World Explorers or Destroyers of Ancient Cultures?

No disrespect to the descendants of these guys but they really did not know what they were messing with when they traversed vast lands, sailed the seven seas and crossed seemingly endless oceans, heading towards different lands and entirely different civilizations to anything they knew or expected to find. In so doing they named everything they saw with their own names without a thought for the culture, religion, tribal or family practices nor a sustainable way of living that preceded their arrival, possibly for thousands of years. The plan seemed to be “bemuse, plunder, kill if necessary and get plenty of provisions to get back home for much kudos and acclaim.” They certainly received acclaim and got their names in the history books.

Captain James Cook has, for a long long time, got his name plastered everywhere in Australia but surely it is time to look at new explorers, new pioneers in the area of 21st century preservation. Save what we have, not bulldoze it and pour more concrete. Keep big chunks of the natural land, places for native animals to remain safe, eco-friendly homes and lots of safe walking paths to minimize vehicle traffic. One of my pet dislikes is huge off-road vehicles and the advertisements where they race a 4-wheel-drive through creeks, over sand dunes and across rugged bushland without a care in the world for flora or fauna habitat. Off-road destruction by any type of wheel or tyre causes land erosion and damage is far greater than walking.

At least Captain James Cook and his fellow explorers, those navigators and discoverers of ancient civilisations and “new” worlds, got to see pristine environments of great wonder and people with different lifestyles. Such a shame that they were not open and broad-minded enough to work out a peaceful and harmonious meeting of minds instead of injury and death. Or not use the exploration funds on getting a good reputation back home and impressing the Royals by plundering and carting valuable goods back with them. In the case of those land explorers who came after Captain James Cook, mainly to grab as much acreage as they could, it would appear that they did not have a masterplan but brooked no argument or discussion from the original Indigenous first nations people.

So I say, much in all as I loved History in school, what I now know is a load of PR rubbish any 21st century spin-doctor would be proud to write. Explorers were first-line invaders like the lone black ant which gets into my kitchen, exploring the benchtops. Tough, inquisitive and not too afraid of me, it is no doubt the strongest and bravest in the hive to seek out a new food source. I cannot kill it, I put it outside in the hope it will explore further afield. I know in due course it will return with reinforcements.

Famous and incredibly brave explorers pictured top to bottom: Vasco da Gama, James Cook, Abel Tasman, Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan, Marco Polo.

Further information https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Discovery

💗 Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

Does Try Try Again Really Work?

Home baked Vanilla Cupcakes waiting for vanilla icing. Recipe ingredients are 2 3/4 cups plain flour, 2 tsp baking powder, 200g unsalted butter softened, 1 3/4 cups caster sugar, 4 eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 cup milk. Preheat oven to 170C and line two muffin trays with cupcake papers.
Food by Dot Bernet © Photographs Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025
See website for Vanilla Buttercream icing:
https://www.bestrecipes.com.au/recipe/vanilla-cupcakes-L6950.html

A wonderful children’s author I have known for some time, Cate Whittle, posted on her Substack page about success and failure and trying again. A cooking failure was turned around and she will experiment further to refine her recipe.
Read here: https://catewhittle.substack.com/p/having-your-cake

Home baked Red Velvet Cupcake with White Chocolate Icing. Food by Dot Bernet © Photographs Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

My reply to Cate was prompted by a happy memory and perhaps an old lesson people could use more often. ‘If at first you don’t succeed, try, try, again.‘ Here is what I wrote on Cate’s July Substack page:

“Lovely, just what I needed to read with my cuppa! Your warming newsletter brought back some lovely memories of my daughter’s first foray into cooking. Initially, her first attempts were not that good and one particular dish was a disaster. I said ‘Oh well, let’s try it again and see what happens‘ and fortunately it worked. She is now an excellent cook and will try most recipes including exotic international dishes which are beyond me. We keep a photo file of my daughter’s greatest triumphs. Recently she told me that ‘Let’s try it again‘ day was a pivotal moment for her cooking skills.

Looking forward to another version of your tea cake, Cate!”
Follow Cate’s literary life ‘A Cuppa With Cate’
Substack https://catewhittle.substack.com/

Happy cooking (and eating!)

