Tarkine - a special part of Tassie!

The Tarkine is an area of temperate forest in far north-west Tasmania. It is that largest area of wilderness of its kind left in Australia.

There have been discussions about roads being built through this unique piece of Tasmanian beauty, and I don't know the full story. However, some good friends and family of mine have been on several trips into the Tarkine area, and are quite sure that a road through it would spoil its unnecessarily. They have apparently turned my house into a campaign headquarters with a busy hive of activity taking place to get an action plan into place! There has been an article in the Mercury today, letters to the editor, maps made (thanks Tim), and a commercial produced for TV and YouTube. Many people have donated (and will no doubt continue to) time, energy, skills and money to get this campaign into action in a very short time!



I wish I was there to throw in my weight, but in the mean time, I'm sending hard working vibes to everyone at home! Lets do something smart - save the Tarkine!

When I get home and see Mum's no doubt spectacular and very recent photos of the Tarkine I'll try to add some.

Engaged in the Whitsundays!

I am no longer in the Whitsundays, however, Tim and I are engaged!

We had a wonderful couple of days there - relaxing, swimming, eating icecream and so on. We did a couple of tours/organised trips which were heaps of fun. We went 95km out to Knuckle Reef, which is part of the Great Barrier Reef. There is a permanent pontoon there with waterslide, snorkelling gear, glass bottom and semi-submersible boats. We got a good look at some pretty fish, coral and I even spotted a squid swimming around not far below me.

The other trip we did was on a maxi yacht (80ft): Maxi Ragamuffin, a Sydney to Hobart three-time winner! We sailed to Whitehaven beach on Whitsunday Island for a picnic (along with the rest of the paying guests on board).

When we arrived, Tim and I went for a little stroll before lunch. Right at one end of the beach, and all of a sudden, Tim was on one knee before me and I think I just about said 'yes' before he finished asking! Of course, the question he asked, was whether I would marry him!

So then it was lunch, a play in the water in oh so glamorous stinger suits and the sail back on the boat which were all a bit floaty! Back on board they gave us one of those 1 serve bottles of champagne 'on the house(boat)' to celebrate!

The ring was designed by the lovely and clever Timmy! The blue stones are Tanzanite, and the green one is Tsavorite - both found only in Africa, the Tanzanite, naturally is from Tanzania. This of course, is very fitting and well chosen considering my family history of Africa and Tanzania in particular!Hurrah!

Writing from Flinders!

There were 5 girls and a van
To Flinders they went with a plan
They travelled the land
Walked on the sand
And gave the locals some bags

The van!The bags!

What could be better – a week of normal uni, or travelling a beautiful island, meeting people and talking about what we do? After a week of the latter, I know my choice! Flinders Island is a beautiful island – there are many picturesque bays, inlets, lagoons, and beaches, all with the ‘East Coast’ orange lichen on the rocks and light blue-green water. Although I very much enjoyed trying to capture these sights with a camera, there is much more to Flinders than the landscape. We have been privileged to meet ‘locals’ along the way who have given us a glimpse of ‘island life’. There are some aspects that are just like anywhere – there is good internet, people watch TV, listen to the radio and mow their lawns. Other parts are what you make of it – you can live in your own kingdom, visiting town once a month, and enjoying your own company, you can retire to a fabulous house, entertaining guests regularly, and getting groceries every week, or you can run the shop. In this particular rural community, people are friendly, everyone knows everyone, and kids and dogs are safe to roam. I enjoyed the sense of community – by show day I could bump into a handful of people and say hi, and easily chat to others I hadn’t met. I could even pick out some of the prize-winning artists, sculptors and chutney makers as kids we’d met and ladies we’d Scottish Danced with! For me, the trip was a success – we shared our interest in rural health, we met some real rurals, we climbed a mountain and we patted not one but two wombats.

Arne and I

Coffee with Arne

Beach on the track to Arne's place

Dolce the wombat - about 2 years old

Dolce sleeping

From part way up Strzlecki. There was only a view of cloud from the top!

Delicious scones at Cape Barron Primary School

Another person on the island also has baby wombats to look after - very cuddly!

