An Iconic Australian Desert Landmark Pub - the Broad Arrow Tavern.

"When Terry first opened, things were a bit slow to start..."

   "Once he let the "plebs" in, business started picking up a bit."

  "Who the hell is Terence Bogie?"

                    "He's one of those "chambre champagne bogans"...you know, one of those

 "Faux Beaus"

These two photos were taken on the desert edge, outside Kalgoorlie in 1998, just over 100 years after the big  gold rush at Broad Arrow. These were taken on a small Panasonic camera, using Kodak film, and I scanned the photographs. The second photograph is of the Broad Arrow Tavern, which is one of only a handful of remaining buildings that have survived in the ghost town - I think there are three left . During the gold rush, Broad Arrow grew to over 2000 prospectors and businesses. It had a couple of pubs, two blacksmiths and a fever hospital tent. The pub still has the ashes of dead men from the past and there are tragic tales of a lady who  hung herself over a table in the main bar.

You took away our golliwogs...

Political correctness took away our golliwogs; it created generations of pale pink dolls. Well, This is where political correctness always gets it wrong. Kids like Christmas; they like fairies (politically correct Melbourne pub people, keep out of this); they like funny dolls. The fact is, some kids liked golliwogs .  Leave them alone. 

Dheborah's Fabulous Birdbath Series : Two little Sunday morning visitors.

Can't fly up when my wings are wet.

This "28" has just been feeding its baby up in the branches of a tree across the road by carefully putting food into its beak. Baby "28s" follow their mum around until they are able to feed themselves, making them quite vulnerable. The adult female "28" is incredibly patient and will gently reassure the crying chick by touching its beak while she is feeding on the ground in a sheltered spot.

Moments after this was recorded, the same two "28s" came into the garden and were splashing around in my birdbaths. One of them mis-negotiated the height of the fence and  I heard a loud "Dunk!"before the stunned  little bird dropped to the ground.  The "28"  took a walk around my backyard (in fact it walked towards me when I went "are you alright" so I know it was feeling terrible)  but managed to get up into one of the lower branches of a small tree with a lot of effort. It  eventually made its way on to the fence and flew off, still looking slightly dazed and concussed.

The Epitome of "Cool".

Academia has got lost within it's own inflated views of it's own special  purpose. An expert on semiotic analysis informed me that the Sponge Bob Sam and vegetable-cartoon  tattoos on a greased up man, languishing on a bed of crinkled tin foil, were "cool". He drew a simile of a Christmas cracker. "Christmas cracker?" I said, looking at a  rather large gold perfume bottle. I responded in disbelief, "I can't quite see it." My personal view was that the Sponge Bob Sam tattoo was a sign of someone  irresponsible  and reckless: I paid for it in marks. The greased up figure put photographs of his own hairy,  bare bum on his personal twitter account a few months later and I then  had solid proof that logic will always prevail over magnified ego.

I will tell you what "cool" is...the volunteer ambulance crews in the  Wheatbelt are "cool"; policemen are "cool". You may ask who the man in the photograph is, while we are talking about "cool". This is a highly experienced pilot, the guy you never see...he has just helped secure a patient who has suffered a massive heart attack onto a flight trolley, in a tin shed, on the side of a runway, in the middle of absolutely no-where. He's then loaded the trolley onto the aircraft's hydraulic lift, raised it up to the level of the flight deck, and transferred the critically ill patient on board for the emergency flight. When the volunteer ambulance crew have cleared the dark runway of kangaroos, the flight checks are done and the RFDS crew cruise down a pitch black runway and do a u-turn. Like a supernatural power, they lift off, sending off fine pieces of gravel in the wind they create. This is "cool"...the epitome of "cool".

This is the guy that mows the lawn at the local school in one of the small Wheatbelt  towns (Malcolm). He has saved more than a few lives in his time and he doesn't even know he is doing it. He drives the ambulances to one of the rural airports for Royal Flying Doctor evacuations, regularly drives a few hundred kilometres to Perth (sometimes more than once a day), as well as bringing in doctors or paramedics from the chopper when an emergency is really facing a crisis. Some of the runways are sealed but in towns like  Boyupbrook, in the Southwest, the RFDS still land in a farmer's paddock with lanterns. RFDS have an arrangement with local primary schools and the helicopter evacuations use the school football fields (we call this the school oval) to land on. Malcolm is one of many and one in a million.

This is one of the canola and barley farmers, Yvonne (I think barley is used to make beer). She is also one of the Enrolled nurses at Corrigin Hospital - she gets paid. Her grandson has one of the first electronic cochlea implants done in Australia.

This is one of Saint John's Ambulance volunteers from Gnowangerup, in the Greater Southern, at midnight, one normal night. He is in his jeans and got dragged out the Ongerup pub to give a hand.

I did this plaster backslab with a guy called Steven, when he had just got back from an expedition in Antarctica. Last time I saw him was at Hollywood Hospital in the Intensive Care Unit, looking after a ventillated patient. He hasn't done any more slabs but I have done a few when there have been no doctors on site, before the patients  are transferred to a larger hospital for x-rays.

This is Tammy, one of the Wheatbelt nurses. She organsised expired hospital stock which I took to Kanyana Wildlife Hospital for injured marsupials and wild birds. She also gets paid.

MVA Brookton Highway.

There has been a car smash on Brookton Highway at dawn this morning. A mother and two children have been transported to Armadale Hospital at around 05:oo this a.m: no serious injuries. The family are from the Wheatbelt town of Corrigin.Volunteer St Johns Ambulance Crew from Brookton attended the scene and liased with the ambulance communications centre and one of the Wheatbelt site health services. Rural motor vehicle accidents are proving that solar powered emergency phones are a pressing need for our isolated roads.

Monday October 19th 2015.

Redback Spider Bites and Dogs.

To the unknowing eye, Redback spiders do not appear to be much of a threat. Most people are more likely to shudder at the larger spiders that build silk threads with the strength of a piece of leather cord and suspend them between trees. One of these species are the nearly mammoth sized Orb spiders. We also have some spectacular river spiders which you will come across at night. The Orbs will usually leave you alone and  disappear if you disturb them accidentally.  Redbacks, however, will frequently bite and are particularly noxious. Redback bites often cause a fine blistery rash and pain that lasts for hours. Years ago, a patient described being discharged from an emergency department in a rural area after a bite by a Redback. He had noted that it's body was about 1 cm (this is huge, they are usually much smaller and most people will recall seeing a brief black and red glossy flash as it disappears but won't remember the bite; Redbacks are tiny, diminutive and deceptively dainty). When the agony sets in, so does the realisation. Three hours after he was discharged, while driving,  he began struggling to breathe and managed to call someone to get help and transport him to a hospital. That one nearly killed him. Ascending paralysis is rare and unlikely but the danger is there.  I get them in my lounge, which is a problem. I actually get more inside than in my garden but they are easy to kill, however...just two squirts of house fly spray will usually suffice. Their nests are tiny little white balls which can also be sprayed. Redbacks love dry grass fencing screens, the rims of outdoor plant pots and dog houses. It is a good idea to routinely check the fence adjacent to your dog house and inside. The spiders look for quiet places with filtered light. A large dog is the size of a child and a bite can lead to the dog vomiting, losing consciousness and having seizures. Death is a likely prognosis for many pets but the Australian antevenom (given in a half hour infusion) is highly effective (in minutes the pain resolves).