💗 © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

Food choice by Dot Bernet. Mandarin from our tree. Bread home-baked © Photographs Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

‘Happy 6th WordPress Blogaversary Cake’ First attempt Battenberg Cake by Dot Bernet © image Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2023

https://thoughtsbecomewords.com/2023/09/14/review-starberries-and-kee-cate-whittle/
https://catewhittle.substack.com/p/my-books

(1) Strawberries from greengrocer (2) Side Salad by Dot Bernet © Photographs Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

A Word for New Life

Our current era has been around for 60 million years and gradually comprised every species including mammals currently living on earth today – regardless of their circumstances or how much they sleep.

What is this Cenozoic Era? A time when Earth’s flora and fauna evolved into those of the present day.

The Cenozoic ‘New Life’ era can also be named ‘Age of Mammals’. Interestingly we humans often don’t care very well for other humans or our animal mammals do we?

My theory: This could be why past civilisations and animal species died out and are still disappearing.

Killing does not make for success in the future.

My slogan: Be kind to a mammal today!

💟 © images Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

Hazel outside her treehouse with some of her adorable Aussie mammalian friends. https://www.walkerbooks.com.au/book/9781760657260/

Cyclone Alfred’s Dangerous Downpour

The lavender plant takes a pounding but the rainwater bucket is full 💧 GBW.

How do you photograph a cyclone? It’s not easy because the wind and rain pound down in steady white sheets of water, roads are flooded, power is out and the noise on the roof starts to become very monotonous as does the overflowing gutters and rattling windows. Will the gumtree up the backyard hold on or shed a few branches to survive? Will my family and friends be okay? Will the wildlife creatures be safe from rising flood waters? I fear for farmers and their animals and crops more than I do city dwellers who have been forewarned for days to prepare and take shelter. Tropical Cyclone Alfred originated from a tropical low in the Coral Sea and so much has been put in place to inform and assist those who live and work in South East Queensland. We did lose electricity overnight but power was quickly restored. Alfred was a big powerful cyclone but today it’s moving away, a tropical low, leaving behind heavy rain, rain, rain and a waterlogged city. My thoughts and prayers go out to those who have lost so much already. Praise must be given to those who spoke (and signed) so eloquently via the media to keep us informed. Praise for those workers who put their lives on the line to help others. A big thumbs-down to those idiots who risked their lives and others to pull daredevil stunts. Not cool. Soon I will watch news reports and see pictures of our rain-soaked River City and no doubt there are scary photos online showing what’s going on along the Brisbane River. It floods dramatically and the debris it carries is often mindboggling, boats, cars, bridges, roofs and countless other hapless items washed away in its churning liquid power. Yes, I have an emergency kit packed. I live on the side of a hill so immune to rising flood waters but the creek at the bottom of the street will have broken its banks and be flowing across the road towards homes. Local kids will frolic in it, sewerage, snakes and all. Remember the slogan “If it’s flooded forget it!” Nature keeps us alive but every so often there is a backlash to keep us in line. I respect Nature in all forms, not just from sea surf to mountain ranges, because in many ways Nature has more unexpected power than humans over our life and death here on earth. Stay safe my friends.
💗 © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025

TRIVIA FACT
With cyclones being named alphabetically, Anthony was originally the next name to be used starting with A, but the BOM decided to switch to Alfred to avoid any association or confusion with the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclone_Alfred_(2025)#:~:text=As%20the%20seventh%20named%20storm,Coral%20Sea%20on%2020%20February.

