Wings

My recent charter flights have been a reminder of the role that air travel had in opening up western Queensland.

The country I’ve been frequenting is not so far from the birthplace of Qantas, and there is a museum at Quilpie airport dedicated to Amy Johnson who got lost and landed there when she was trying to find Charleville.

Those were the days when the homestead roofs had the property names painted large to assist wayward aviators. I think Amy turned right instead of left when she encountered the railway line – or was it the other way around?

These days, the navigational aids are a little more high-tech, but the basic romance of bush aviation remains.

You always start early, as daylight is a finite resource, and the sunrises are always spectacular. On one of our flights we were treated to a rainbow on departure at Roma. I remembered the old rhyme “Rainbow at morning – shepherd’s warning” and worried about it all day.

Sure enough, on the flight back from Quilpie we hit a squally thunderstorm, and bounced all over the sky with the rain drumming on the fuselage. Unfortunately, it was on finals into Roma, so we couldn’t fly above it. This coupled with the fact that the sun had well and truly gone down as we approached the airport, made me a bit anxious. When you are looking through the same windscreen as the bloke with his hands and feet on the controls, and you realise how little he can actually see, it’s a little sobering.

The aircraft (a Piper Cheyenne Turbo) is pressurised and quite fast, but inside it’s poky and smells like a swamp.

In fact the smell reminded me of a Thai Air Force C-123 Provider that flew me and a bunch of fifteenth intake Nashos from Nui Dat to Tan Son Nhut on 10th December 1970 to jump on the freedom bird for the flight back to Oz. The olfactory sense is the most impactful when it comes to memory.

I wonder whether the charter pilot would be mortally offended if I bring a can of freshener next trip?

Thinking of odours and aircraft reminds me of flying back from Shoalwater bay to Rockhampton in 1969 on board a Caribou after a fortnight spent chasing around playing warries in the tropical heat. We wore the same set of greens (no underwear) for the whole exercise during which there was no opportunity to bathe. The dapper-looking RAAF pilot took exception to the collective stink of thirty filthy grunts and opened the rear cargo hatch once airborne to improve the ventilation. It also improved the view…..

The Piper doesn’t have a cargo hatch – there’s only one entry door on the port side, and the driver has to clamber over the seated passengers once he’s shut this same hatch ensuring it’s properly locked.

Getting to the cockpit between the opulent front seats (the plane is an ex-executive aircraft) provides a particular challenge for anyone bulky of build. I’m skinny – so it’s not a hassle.

The advent of 9/11 has meant a surge in security at these bush airports.

Access to the flightline is through coded gates, and the whole airport area is secured by 3 metre fencing topped by barbed wire. I guess they’re guarding against a hijacking of a small aircraft which in turn could be used to get to a secure area at a major airport.

By the way, if you examine the photo above you'll see a fine example of a balloon tree, found only west of Quilpie.....

Long Way Round

Blogging has fallen by the wayside a bit lately, given the twin competitions for my time of family illness and work.
Nevertheless, I’ve found time this morning, before things arc up again….. During the last two weeks I’ve done trips to Augathella, Charleville, Quilpie and Cunnamulla.

Once again, I’ve used the Q Health charter aircraft to get around which has saved about fifteen hours on the road all up. I don’t mind the driving – in fact I enjoy it – but it’s essentially unproductive time, and the people I work for get much better value out of me when I’m not sitting on my backside traversing the countryside at 100kph.

Flying’s only disadvantage is that you don’t have a car when you get where you’re going, but that can be turned into an advantage. Rather than relying on a lift from the hospital to the schools I’m working in, I’ve chosen to walk. In this weather, and burdened only with my laptop, it’s OK. You wouldn’t however, want to be doing this in the forty degree temperatures common out here in the summer.

Apart from the exercise, walking gives you the best possible feel for these towns, and armed only with my mobile phone camera, I usually manage to get some good shots.

One here, of the drowsy Cunnamulla guard dog, captures the atmosphere well.