Playing on the rocks at Wybalenna

Flinders Show - local! (The chap in the purple shirt was part of Circus Infurneaux who performed at the show)

Another Adventure!

It has come to another one of those weeks when I am like my little profile says - I am a student but I try not to only study. (Perhaps it should really say, that I am a student and occasionally I try to study.)

Anyway I'm off to Flinders Island this afternoon for a week. I'm going with a couple of other medical students, but not actually as part of my course. We are visiting the school and the ag show, Cape Barren Island and probably the health centre. It will be fun to see some of the place, see some 'rural life/health' and, most likely to force myself to survive with limited telecommunications capabilities for a week!

Hopefully I'll have some good photos when I'm back, as well as being a week closer to the looming exams. If the weather stays as nice as it is in Launceston now, it'll be fantastic - although it may well be a bit cooler if weatherzone.com is to be trusted. The only shame is that I'm not around to write a good blogpost for the Blog Action Day competition - with great prizes and for an even better cause!

Stand Up

I was looking around for something to show at church in a few weeks for 'Stand Up' - a potentially world record breaking event counting people all over the world who will STAND UP to support Make Poverty History and keeping to the Millenium Development Goals. There's lots of youtube clips made for the cause so I thought I'd add a couple here!





If you feel like it, it is easy to register a 'Stand Up' event on the Make Poverty History Website - all you need to do is register, then have an event and count how many people stand up. There are resources for how to run an event (not ecessarily a churchy thing...!)

It dances!

Apparently this is what my new car does when I'm not watching. The only other important detail about my car is the colour: white. It also still needs a name.

For those more discerning about cars, its diesel, 1.6L, EGS (which is electronic gear shift I think - some sort of cross between manual and auto where you don't have to do anything if you don't want to, but you can shift up and down if you like) Citroen C4. And Tim's Dad helped us get a very good deal from the kind man at the un-named car shop who may said to my Mum as we left 'perhaps you'll want a Citroen one day' and left no doubt thought but unsaid 'but please don't send Derek!'

Background Reading

Yesterday I was looking for a piece of paper I was sure I had. I emptied two drawers, and the bottom shelf of a bookcase that was full of stuff from my last 2 and a 1/2 years of medical school, and covered about 1/4 my floor with stuff but didn't find it. Despite that, I've improved the state of that corner of my room - I can now see floor that I hadn't seen for some time (even if it got worse before getting better). I also found heaps of bits of paper from things like the Global Health Conference, and other Amnesty International newsletters etc that are all good but I often don't get around to reading! I've enjoyed(ish) reading through some of them - although certainly some are not good news, I feel I should know the truth about the current issues facing our world.

Despite setting out to 'study' I am only just getting my desk clear enough to begin that - however 'health' comes in many forms, so I can consider much of what I've been looking at related to my future medical career!! I was looking at the Make Poverty History page, and the upcoming challenge to set a new World Record for the 'Stand Up' campaign, as well as at the DVD clips on the Micah Challenge website and thought this clip has some pretty startling facts - risk of death in childbirth in Northern America 1/3500, compared to Africa 1/16! Yikes.



In other news, I have a pretty new car to drive (somewhat stark contrast to world poverty, but it is fuel efficient so I can spend less on getting around and be safe...) My med rotation is going well - I've done a couple of early ward rounds, met a few consultants and been lightly grilled. I'm soon handing over my role as part of the IMPACT group at uni though I'll stay involved to some degree no doubt, and I accidentally became one of the local reps for the international medical group IFMSA, so I'll be helping co-ordinate some exchanges next year.

I also attended Med Ball last weekend - 'gangsters and dames' theme. It was an enjoyable night, with some making the most of the included alcohol to a greater degree than others!! It was lovely to see everyone dressed up for the occasion. Tim wore my cousins very yellow suit - which went down well at the event (suitable to theme despite being very loud), although got some interesting looks around the rest of the casino!

