How I won the cross country cup

I wasn't the fastest sprinter in my year at school. That title was the undisputed property of Hobart. I think his first name was Mick or Micky, but in the 1960s in England schoolmasters addressed the boys by their surnames and, for the most part, that was what we used between ourselves.

Hobart was a very tall boy for whom the adjective “gangling” could have been especially invented. For most of the time he gangled amiably about the school. But on the athletics track he stood out, both for pace and style. I have never seen anyone else run like Hobart; elbows haphazardly windmilling in all directions and hands flapping. My hands have to be either bunched in a fist or fingers straight out as if to deliver a karate blow. I have tried running with relaxed wrists and I just can't do it. But the Hobart head was still on his shoulders, eyes fixed on the finishing line as his long legs powered forwards.

In the cohort of 120 boys I wasn't second to Hobart or even third, but I was distinctly ahead of the bunch.

However, in the school athletics records, if they still exist, the name Heritage B.D.R. will be found not under sprinting but in the 4th Form cross-country section. This is quite remarkable because I was as hopeless a distance runner as I was good over 100 yards. I would start out at the front but after 200 yards I would be lagging and after 300 left behind with the other no-hopers.

The school cross-country course started in a nearby park. We had to run across a downward sloping sward, cross two bridges and then follow an anti-clockwise loop before re-crossing the canal bridge. Properly the course then involved splashing through the River Colne, which was quite shallow enough for the manoeuvre, but since Authority was not watching we trudgers at the back of the field kept our feet dry before climbing the slope to the park gates. One afternoon Rowe chose to see what running through the river was like, tripped and fell full length into the water. He was wearing white gym kit, which, when wet, clung to the body and became almost transparent. Rowe, always an exhibitionist, jogged back to school dripping and wearing a delighted smile.

Certain naughty boys, and here I am thinking of Fantes, Hicks and Scott, ran to the start of the loop and then sat in the bushes to wait. Their signal that it was time to reappear and go back to school was Heritage and the other back-markers sweating their way back across the bridges. Relaxed and fresh, Fantes & Co would run past me asking why I did not do the same.

The loop part of the course threaded its way along paths through uneven, scrubby woodland where someone had cleared enough trees to lay out a golf course. Fantes et al would sometimes occupy their unofficial leisure watching the infrequent midweek golfers. One unusual hole required a chip from the tee onto a green hidden at the bottom of a deep gully and invisible to the golfer. It was here that Hicks once took advantage of the peculiar terrain to gather up a pair's balls and put them both in the cup without being seen. He reported that the unmerited holes-in-one generated a lot of surprise but suspicion rather than elation.

It was Scott who told me that I was in the house cross-country team. “I was in the team and you were reserve but I've told them I've got a bad leg so you're running.” I didn't even know there was an inter-house competition coming up, but the notice board confirmed the news, with Scott's name already crossed out and a line through “Reserve” next to mine.

I never thought to ask how the team was selected. It must have been a mistake. However, I was far too honest to invent an injury like the mendacious Scott so I turned up at the starting line. Of the others who normally kept me company each week only Lawley had also been drafted into the big race. We looked glumly at each other in the certain knowledge that humiliation awaited us.

It was fully as awful as we expected. The rest of the field was already out of sight when we got to the first bridge. Round the loop we went, winter-frosted leaves crunching under our feet. In view of the seriousness of the occasion we determinedly refused to slow to a walk, although our jogging was a shuffle barely faster than the golfers striding up the fairways.

To make the time pass we discussed a recent physics practical, made almost farcical by equipment apparently purchased when the school was founded 400 years previously. Double, one of the brainy boys, had nevertheless managed to obtain a perfect graph. Kirkness, another brain, had actually obtained results that were quite impossible and the extrovert Dayman had broken his antique spring. Hattersley had been so bewildered that he had gone round the class asking to copy other boys' work

Shoulder to shoulder Lawley and I struggled on. Special occasion or not, we declined to get shoes full of Colne water so we used the bridge and set ourselves towards the finishing line. As we toiled up a slope that seemed to have grown steeper during the afternoon we became aware of a knot of figures at the finish. Normally boys who had completed their run went straight back to school to shower and change. Today the rest of the field was waiting and, we dimly perceived, they were shouting at us.