Cunnamulla was interesting. After listening to a ten minute diatribe from one of the hospital staff about the dreadful behaviour of the Murri kids at the school (when he discovered that I was working there) I had to ask for directions when I was walking into town from the hospital to buy lunch. (Anything is better than the food off the hospital trolley – which I could have pre-ordered and paid for – been there – done that – never again).

The only bods about were three young Murri blokes – one with a full compliment of tats. They gave me considered and comprehensive directions using a level of courtesy I would have been proud of in my own kids. So much for the uncouth locals I’d heard so much about. Whilst listening to this bigoted character at the hospital, I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I’d spent all morning at the school, where again, I was treated with courtesy (and curiosity – not many white-haired itinerants out here – they’re all young) by the kids I’d encountered.

Cunnamulla architecture is an engrossing mix of shanties and substantial old Queenslanders.

At this time of the year the air is fresh, and the light almost incandescent in its clarity.

I really enjoyed the day.

Travelling

The motel radio comes on at 6am just as Fran Kelly’s voice promos her breakfast show. Apparently we’re one level short of a pandemic – not an issue out here.

The further west you go the saner the world gets.

I’ve ordered breakfast at seven, so there’s time for a shower and some reports, but I’m on autopilot at this hour, and I’ll need to check carefully anything I write.

This motel room is a bit unusual in that it has a back door and a back yard – sort of. There is a row of palms planted out there, anachronistic for me this far west as I always associate palms with the beach.

It’s a nice touch, but you can still hear the trucks as they roar past at all hours out front. I open the unit door to begin loading files and computer into the wagon and the chill hits me like a cold sponge.

The lineup of travellers’ cars is changing these days. Instead of the Commodores and Falcons that once were the go, you’re seeing diesel SUVs, medium sized cars and diesel vans. The bloke in the unit next to mine is packing a diesel Mondeo. I’d kill for a coffee, but am feeling too lazy to brew something up from what’s available in the room, so I’ll wait for breakfast. In any case, breakfast coffee will be brewed.

A seven thirty start will be OK, as I’ve got 3 hours on the road, and that will get me to the school in good time to meet the parents of the student I’m supporting at 10.30. Besides I’m heading vaguely east, and don’t relish driving into the rising sun at the beginning of this trip – too many stock transports which always leads to a dirty windscreen.

This would not be a good journey to take in the MX5 with the top down.

It looks like it’s going to be a beautiful day.

Blowing the Whistle

There's plenty of faux hysteria being generated in the mainstream media lately about refugee boats.

It's refreshing therefore to read a more measured response in the Catholic Leader.

This newspaper doesn't, of course, have to rely on screaming headlines to sell papers. Generally, they're bought by people attending mass on Sunday morning.

Worth repeating is this:

Edmund Rice Centre spokesman Fr Claude Mostowik said the term “border protection” was “too often used as a weapon against extremely vulnerable people escaping life threatening situations”.

The so-called christians screaming blue murder have almost blown the pea from their whistle.

The level of debate around this issue hasn't improved since the days of the "yellow hordes" or the "red peril".

A different Anzac Day

Life’s full of surprises.

This time last week I was planning to drive down to Brisbane today to march with the few members of my unit that I know who live reasonably close. I’ve taken to marching in Brisbane, as there aren’t any of my old cronies (as far as I know) living in Toowoomba, and I’ve never encountered anyone from my battalion marching in this town.

On Tuesday my sister phoned, more than a little distressed, to tell me that my 11 year old nephew (my youngest brother’s only son) had collapsed at school. He’d been taken to hospital, and a CAT scan had revealed a cerebral tumour. My brother (a GP himself in a local practice) had followed the ambulance down the mountain to Brisbane where my nephew was admitted for urgent surgery, initially to remove pressure from his brain, and then, after extensive investigation, to remove the tumour.

The first procedure was performed on Thursday, and the second – very delicate because of the location of the tumour – scheduled for today.

One of the activities not trumped by Anzac Day is lifesaving surgery. My wife and I drove down to be with my brother this morning, and we spent the bulk of the day with him, my sister, my niece (who happens to be a paediatrician) and one of my other brothers who lives in Brisbane. There are times when large families are a real asset.