Tim and I

Some of the girls

My whole year group (or those that were at the ball and weren't distracted by dessert)

two sleeps

And finally, the result of weeks of work by a handful of people will be the much talked about (and even blogged about) Red Party. We have had promotions at uni, posters, cupcakes, ribbons, raffle tickets, I even had an interview on 936 breakfast radio and someone else has been on Edge radio. And soon it will be here!

(preparing our red gnomes)

Organising the RED PARTY has varied between all-consuming and a lot of fun. Actually, its been easy with such a great team, and its only been all-consuming from time to time - like when we were painting many small gnomes red, or making a giant banner that took longer than intended, or working out just how to blow up endless inflatable havaijana thongs when the pump didn't work!

(wandering the uni on 'red day'. My 'thong' seems to have deflated a little)

Soon it will all be over and then I'll wonder what to do with myself. I might study for my osces though. Or read a book, or see my friends, or... so I probably won't really wonder what to do, but it will be a nice relief.

Its not too late to come if you are in the area - 8pm, Saturday the 30th August, hotel SOHO, $10 and all proceeds go to OXFAM's AIDS orphans nutrition program in South Africa. There will be cocktails, a red bull bar, a raffle and the fantastic and local 'The Riot Act' followed by DJ Jack! For more info see www.impactutas.blogspot.com

Famine Finished.

This last weekend was the annual 40 Hour Famine! I remember doing the 8 hour famine back before I was old enough for the 40 hour version, and in between there was even a 24 Hour Famine! Having done a food famine just about every year since then, I think I must be looking at about 9 years worth of fasting for World Vision! Once again, I helped out at the youth group sleepover at church. I slacked off a little as I was at an engagement party and came on later after all of the games and things - the girls were all in the back room and the boys in the main hall - both watching their second movie as they'd swapped DVDs! They were all quite settled - just some quiet whispers, not-so-faint glows of mobile phones as they texted each other or possibly the boys in the other room, and the wrinkle of barley sugar wrappers! All went well, I got nearly enough sleep before being woken by a bunch of boys with pillows (they missed me though!) and we've raised over $1800.

The engagement party was actually at my house and was for my good friends Jack and Ruth. There was a good crowd of med/church/school/Margate/family/random friends for both of them - and everyone's contribution of plates to share meant there was more than enough food! (Some re-appeared for our famine breaking feast after church today!).

Otherwise, I'm back into uni after my little break in the NW. Now that the famine is done, I'm focusing on 'Red Day' on Wednesday, and then RED PARTY! Then it'll be more OSCEs/Eskies/exam thingys for my current rotation. I may just need to do some work before then!!

rural.

I'm in Burnie at the moment on a 2 week placement. I haven't really done that much GP-ing considering its my GP placement, but its been fun anyway. We did a few things on the weekend in the area - Tazmazia, Latrobe shop Reliquaire, Sisters Beach walk and Penguin Market as well as dinner at the Sheffield pub, and some washing and sleeping in etc! Today was a bit drive from Burnie, to Rosebery, to Zeehan, to Queenstown, to Strahan, back up the coast to Zeehan and home through Rosebery! It was in theory to visit the different medical centres/set ups, which we did but that wasn't that useful (though interesting enough to see), but it was a nice trip and hopefully I got some good photos!
Back on Friday!

Red Party... still.

I made this... possibly had better things to do, but was fun to be creative!

Seeking asylum is never ilegal

Dr Horrible - only until July 20th

My new friend!

I will get around to posting something about Melbourne and the conference and things sometime, but in the mean time, my head is still filled with all things red! If you are a local Tassie, stay tuned for more on Red Party (find it on facebook!)- or look at our blog. I have a feeling that we (the people who made it) are the only ones who've looked at it so far!!

Here is my new friend. Also red. We had a red party working bee to make lots of fun promo things, and eat fun red stuff!

RED PARTY PROMO

RED PARTY IS COMING. For more info, check www.impactutas.blogspot.com but also for a bit of an idea, watch the video below. It comes from the UWA (Perth) Red Party, but they said we could show it anyway. After their huge success (1800 people attended and they raised $26000 for Oxfam AIDS orphans project) its become a National Project for this year - so expect big RED parties all around the country!