Snake Poetry and Python Encounter

MY PHOTOGRAPHS show a carpet python resting on the pathway where I walk beside the creek. It prompted this blog entry. I have added the wonderful D.H. Lawrence ‘Snake’ poem in a similar vein although much deeper and more meaningful than something I could write.
🧡 Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024

*Snake on walking path © image Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024*

MY EXPERIENCE felt almost primordial. The snake must have just woken from its winter slumber and was enjoying the September spring sunshine and the warmth of the concrete path. It looked a bit thin and I hoped it wasn’t unwell. Perhaps it had not yet eaten, not fattened up on creek rats and other creatures of the murky water mixed with suburban drains.
This carpet snake had chosen to stop just in line with the shadows of the tree branches. An instinctive gesture? But I saw him first. I spoke to him/her (are living things really its) in a conversational tone saying ‘Now don’t you go up that embankment to the road. It wouldn’t be a good idea.’
The head turned and watched me as I snapped two photos and walked up the grassy embankment and stepped between the low pine-log fence posts. I looked around but saw no-one. It was nice to know a cyclist or mother with a pram were not coming this way.
Poor python, he’d never get lunch if he attracted a crowd.
I hope that patterned smooth skinned creature grows and matures and lives a quiet life. He’s probably asleep now on a flat grey rock at the edge of the creek, a bulge in that otherwise slim body.
I went on my way to post a letter, how old-fashioned of me. GBW.

‘Snake’ is one of the best-known poems from D. H. Lawrence’s nature-themed collection
Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)
D.H. Lawrence was born 11^th September 1885, Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England
and died 2^nd March 1930, in Vence, France.
He was an English author of novels, short stories, poems, plays, essays,
travel books and letters.
His ‘Snake’ poem is in the public domain.
https://www.britannica.com/biography/D-H-Lawrence

‘SNAKE’ by POET D.H. LAWRENCE
A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.

In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second-comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.

The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid you would kill him.

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid,
But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered further,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste,
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross,
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

Poem from poet D. H. Lawrence’s nature-themed collection
Birds, Beasts and Flowers (1923)

POSTSCRIPT
Morelia spilota, commonly known as the carpet python, is a large snake of the family Pythonidae found in Australia, New Guinea, Bismarck Archipelago, and the northern Solomon Islands.
https://bie.ala.org.au/species/https://biodiversity.org.au/afd/taxa/29af7856-f243-4db6-bde6-8c8f16172735

Night Walk in Covid-19

“Hands up all the blog writers who wrote about their experiences of living through Covid-19 and its aftermath. Okay, I will join your ranks and become one of those adding something to world history with a personal experience; of course the names have been changed to protect the innocent.”

During the time of the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, Angela and her daughter Jenny decided they would go for a walk every evening. Just a short one around a block or two, maybe across the park to upset the plovers in the damp grass, then home again. A walk was especially invigorating during the colder months of August in Brisbane. It got them out of the house, away from the air-con heating, into the refreshing chill of the cool night air. They donned jackets and beanies and shoved gloves in their pockets just in case of light rain. The suburban streets were deserted yet the night was infused with noise, the dull murmur of a distant highway, the sound of birds settling in to roost, a possum scuttling across a rooftop, the whoosh-whoop of fruit bat wings as they scoped out a mulberry tree or date palm and then crash-landed into the foliage. Owls were heard but never seen, unlike car drivers who appeared to have lost all concept of care and responsibility, arbitrarily speeding through red traffic lights because the streets were empty. However, while joggers, scooters, dog owners and their canines were tucked up in front of their preferred screens, a full moon would rise and cats would prowl under its glow. It was not unusual for a feline to stroll across the street to check out the two interlopers, then perhaps allowing Angela the occasional stroke of neck fur or chin scratch. These nightly walks offered the duo some unusual sights, the least of which was the activity of a darkened 4WD vehicle continually cruising up and down various back streets. Were they lost, were they scoping out burglary opportunities, or is that impugning a parent teaching their teenager to drive?

Footy training cancelled © image Dot Bernet 2019

Many homes had their living room curtains open so it was easy to see their televisions, replaying the gloomy news over and over again as the fatality statistics grew more and more alarming each night. Often cooking smells hung in the air or the tang of eucalypt competing with the pall of grey smoke left over from backyard firepits, an ill-advised council initiative. Angela was glad her face mask filtered the worst of it. One night they took a different route and Jenny was chastised for impulsively, recklessly walking down the middle of a major suburban road just because she could. Not a delivery van, ambulance or person in sight, only rows and rows of parked cars and houses with twinkling fairy lights strung around trees and across balconies and down driveways. They saw unloved little street libraries, a ghost bus lit up but without passengers, and even a large picture frame hanging high up a jacaranda tree. There was a trend among real estate agents to put either cheery red bows or teddy bears on their For Sale signs. Unfortunately the follow-up maintenance was non-existent so, after rain, ribbons of blood-red dye ran down the advertisements and the poor teddy bears were soaked, left to dangle in macabre poses of decomposition. Indirectly a gloomy statement of that period in history. It always felt nice to return home.