The surgery lasted about seven hours, and he came through apparently OK. As my very relieved bother said – his Obs are good and there were no nasty surprises. I think that’s medspeak for he’s doing as well as can be expected. There’s a long journey ahead of him and lots of tough stuff (chemotherapy etc) to come.

He’s a tough little rooster and did his best leading up to the surgery to do everything he was told to by the hospital staff. He was scared, but as my dad used to say, to be very brave, you first must be very scared.

He is very brave.

So that’s where I spent Anzac Day. There was never a thought to be anywhere else.

Fear and Loathing

This week’s hysteria about refugees on boats brings to the surface an underlying paranoia that has been a feature of our national psyche since white settlement.

If you’ll excuse the cliché, this is a chemically pure expression of fear and loathing. In 2009, it’s as real and tangible for a small proportion of our population as any other aspect of national identity. If you don’t believe me, read Andrew Bolt’s blog. (Or better still – don’t – it’s more than a little depressing).

Exploring the reasons for this slowly diminishing national characteristic would be fascinating, but I don’t have the time or the inclination. In any case, I think I grew out of it at about the same time I grew out of fear of the bogeyman.

And it’s real – I’ve observed it in many shapes and varieties over the years. I’ll provide one example.

Back in 1977, I was running a unit for disabled kids in a Western Brisbane high school. Attached to this unit was a setup for migrant students who were learning English as a second language, prior to enrolling in general high school. From memory, they did a six week course.

Given that it was 1977, the bulk of these kids were Vietnamese, who had arrived on boats. They were given the collective label of “Vietnamese boat people”. The teacher in charge of the migrant unit was an excellent operator, and I found her helpful, as at this time I was learning the ropes of educational leadership. We did a fair bit of resource sharing, and the Vietnamese kids were a bright and resourceful lot, and quite helpful with the kids with disabilities in my charge.

The migrant kids were studying “To Kill a Mockingbird”, and it was showing at a cinema at Enoggera. I had a bus licence, and access (through my base school) to a 33 seater bus. A couple of the disabled kids were studying the same text.

I offered to drive the bus if the migrant kids needed to see the movie, and the offer was gladly taken up.

On the day, we drove across to the cinema, which was close to the Enoggera army base (where I had been discharged in 1971 after Vietnam), with a combination of Vietnamese teenagers, three kids from my unit, and a couple of staff from both units.

I pulled up at the bus stop in front of the cinema and the group began to debus. The Vietnamese kids were always extremely polite, and thanked me individually as they went out the door. As one of them was thanking me in her carefully studied (and fairly pedantic) English, I became aware of a steam of abusive language coming from my right.

A short haired character in his thirties and at the wheel of a car stopped in the left lane beside the bus stop was shouting – “F***ing Noggie C***s, get back to where you came from, you filthy F***ing bastards!”

He was almost foaming at the mouth and completely focusing his rage at the Vietnamese kids. Initially he was unaware of the people caught behind him on busy Enoggera road. Soon they began to honk their horns, and he was forced to move on. Fortunately, he continued driving outbound up the road. I say fortunately, because judging by his behaviour and language, he looked capable of anything.

The Vietnamese kids were largely unaware of the incident, mainly I guess because of their poor English. The staff, however, understood what was going on, and were more than a little concerned. One of the disabled kids turned pale, saying “what’s his problem?” We reassured the kids, got them into the cinema, and I parked the bus down the road. I returned to the cinema, and sat close to the door. I was worried that this character was angry enough to come back. He didn’t.

I still wonder about him. Perhaps he was, like me, a Vietnam veteran – he was about the right age. He certainly looked army, given his haircut. I lived in Townsville for many years, and got to know what the army guys looked like, even when dressed in civvies.

This reaction was not typical of veterans in my experience.

I contend that this level of paranoid anger continues to lurk below the surface for some Australians, admittedly a minority. We saw it raise its ugly head again during the Cronulla riots, and lately the celebration of Australia Day sometimes reveals this underbelly of our national consciousness, especially if alcohol is involved.