"KnifieKnives" which is Hamish speak for - "Knives"

Exams are done, and as promised some pictures of the famous knives. Not that anyone asked for them, but since there's all the hype, I'll show them off.

Also did I mention I finished exams? Now I'm halfway through my degree... only 2.5 more years. No worries! And it was my Mum and Hamish's 1st wedding anniversary yesterday so that was nice for them - and our kitchen table looks somewhat florist-ish. The 'mafia' in England sent some, as did Mum's work partners. The other bunch were mine from Tim for exam good luck!

I tried to post this before my trip to Melbourne, but it didn't work for some reason that by 2am I cared little about. So I'll try again, and hopefully more about Melbourne to come later.

Mum and Hamish's nice knife!

My 'multicultural' knife, also made by John the Knifemaker

My knife, made by Linden for my 21st.

Knifemaker, Beekeeper & Baker

This is directed by my very clever uncle, Roger Scholes!

An inspired knifemaker, beekeeper and baker pass on their passions to their young apprentices

In the valley beneath Sleeping Beauty mountain, the people of the community have rediscovered the benefits of a small town economy. Families trade with one another, swapping foods they grow and things they make. Their lives are rich and varied. They value what they know and want to pass their passions on. The Passionate Apprentices, a three part documentary series, portrays ways of life that are about stepping more lightly on the planet.

I have extra fondness for the story as my cousin Linden is one of the apprentice knifemakers, as is his and his brother Jon's friend, Merlin. John the Knifemaker is another great guy with a lot of talent for knifes, as well as smoked salmon and other tasty treats. My family has a little collection of his knives - Mum and Hamish one with a sweet smelling Huon Pine handle and I have the squared "multicultural knife". My favourite though is the one that Linden made me in his own back yard forge, by himself, for me, for my 21st!

He and Me at Fee and Me.

Tim and I before heading out for dinner.


Last weekend Tim and I zoomed up to Launceston on Friday for a bits'n'pieces weekend - we saw a bit of his family, I went to a 70th birthday of a family friend, we had family lunch with my family, I met his grandparents... and we went out for a fantastic dinner on Saturday night. This week was our 'one year anniversary' so the final plan was to combine a special evening with the weekend up north.

There are a lot of foody shots to come, and lots of them aren't actually that great because it was such a nice place that I didnt want to use the flash everytime I got food and distract everyone. The format is that you choose to have 3, 4 or 5 dishes from the menu which is arranged into brackets by weight and the more you get, the better value it is! You can choose all from the same brackets or skip around if you like, but we did the little to big thing to be traditional. All of the meals are roughly entree size, but despite that, after 4, I didn't want to spoil the nice feeling by squeezing in dessert and neither did Tim, so we missed the sweet treats.

First off we had some pre-dinner drinks. This was just about the hardest decision on the evenintg, since between us, we didn't know what lots of them were! At long last, and after the waiter asked us several times, we got him to describe Campari and several others and we made a decision. Tim was sold by the 'if you've never had Campari, you should have some, probably with orange juice first; it's a revelation', while I had the 'Frangelico Sour' (=Frangelico, Lemon Juice, Egg white, sugar syrap) which is not bad for the palette because it is sour rather than sweet. Both were tasty, and not too sweet!

Then the food! First I had (and I quote from the menu which I photographed as a record!): 'Tomato Trilogy': semi-dried tomato and Parmesan "trifle"; watermelon, tomato, goats cheese and balsamic salad; cream cheese filled cherry tomato, gazpacho sorbet.
Tim had:
Smoked salmon and sour cream terrine, confit lemon zest, beetroot relish, lemond dressing.

Our first two dishes!

Dish Two: [mine and then Tim's choice]
Pan fried trevalla, soba noodles, bok choy, shitake mushrooms, Asian consomme.

Ocean trout, Kaitafi pastry, coriander, chilli and parsley salad, almond cauliflower sauce, capsicum coulis.