❤ © Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024

Dugongs and Curlews Don’t Sleep in Beds—Save Toondah Harbour Wetlands

*Eastern Curlew image : Dan Weller and ABCTV*

Here is my email with additions made to a draft copy received from Greens MP Elizabeth Watson-Brown and sent to The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP, Minister for the Environment and Water:

My email heading “Dugongs and Curlews Don’t Sleep in Beds—Stop Harbour Development”

Dear Minister Plibersek,

I urge you to use your powers as the Environment Minister to reject Walker Corporation’s Toondah Harbour project which will destroy globally important wetlands and a refuge for some of Australia’s most unique and threatened wildlife.

A Ramsar-listed wetland is no place to build 3600 luxury residences including high-rise apartments, commercial strips and a 220-berth marina. It is beyond belief that this project is even being considered in the twenty-first century. We have already lost so much biodiversity due to corporate greed.

This project will have significant impacts on matters of national environmental significance: an internationally listed wetland (Moreton Bay), nationally threatened shorebirds including the critically endangered Eastern Curlew, migratory marine species (dugongs and turtles) and the locally threatened koala.

The Eastern Curlew is one of the 22 priority species in the Federal Government’s new 10-year Threatened Species Action Plan. Approving this project would be completely at odds with the Albanese Government’s goal of ‘No new extinctions’. I say save and preserve because there is no rebirth after extinction.

Failing to uphold Australia’s international obligations under the Ramsar Convention to protect this wetland and the species that rely on it, would set a dangerous precedent that could allow damaging developments in other important wetlands in Australia and worldwide.

*Critically endangered – How long will this small shorebird be able to continue to fly between Australasia and far-flung countries. A thousand years, a hundred years, or maybe just a few years?*

Walker Corp’s claims that a vast high-rise apartment complex on sensitive wetlands would result in ‘No expected reduction in migratory bird numbers’ and ‘Deliver a positive outcome for koalas’ are beyond belief! The construction materials, vehicles and building cement run-off alone could pollute the entire bay area.

Toondah Harbour is in the Redland Bay Cleveland area of southern Moreton Bay, Queensland, Australia. There is significant opposition to this building project from the Redlands community and Australia-wide and rightly so. Once that wetland biodiversity goes, everyone and everything suffers—and it won’t grow back.

The health of local residents is already affected, they are upset and deeply concerned about the loss of already threatened wildlife; the impact on local businesses and tourism; and increased road traffic. Every single millimetre of Toondah wetlands must be preserved for a healthy future.

Thank you for reading this letter and considering my views.

Yours sincerely,
Gretchen Bernet-Ward
Brisbane 2024

Postscript: After I emailed my thoughts regarding saving Toondah Harbour wetlands from massive tourism over-development, I saw this on our Australian Parliamentary website and The Guardian:

https://minister.dcceew.gov.au/plibersek/media-releases/proposed-decision-refuse-development-toondah-harbour
and
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2024/apr/09/tanya-plibersek-rejects-toondah-harbour-project-over-impact-on-globally-significant-wetlands

THEN—TOONDAH HARBOUR DEVELOPMENT STOPPED! 18/4/24 It’s official! The iconic Toondah Harbour has been saved after Walker Corporation withdrew their application to build a $1.4 billion real estate project on the internationally protected wetland site. This momentous news comes after Environment Minster Tanya Plibersek announced last week that she intended to reject the nature-wrecking project on the basis that removing 58.7 hectares was unacceptable and would affect threatened flora, fauna and migratory birds. Also thanks to the groundswell of communities throughout Queensland and Australia with close to 200,000 people having called on our Government to save Toondah. View Tanya Plibersek’s announcement:

https://www.acf.org.au/toondah-harbour-saved-a-historic-moment-for-nature-and-people-power#:~:text=It’s%20official!,the%20internationally%20protected%20wetland%20site.