The words were indistinct but I suspected abuse.

Perfectly in step the last two runners puffed towards the line. With about 100 yards to go I asked, “Shall we race?” Let the record show that I waited until Lawley answered, “Yes” before I started to accelerate. It was a slow motion dash accompanied by what I could now determine were yells of encouragement.

Whatever my incompetence as a distance runner, there were few could out-sprint me in a fair contest and we were both equally exhausted. Not that it was easy. Lawley was right on my shoulder as we crossed the line and almost fell into an excited throng around a master holding a clipboard.

For a few marvellous moments I was a hero. Our houses had been tied for first place until we arrived and the fact that I crossed the line ahead of Lawley, no matter how narrowly, had secured the title for Travellers House.

Aussie spelling

We purchased this in the Pemberton, Western Australia supermarket. Despite the labelling, all it contained was lettuce!


If you are unsure of the significance, check the encyclopedia. Note for sticklers, the Oxford dictionary and some others allow that the final 'e' is optional.

And if you are still bemused, click here for the correct spelling.

Rottnest Island

This is jumping a long way ahead from Kangaroo Is. Never mind.

We visited Rottnest on a day trip from Perth. As day trips go it was pretty good.

Stage One was the ferry. From Perth it made its way down the Swan River. We were given a commentary on various features of the river, with an emphasis on the mansions of those that mining has made into billionaires.

The vessel paused to take on more passengers at the mouth of the river in Fremantle. We were not all tourists; the ferry takes plenty of folk who, to judge from their clothing and luggage, were travelling on business.

In beautiful sunshine we sped across the waves to Rottnest. It really was a perfect day for it. The name comes from the Dutch for 'Rat's Nest'. The navigator who gave the monicker saw many "rats as big as cats" through his telescope and didn't land. What he actually saw were quokkas; marsupials built along the same general lines as a kangaroo, but much smaller and with a quite different head shape. Since they are nocturnal I had little hope that we would see any.

The ferry company offers a range of options. We had selected the optional short walking tour, a cafe lunch and a seaborne 'eco-tour'.

The walking tour - it was really an amble - gave us some history of the island and then the guide said she would try and find us a quokka. Of course, she knew where they slumbered through daylight and we saw dozens of them. The approach of a party of clumping humans woke up our quarry who blinked with a far-away look in their eyes and them mostly went back to sleep.

Time's up at this computer. To be continued.

More on Kangaroo Island

Owing to its isolation from the mainland, Kangaroo island has suffered less from the impact of European settlement and retains more than half of its native ‘old-growth' vegetation - a vast area of some 2,250 square kilometres. Similarly, the island has been spared the damage done by foxes and rabbits, ensuring the integrity of native bushland. The result of this is that the animal and bird populations have thrived. More than one-third of the island is Conservation or National Park and it has five significant Wilderness Protection Areas. So Kangaroo Island is a special and protected place.

It's about 150km from end to end, although the sealed roads go around rather than through the middle of the island. There are two camping grounds. One is at the western end of the island and the other is at Kingscote which is about 60km from the port of Penneshaw which is where the ferry docks.

The first day we went to the camping ground at the furthest end of the island. While we were registering we were told that there was a koala with a joey (all marsupial babies that have leftthe pouch but notleft Mum are joeys) in a tree just outside. Sure enough, there they were and, just as cute looking in the flesh as in pictures. We had booked earlier to go on a nocturnal tour that night, in a nearby wildlife sanctuary and there we saw many more koalas & joeys, kangaroos and wallabies.

Koalas were introduced to the island early last century and have done extremely well. They are reproducing so rapidly that a sterilisation programme has had to be put in place to control population growth. Because they prefer the young growing tips of the eucalyptus trees they can cause quite a bit of damage if left unchecked. The trees need time to recover but if there's too many koalas, they don't get time and eventually die.