Dish three:

Huon Valley Honeybrown mushroom caps, Seymour Gold potoatoes filled with mushroom ragout, thyme infused cream sauce. [Possibly my favourite of the evening]

Pan-fried lambs brains, baby silverbeet, brown butter and capers, crisp wafers [Tim was brave! I tried it and was surprised at how tasty it was, although most people don't have to disect and eat brains within a week!]

And finally dish four:
Twice cooked pork belly, wild rocket, ginger and pickled sultana salad, smashed peas, smoked ham reduction
[I chose this at the recommendation of Hamish, also very good - even the smashed peas were delicious]

Hare pie, Parmesan chice souffle topping, creamed potato puree. [I'm guessing this may have been the most 'gourmet' pie Tim has ever had!]

And the delicious dessert options of cheese platters, citrus selections, star anise poaches pear, fresh figs in rosewater and so-on were not to be squeezed in that time. They sound good though. All in all, it was an excellent meal, outstanding service, and of course, gorgeous company!! A good way to celebrate.

Sunday lunch was the other main weekend event - a significant amount of the family together, just lacking Hilary's husband Martin and my cousin Olivia to make the full set I think. This was specially nice since Nanna and Papa along with Katherine and Andrew are heading to Tanzania shortly for a 5 week trip - which for my grandparents, will be their final trip back to a place they spent many years working, and for the others will be a chance to see again some of where they grew up and what it is like now. We'd a lovely lunch which Vanessa had contributed to significantly (fantastic lamb shanks!), and a chance to chat and play with the various family members. Lochie had us younger ones involved in pillow/sword fights, playing with the train set and other appopriate activites:

Lunch with everyone (Tim was taking the photo - he was there too)

All of us!

Then there was the final drive home, broken up by a coffee stop at Zeps in Cambell Town - where I finally managed to get Tim with his car, in daylight. Just!

Last but not least - one of my favourite parts of the Midlands Highway as we zoomed past in the late afternoon light.

Going to Launceston

This post could in fact have a double meaning. As it happens, I am going to Launceston for the weekend. But, bigger news than that, is that I'm going to be at the Launceston Clinical School next year for my fourth year of med. It was what I put as my preference, but we still weren't sure who'd get what. As it happens, Lonny must have been put #1 by fewer people than fit, because some extras are going - it was one guy's 3rd preference (out of 3). There's a bunch of quite a few of my friends that will be going to Launceston - me, Jack, Ruth, Chloe, Nick, Richo, other Nick, Nathan and so on - it looks like a good group. I think there'll be 5 girls and the rest boys from my year - plus a bunch of what will then be 5th years! Fun Fun. So it'll be exciting and daunting and cold to move up there - but I'm sure there'll be many trips up and down, and its only for a year (or two maybe). Certainly it'll be a new era of finding somewhere to live, and people to live with... but I wil definitely miss lots of things about Hobart and home and family and friends at this end of the state.

This weekend (which will also be spent in Launceston) it is a family friend's suprise birthday party (can't tell say who because it's a surprise!). Also Tim and I will catch up with his family, see a bit of my family... we even have a booking to go out for what should be a very nice dinner. More about that later.

More celebrations! (Happy Birthday Tahnee)

This week was Tahnee's birthday. We had a little (girly) party for her at my house on the day, with an amazing cake made by Holly, and presents from everyone! I had had fun making Tahnee's present - a heat pack! But not any ordinary heat pack - a cuddly critter which had no face because I didn't decide and ran out of time! I was testing it the night before and didn't really want to give it away because it was so nice and warm!

The cake, and my pikelets served with jam and cream, and coffees for everyone

The heat pack!

Blowing out the candles!

Last night, the celebrations continued with a birthday dinner with Tahnee's family at Pashas. The service was average, but it was a most enjoyable evening. Afterwards, her cousin James, Tahnee, Tim and I went to Onba for a drink. Tahnee had the fantastic raspberry tart margerita that I had last time, and I had the Pina Colada which was probably quite good for what it was, but it was nearly more than I could drink of coconut flavour! Tim's 'tea house' green tea and orange that was supposed to be blood orange drink was pretty good as well.

Last time at Onbar, with martinis.