Please keep our waterways clean because…

*ReUse ReCycle Bag © image Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024*

Recycle Reuse Truth

*No Planet B Recycle Reuse Bag © image Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024*

Plain and simple...

There are many recycling slogans out there but they are of no consequence if you don’t take their advice—please recycle!
❤ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

Tropical Rain, Break Time and Poetry Class

*My backyard after continual rain © styling Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024*

I guess every blogger at some time or another decides to take a break, whether it is because of lifestyle changes, work pressures or just that nothing seems to jump out and say “Blog me!” My recent lackadaisical approach is due to high tropical heat and incredibly torrential downpours which have played havoc with both inland regions and coastal towns of Queensland, Australia.

Here in subtropical Brisbane we have had massive plant growth (and soggy lawns, water under the house, humidity which is exhausting) and my photograph is proof of Nature’s unequivocal love of water. The lawn (grass really) is up to my knees; overnight the lavender grew out of its pot, and you can see by the rainwater bucket (used on potted indoor plants) keeps replenishing day and night. Instead of high heating bills, this summer the electricity source is working hard on air-con and ceiling fans.

Still, there is always something to do and life does go on, and on, and on, helped or hindered by weather cycles. Perhaps this time next year Brisbane City Council will introduce hand-watering and I will probably be doling out cupful’s of the precious liquid. Water is really survival itself!

Something which has been taking a bit of my attention away from blogging is poetry.
A quote from Fishing for Lightning explains why—
“In defence of difficulty in poetry I would say this: poetry tries, as best it can, to wrestle with our most complex and ineffable emotions,
and in order to do so the poet must forge a language that is equal to the task.”
Sarah Holland-Batt
‘Fishing for Lightning’ Page 94 Published UQP First Edition 2021

*The title is indirectly related to the book © styling Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024*

Soon, I will blog post about a U3A Zoom poetry class I am attending online – due to the heat and rain – and confidently tell you that I am slowly grasping the concept. The book I am studying is titled ‘Fishing for Lightning’ compiled by Sarah Holland-Batt, I won’t divulge the story behind the title, subtitled ‘The Spark of Poetry’. The only poem spark I remember grasping was William Wordsworth’s daffodils in ‘I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud’ but as an adult I am prepared to give it another go. Stay tuned!

Oh, now just a self-indulgent notation: Due to this year’s phenomenal plant growth, all gardening clean-up services (and lawnmower men) are fully booked. Even a local lad who works on weekends is not returning calls. Some ute-and-whipper-snipper operators are charging grossly inflated prices because it is an industry which is not regulated. This strange turn of events prompted me to request a Green Bin from our city council; it’s like a normal rubbish bin except it’s green and clean and recycles garden waste. Just wait until the weekend!

And finally, a little nudge to all those lazy, off-hand, patronising and sometimes whingey gardener guys who came to quote and never rang back, ignoring my pleas and cash; just you wait until the weather cycle changes and everything turns to drought. Will the work be there? Or will we lawnmower-challenged suburbanites shrug and say “Sorry, the lawn and garden are totally dried out, no need of your services, I can hand-trim the odd blade of grass myself.” (Ah, the power, cue evil laughter 😀)

❤ Gretchen Bernet-Ward

The Strength of Nine Words

This Stephen Benét quote struck a cord with me and I wish it would reverberate around the world to governments, politicians, leaders, teachers, legal and law enforcers, armed forces, researchers in medicine and electronics, mass media, writers, local companies, every citizen, parents and caregivers. Just because we can wield great power, building and destroying in equal measure, from bombing cities to decimating rainforests, I believe we should stop and cultivate the wisdom of Consequence. Bigger, stronger is rarely better. Be wise enough to know it can be done but is it necessary for a healthy future? Wisdom to think, assess, and speak clearly. Wisdom to be unafraid to give your opinion, which unfortunately is denied in many countries. Less power, more universal wisdom to make things better not worse. GBW.

❤ Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024