Unfortunately, there are those in political life who will use it to their own purposes. On the upside, we seem, as a nation, to have outgrown it. We need to continue to call it when we see it.

Vodafone Blues

Sometime back my eldest daughter moved to Brisbane to study IT.

The best accommodation she could find didn't have internet access and she really needed it for her course, so we went looking for mobile Broadband. We found a Vodafone shop in Brookside Shopping Centre where a gilded youth talked us into a deal which involved a two-year contact, and an assurance that it would work in "Metropolitan Areas".

I explained that there was a strong possibility that my daughter would move once she found more suitable digs, and asked for an assurance that I could use the service both in Toowoomba (where I'm based) and as I traveled around in my work in South West Queensland.

In hindsight, I think his gilded youth’s knowledge of his own state was limited to what he'd seen 50 kilometres north or south of the Brisbane CBD, so his assurances about coverage were about as reliable as a 30 year-old Peugeot I once owned. Places like Charleville, St George, Roma and Goondiwindi were well beyond his ken, even though he was happy to assure me that I could use access from them.

Given these assurances I signed up. I've always assumed that people working for large corporations tell the truth, and had no idea that this was a false assumption when it came to Vodafone.

Armed with the hardware, my daughter headed off to set it up. Monthly fees would be deducted automatically from my account until my daughter found her feet financially. I drove back to Toowoomba believing she was right to go online.

Not so.

She phoned me a few days later to say she couldn't get it to work. Now she is pretty IT-savvy, so this surprised me. When I had a free day, I drove down the range to Brisbane and had a go at making the system work.

No dice.

There was nothing for it but to go back to the gilded youth at Brookside. He wasn't there any more. Given the codswallop he'd told me, it may have had something to do with customer complaints, but that’s another story.

The problem was straightforward. Old Mate had taken my money, but hadn't remembered to enter my account details on whatever piece of software Vodafone use to register users. As far as it was concerned I was a non-customer. This was remedied (without anything resembling an apology – despite the cost to me of a day and a 300km round trip) and daughter had internet – of a sort. It dropped out incessantly, and there were times of the day when it never worked.

In time, she found better accommodation with ADSL access, and I loaded the software into my laptop to see if it worked in Toowoomba.

It didn't.

I then took it out west on my next work trip. It didn't work anywhere (Goondiwindi, St George, Roma or Charleville). Why was I not surprised?

I consigned the whole sad saga to my desk drawer for the last eight months, but eventually got jack of paying out $41 a month for nothing at all. $41 a month is near enough to $500 a year that I was effectively donating to the Vodafone Benevolent Society.

I phoned their customer service number and after being ticked off because I'd forgotten the PIN (which they volunteered anyway) was told that I would continue to be billed, despite not receiving a service, for the rest of the contract. Oh… I could buy out of the contract for $325.

To put it simply, I was being charged for a service that was not available to me, and would have to shell out to get out of the contract. When I objected, I was given a stern lecture about reading the small print, needing to understand that the contract did not guarantee a service, and that I would be hearing from Dunn and Bradstreet should I get stroppy and refuse to pay for a service I couldn’t access.

I could always move to Brisbane.

The last time I felt intimidated was in Vietnam in 1970 by earnest little men carrying AK47s. Now I'm sure the good advocates in Dunn & Bradstreet are earnest, but I doubt they carry AK47s.

I decided that Vodafone would not get another cent of my hard-earned. I've never been prepared to go along with unethical practice, whether it shows its ugly mug in business or personal affairs, and I'm not going to start now.

My next stop was the Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO). I registered my complaint with them at the same time as I sent an invoice to Vodafone for my time in returning to Brisbane to fix the initial problem.

In the fullness of time, I received an email from someone in Tasmania on behalf of Vodafone. It said that if I posted the CD and hardware back to them, all further charges would be waived.

I did so, and have received no more bills.

There are two lessons in this for me. The first one is not to believe anything a salesperson working for a Telco tells you. They’re much more focused on sales than equipment performance and service.

The second is to stand up to the corporation, irrespective of size, if you know you’re right. In the end they will get away with what they can, as it’s the bottom line, not ethics, that calls the tune.