down from the top of the escarpment, it becomes a well-maintained broad gravel path with rock steps at easy intervals. This gives completely the wrong impression to novice walkers, who can be heard exclaiming at the high standard of the track and wondering why more people don't follow it.

The reason is that within another kilometer, the track looks more like this:

Which is great, actually. There is little enough virgin bushland left, and even the modest numbers of people who use this path have caused erosion, left litter, introduced weeds, removed plants, started fires, and all the other sorts of havoc we humans usually cause to innocent ecosystems. So I think it's just as well that the terrain is not more "user-friendly". Plus of course, I love the fact that I can walk for an hour without hearing another human voice (except on weekends, when one has to be wary of rounding a corner and running smack into a frighteningly well-equipped long-range hiker).

Morning walks and historical talks

OK I admit it. I'm one of those irritating, smug and self-righteous "morning people". I got out of the habit of an early morning walk, but recently decided to pull my socks up and get back into it.

I live wonderfully close to "the bush" as we call it here - National Parks and Reserves of undeveloped natural vegetation, so there is really no excuse for not getting up an hour early and dragging one of my snoring dogs off the bed. Today we went on a 5km walk around Jorgensen Park and were treated to a glorious sunrise. The trouble with being so healthy and virtuous first thing in the morning is that I tend to be lazy for the rest of the day, but fortunately I have a class to attend at the local community centre.
It's called "Personal Views of History", and involves each group member presenting an historical topic that particularly interests them. So far, I have learned about the histories of coffee, Sicily, writing, Petra (in Jordan), Charles II, and an infamous Western Australian public servant called Neville, so it has been a delightfully varied course! Most people bring along books, photographs or travel souvenirs related to their subject, which makes for truly multimedia presentations.