After seeing the sealions,as described in the last post, we went to see the Remarkable Rocks which are interestingly shaped rocky obtrusions on a cliff top and then for a walk on a series of steps and boardwalks to Admirals Arch which is a large, spectacular sea arch.

The drive back to Kingscote was marred by a brush with a kangaroo, which bounced into the road in front of us. Even though we were driving well below the speed limit there was no time to swerve. There was a nasty 'clump' sound so we pulled up. Luckily there was no corpse. The errant pedestrian left some fur on the road but no blood that I could see, and s/he had vanished into the bush.

Australian wildlife in general has no road sense. We have seen many roos, wallabies and snakes that have become tucker for the crows and hawks. Australia's largest bird, the wedge-tailed eagle, has become much more numerous with the supply of fresh roadkill. We added one lizard to that sorry total, but have carefully avoided many others, managed to miss one snake and have pulled up in time to allow several echidnas to complete their crossing.

Coober Pedy to Adelaide

Coober Pedy, as you doubtless know, is an opal mining town situated in the middle of South Australia. The Mad Max films were made in and around there so if you have seen them you will be understand when I say that the area is bleak, dusty, and overwhelmingly brown. It really does look as if the place has been hit by a nuclear bomb and it's ugliness defies description. There are mine tailings everywhere, even in the town.

Sixty percent of the people who live there, live in underground houses which have been dug/blasted into the rock. The summer temperatures are so hot that living underground is the best way to keep cool as the indoor temperature can be kept at 22 degrees Celsius all year round. The houses can be quite luxurious but I think I would go nuts very quickly if I had to live there. There are hardly any trees or plants and the only grass is at the Aussie rules football grounds and at the school.

We did an afternoon bus tour around the place which was very interesting. We were taken to the underground museum, which also incorporates an underground home, the Serbian church (also underground ) and other places of interest. We were also told a lot about the opal mining, both present and past. It seems to be quite a lawless place even though there is a police station in the town. 14 cops have responsibility for a precinct as big as Belgium.

The Coober Pedy police station was blown up a couple of years ago by a guy who had applied for a job which needed a police check. Not a very bright guy apparently because he figured that if he blew the place up then his prospective employers wouldn't be able to find out that he had a record! He did wait until the place was empty before he did it, which was considerate of him. He's now serving a 9 year jail sentence, so doesn't need the job after all.

One of the graves in Coober Pedy's cemetery is marked by a beer keg engraved with, "Have a drink on me." The departed was told by his doctor that he had 2 weeks to live so he went to the bank and took out a $10,000 loan. He put the whole lot on the bar in the pub and invited the whole town to "Have a drink on me." Apparently many bank employees were amongst those that accepted the invitation.

We only stayed for two nights and were happy to leave and head down to Quorn which is near Port Augusta in the south. The day we travelled, we were followed by the Coober Pedy dust, it seemed. It was very windy and the sun and any views were obscured by dust all day. We arrived at Quorn in the evening and were glad to wake up the next morning to find the sky had cleared. Quorn is a pretty town with lots of old buildings still being used. They are often built of the local stone and are really solid and full of character.

We headed off to a place called Hawker which isn't far from Quorn and in the afternoon went on a 4WD trip into the Flinders Range. We had a great guide called Derek who took us onto private land to show us some of the area. We finally saw wild emus. It had taken us almost 7 weeks to see Australia's national bird. It was such a good afternoon, we booked to go on a full day tour with him the next day. We learned a lot about the geology and the history of the area and had a good time with the other people on the tour as well.

The Clare Valley was the next on the travel list. As we drove there the country became green. This was a lovely after weeks of spinifex and gum trees. The area is very pretty with rolling countryside and lots of farms and vineyards. We bought a bottle of the local Kirrihill Shiraz to have with our dinner the night before and it was great, so thought we would go and look at the the "Cellar Door" to see what other wines they produce. To our delight, they had some bottles of the same wine on special for $7.50 each so we bought some more, of course. In the afternoon we drove on to the famous Barossa Valley to stay in the town of Tanunda.

