1500th Blog Post - can this be real?

I feel totally depressed about something which ought be a cause of satisfaction.

My 1500th Blog post.

I started out with great uncertainty, and little ambition, with a blog on 26 November 2005. It was called "Odd little things which grow around Robertson". I have inadvertently deleted that post tonight (because I have still not got used to Blogger's "New Style" formatting. I hate it, and occasionally I make mistakes with it, as I did tonight).

Oh well, on to happier times, my "Blogging Milestone, or Millstone?" - my 1000th Blogging Post. At least some of my earliest work is stored and remembered there.

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But tonight is my 1500th post, and all I can see around me is chaos and disaster.

Not me personally, (well - a little bit). But the state of the world.

Shooters have just been granted approval to hunt in National Parks.

And the Upper House debate concluded with the Leader of the Shooters and Fishing Party. Mr Brown MLC telling his Greens counterpart Jeremy Buckingham MLC it was unfortunate "I can't take you outside and beat you to death". 

Fan-fu*cking-tastic!

Mr Robert Brown MLC
Has democracy come to death threats in the Upper House?

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The NSW Government Planning Assessment Commission has just approved the expansion of a coal mine at Medway, near Berrima. It is known as the Berrima Colliery. This despite the fact that the PAC has admitted that:

• "It means that the Commission is again faced with a decision as to whether to delay or refuse a Project until the required data are available for consideration, or construct an approval framework that will ensure collection of the required data, proper assessment of the options and retro-fitting of any actions required into the approval."

There is a local paper report in the Southern Highland News.

The press report, and the PAC determination overlook the fact that the Berrima Company has been discharging Nickel and Manganese into the River at levels far in excess of approved standards.

• What is going on?
• Has democracy come to this? 

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My Blogging Colleague, friend and local Robertson resident, David Cooper wrote this blog this morning: "My Faith in Human Beings Has Been Rocked". In a sentence, it is about the fact that a motor Cyclist was killed in a hit and run accident, and the culprit, supposedly a truck driver failed to stop, failed to offer assistance to the injured rider, and failed to report the accident.

David, as a Motor Cycle instructor, is totally stunned. Appalled.

Quite right too.

• What is going on?
• Has Society come to this?
  

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The United Nations is holding a totally sham "conference" to "celebrate" the achievements since the original Rio "Earth Summit", 20 years ago.
It is known as the Rio +20 conference.
 

Personally I still squirm at the memory of our erstwhile Environment Minister Ros Kelly using the "modern" technology of direct video broadcasting to send an embarrassing message to her kids, basically saying everything was OK, now that she and her powerful friends had saved the world.
OK, that's probably a jaundiced version of her message, but in hindsight, given how little has been achieved since, I am prepared to publish my version of events.

• Should we snigger in scorn at "Environment Minister Ros Kelly (having told) the summit that Australia aimed for the stabilisation of greenhouse emissions by 2000, and a 20% reduction by 2005."
• Or should we simple hang our heads in shame, for our failure over the last 20 years? Source.

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Meanwhile, Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart, BHP Billiton and many other companies are racing eachother to extract ever greater amounts of coal, to sell to China, India and Japan.

• It is as if there is no tomorrow.
• The way they are going, they might be dead right.

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I had intended to post about the recent Fungal 

finds from Robertson Nature Reserve and Comerong Island, 

but I realised I needed to get some other issues off my chest.

I promise I shall return to more regular matters 

tomorrow and the days after.

A lovely small specimen of
Cryptotrama aspratum
as found on Comerong Island
at the mouth of the Shoalhaven River

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Oh, yes, and Happy Winter Solstice to all my fellow Southern Hemisphericals, and Summer Solstice for our northern Colleagues.

Wingecarribee River junction with the Wollondilly

Local members of the National Parks Association (NPA) led a walk to the confluence of the Wingecarribee River and the Wollondilly River on Wednesday. This river junction is located about 25 Km west of Mittagong, about 5 Kms off the Wombeyan Caves Road. (Two satellite Images are based on Google Earth pictures, with my own additions, labels and coloured lines to indicate the tracks of the 2 rivers in question.)

Leaving Welby via the Wombeyan Caves Road, we drove across the plateau, and then entered some heavily forested country, passed through the Rock Tunnel (Arch), then passed the Burrogorang Lookout. The soil-type changed from sandstone to black soil, and then back to sandstone, then to red basalt soil. Then abruptly it changed to decomposed granite. At that point the shape of the valleys changed from the familiar sandtone plateau with abrupt cliff lines, to deep V-shaped valleys. This is very rugged country.

The NPA had arranged for our group to travel across private property, down a 3 Km long steep and windy track. Eventually we reached the river bottom, and parked on a broad sandy beach, with tall River Sheoaks (Casuarina cunninghamiana). Granite boulders dominated the local river bank. Clearly we were no longer within the sandstone terrain so familiar to residents of the Southern Highlands.

As soon as we got out of the cars, we looked towards the towering hilltops and were rewarded with a wonderful view of no less than 4 Wedge-tailed Eagles (Aquila audax) flying together. They circled, rising and dropping, as they played on the gentle updrafts produced by the light breezes passing across the tops of these mountains.

Following the very turgid Wollondilly River upstream, we came to the confluence of that river with our own local Wingecarribee River (it rises in Robertson, as the Caalang Creek). Note the extremely rough terrain, and the convoluted path of these 2 rivers, but especially the Wingecarribbee River (marked in red).

I am pleased to report that, compared to the Wollondilly, it was pretty clean. The water had a greenish tinge to it, but it was at least translucent. It was not the pale creamy colour of its fellow river. There were a few large fish visible in the river, (I hope that they were not Carp). There were many small fry in the river, but what species they were, I could not guess.

Aunty Val Mulcahy, a representative of the Wingecarribbee Local Reconciliation Group, was invited by David Tranter to tell us the Aboriginal stories of the creation of the rivers where we were. Firstly she welcomed us to Gundungarra Land. Then she told us the story of the great battles between two creatures Mirringan (the Tiger Quoll), and the other a great fish/serpent character, called Gurrangatch. As the story was told, “One of this fella's main camping spots was in a large deep billabong that is at the junction of the Wollondilly and Wingecaribee rivers”. That was the very spot at which Aunty Val was re-telling this Gundungarra Dreaming story. These characters chased each other around the bends of the Wollondilly, Wingecarribbee and Cox’s Rivers, creating the steep cliffs, and sharp bends in these rivers, and even creating the Wombeyan Caves in the process of their legendary battles.

After Aunty Val told us her people’s story, we had lunch beside the Wingecarribbee. We were fortunate to have an excellent view of a pair of Azure Kingfishers (Alcedo azurea), (Image: www.dlwc.nsw.gov.au).These birds flew low, just above the river surface (which is very typical behaviour), and then perched, conveniently for us, on low branches of the Sheoaks on the opposite bank of the waterhole.

I was delighted to see these beautiful birds. Not only were they a joy to behold, their presence also indicates that the Wingecarribee River is in pretty good condition.

(Editor's note: I have corrected a previous mis-spelling of the name "Wingecarribee" (not "bb"). Oops! DJW 24.2.06)