Celebrations!

During the last couple of weeks, there have been several celebrations. Earlier in the month, we had a family mother's day party combined with an early round 1 of celebrations for my cousin Jonathan's 17th birthday. His birthday isn't until July, but Hamish couldn't restrain himself from opening Jon's present for any more days and we all like spread out parties!

We all gathered some time around 10am, for a scrumptious brunch of many delicacies: poached eggs, bacon, home made hollondiase sauce, ''French crumpets"(ie crumpets cooked a la French toast), nice bread and freshly made white chocolate and raspberry muffins (my contribution).

Our Mothers seemed to enjoy themselves - there were presents for both of them, from their children, and from each other! I got my dear Mum a nice glass jug! Katherine got some nougat and a flowering plant cunningly purchased by me on the way there, on Linden's behalf. She also got another different flowering plant from my Mum, for being a good Mum, while, Katherine gave Mum (and herself) a microwavable gel heat back in a fluffy cover.



After the Mum's were duly celebrated, it was Jon's turn. First, some background: Katherine knew what Jonny was getting from us, but didn't want to give it away, so a week or so before had said something like 'I told Hamish not to get you a pony, but you know what he's like'. Since then, I'd sent him a message saying we'd been looking after his present well, and it would be good to get it out of the garage, and comments along those lines. I didn't want to fail to deliver after all the pony hype so a stop by the reliable Chickenfeed and viola:


After a hilarious few minutes where Jonny combed the pony's silky blue mane only to discover that a) the tail was designed for teenage boys to play with, b) the comb wasn't designed for teenage boys to play with and c) the neck wasn't designed with teenage boys to play with!! Having well and truly injured the poor pony we moved onto the real present: Arkham Horror!


After they unwrapped the game and admired the pieces, it was only natural to play it. After 5 or so hours, (while I observed while writing up an assigment on my lappy) they lost the game to the monster of the board. At this point Mum and I left Hamish behind to stay for dinner and play another game!!! By all accounts, it is an awesome game. (And can even be played with 1 player!)

Tim's car!

For now I don't think I have any pictures of the car itself from the outside, but I can show this:


I'll work on getting some sort of posed shot of him with the car - or at least the car posing for me. But today Tim's gone to Zeehan until tomorrow or the day after, so his car will not be visiting for a couple of days!

Some more happenings and pictures.

Here's some more recent 'things' that have happened - didn't want a mega mega post last time around.

One other recent event was the 2&1/2 Days in Margate festival. I went down to Margate with some friends on the saturday and checked out various things - including getting my friend Sarah's boyfriend some Olliebollen at Channel Fair, some Lemon Tart at Pear Ridge, and a browse at the Margate Train and Brookfield. We also stopped by my church for the Spiritual Journey's art exhibition which was most impressive (if I may say so!). I actually had something in it, as did my grandmother. The display boards were different from other years, and all the paintings/sculptures/prints/photos etc looked really good. I was back there on the Sunday for the exhibition opening - a guy from Fusion(ish) spoke really well. I also helped out with the kids activities - there weren't that many kids, but I enjoyed doing some painting with Amelia, and some crayon drawings and the rest.


Less recently, but not that long ago, dearest Jac and Jo were back for a visit. They weren't very well which was a shame, but it was great to catch up. That was at Easter, but clearly, I've not posted since way before that. I just found a picture so thought I'd add that too!!

Actually, thinking back, there was also a trip away with Tim, and his Dad and brother on his Grandfather's boat. We headed down towards Southport and Bruny for the weekend - there wasn't much wind but some nice days, and it was all very relaxing.

The 'Zeehan' moored in Southport Bay

Marcus and Tim
Tim
Me - on the beach at SouthportSomewhere near Bruny

Sometime in between all that, Tim sold his car and was stuck driving a BMW Z3 for the interim. That was tough, but he managed - and we even had some nice enough days that he could put the roof down. Those days are gone now though, because he's bought himself a shiny silver Citroen. On his behalf, I'd like to point out that it is the model of car (in shape if not engine) that won the 2004 World Rally Championships!