The Barossa Valley is also a very attractive place and there are lots of lovely old houses there as well as the vineyards. We went on a tour of some of the vineyards, a dried fruit emporium and also to a place owned by Maggie Beer who is a TV cook in Oz. Her shop sells lots of lovely things to eat, and tasting is permitted. There were pates, jams, pickles and all sorts of other yummy things.

From Tanunda we set out to travel to Cape Jervis to catch the ferry to Kangaroo Island. Once again we drove through lovely green and pretty countryside which was again a balm to our eyes after all the dusty desert we'd travelled through further north. Our maps were not detailed enough to include all the towns and villages, so some of the navigation was by guesswork. However, we arrived at the ferry terminal in good time. I must have been used to the camper van because reversing it on was quite simple.

Kangaroo Is is famous for the visibility of its wildlife. When we checked in at the campground we were casually told that there was a koala in the tree right outside. It was a female, sleeping soundly, with a joey that peered down at us and, as tradition demands, went right off the cuteness scale it was so charming.

We took a guided walk after dark and saw plenty more koalas in a very natural setting, i.e. asleep. Adult koalas sleep for 20 hours per day and eat for the rest in between scratching. We observed all these behaviours, including the "koala dance" when the animal hangs beneath a branch by its forelegs and frees up its rear legs to scratch each other.

In daylight we went to Seal Bay and saw: a superb fairy-wren, a golden whistler, a New Holland honeyeater, a new thornbill, black oystercatchers and crested terns. Oh, we saw Australian sea lions as well. For a fee a guide takes you onto the beach and to within 10 metres of the animals. Our photos are great, but still in the camera.

Wildlife photos

The following photos were all taken in Kakadu National Park, most of them at Yellow Water.

A white, or sacred ibis.

A sulphur-crested cockatoo enjoying the nectar from a grevilliea flower. One of our guides reckons that if he could only get enough of the nectar for commercial purposes he would make his fortune. He claims it tastes much better than honey.

A comb-crested jacana, or lily-trotter. Where the water lilies grow bigger leaves they truly can walk across them without getting wet feet.

A pair of sea eagles.

Radjah shelducks.

A plumed whistling duck.

An estuarine crocodile or "salty". The freshwater crocodiles swallow their food whole and are not a danger to humans unless you threaten them or their eggs. Even then the worst you are likely to suffer is a nasty bite. Salties can dismember large prey. They can, and occasionally do, eat humans. We were taught a healthy terror of crocodiles while in Northern Australia.

These guys are wading in the Alligator River East at Cahills Crossing. There are estuarine crocodiles in this river. From the lookout we were counting 4 or 5 of them upstream to the right. The man on the left is not safe from a croc, which can hide in a foot of water and outrun a horse over short distances. The fisherman is plain tired of living.

A darter.

This is an azure kingfisher. It's a very small bird, taken at maximum possible zoom, so it's not a great photo, but what a beautiful bird!

One of the Yellow Water lilies.

Some more rock art photos

These are a small selection of the rock paintings at Ubirr in the North of Kakadu National Park.

There is a whole wall that appears to be the menu for a huge feast. This is where hunters would record exceptional success; a stone age photo gallery of the big ones that did not get away. You can enlarge the image by clicking on it. Most of these are fish, mainly barramundi, which are excellent eating. The one on the right with the square head is (I think) a catfish.



These paintings are less important than the Dreamtime images credited to supernatural beings and may be painted over by members of the right clan. There are several layers of drawings here, though I found it hard to see that.



A barramundi in an unusual, probably older, style that does not show the internal organs.

A classroom blackboard. Thise scene depicts a battle between two clans. The story was that a girl from one clan was hungry and ate some barramundi, contrary to the laws that restricted foods based on a variety of criteria that we find strange, such as age, sex, clan, skin name, etc. Another clan discovered the crime and punished the girl. However, the girl's own clan thought that she had been punished too severely and felt obliged to fight the 2nd clan. Several men were killed in the conflict. The moral of this tale is the importance of obeying the laws.

If you look carefully you can see two women painted in another colour. They are there for another story in which they both ended up turning into crocodiles.