….you don’t succeed, try, try again. This young wrangler is just as determined as his calf. After a bit of encouragement, then some serious tugging, the calf relinquished its stance and trotted along with the boy. My photograph was taken at the Toowoomba Royal Show, a yearly event showcasing all things country. From animals to artwork, photography, flowers, fruit and wonderfully handmade arts and crafts. Of course there was produce and vegetable displays (a huge pumpkin!) plus cookery prizes and a plethora of handmade goods from soap to hats and even a whip-cracking demonstration.
I am not a fan of sideshow alley so detoured the rides full of screaming people and investigated the horse arena, so beautiful, the precision, the presentation, those trotting horses were as well groomed as their riders. Next was a huge shed full of model trains whizzing around elaborate tracks. The ‘station master’ set up a particularly long train for me to video and he watched on with pride as it weaved in and out of hills down to the railway station with realistic sound against a country town backdrop. Miniature train heaven!
Countless stallholders goods tempted me but those ubiquitous hot chips were a magnet not to be ignored because the weather was rainy and show-goers were wet and feeling the cold. So very unusual for Queensland! On theme, there was an aquatic acrobat display on the lake. After watching the adorable dogs trotting around their own mini arena in the rain, it was time to think about the animals in the huge (dry) sheds across the vast site; sheep, goats, cows, chickens, etc. The rain curtailed some arena events but there was certainly enough to enjoy. The relaxed people, the fresh country air and lush green grass was totally worth it.
The People First Bank Toowoomba Royal Show is an unrivalled production of the very best in entertainment and agriculture displays on the Darling Downs Queensland since 1860. https://www.toowoombashow.com.au/royal-show/entertainment/
Here is the official version: Every yearthis show has new entertainment for the whole family, enjoy world class acts, competitions and exhilarating rides in sideshow alley, plus livestock, show judging, produce and crafts. Of course, there is always agricultural equipment for the enthusiast. This year Toowoomba Royal Show was held from 27th to 29th March 2025. Over 500 volunteers assisted during the show. Without their dedication and effort this local event could not function. If you would like to volunteer at the People First Bank Toowoomba Royal Show 2026, please contact them via email at rasqadmin@rasq.com.au for a great experience.
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.
The building in my photograph, with the two people either cleaning or repairing the clock tower, are on the Ann Street side of the Roma Street railway station in Brisbane. These intrepid workers could see a view across ANZAC Square to the General Post Office which denotes the centre of the city. Officially the station area is known as Brisbane Passenger Station, Brisbane Terminal Station, and Brisbane Terminus yet, surprisingly, on the main façade at the Ann Street entry level there is an art deco-style sign proclaiming ‘Central Station’ and that is what the majority of commuters name it.
The train platforms can be accessed a number of ways but I guess these intrepid workers either came from inside the clock tower or climbed up it. The BCC bus sign seems to have spotted them but the commuters below failed to see what was unfolding. The two workers were untangling their ropes!
My bus came and I will never know what transpired that day.
💗 Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2025
On theme, this steam roller is different but of the same era. Queen’s Park, Toowoomba, Queensland.
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
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 11th September 1885, Eastwood, Nottinghamshire, England and died 2nd 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.
‘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.
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.
Our tree orchid is thought to be an Orchid Dendrobium native of the Asia-Pacific region. Maybe even a Cymbidium Orchid. I have checked various sources (eBay included) and almost went cross-eyed with the stunning varieties but cannot find an exact match. Do orchids change regularly like fashion? Perhaps my WordPress friend (Literary Lad and horticulturist) Graham Wright has the answer. GBW.
Our tree orchid flowers every September, springtime in Brisbane, and coincides with my birthday every year. It features in many, many happy family photographs and it is the most hardy exotic flowering plant I have ever known. It wraps its delicate tendrils around an old Illawarra Flame Tree and they seem to enjoy each others company. Through drought, flooding rains and intense summer heat, it happily covers its stalks in pink flowers, needing no special care, and survives even when the possums take a nibble or two. There are suspicions that the blooms were ‘stolen’ one year when in full flower. It could have been ravenous possums, or a neighbour making a bouquet for a wedding, or perhaps a floral display at the local aged care centre. At least I like to think they were used for something lovely and not financial gain. I myself have never picked them and I doubt I ever will.
This 1908 poem extract from William Blocksidge captures the mood.
“And, interspersed among the spangled sheen, Looks out in differing shades the darkened green— A background whereupon, in outline bold, Stands the rich mintage, silver mixed with gold.”
For all its floridness, this poem is quite cutting and the topics are quite revealing. Our modern sensibilities tend to forget the trials and trauma of establishing a town in a new land. Not to mention the brutality towards convict labour and the rightful Indigenous population. Interestingly this is the year the Victorian Government passed the Adult Suffrage Bill 1908 granting female suffrage for the first time. Women’s suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Australia was the first nation in the world to grant women these dual rights.
For those keenly interested in the entire version of this past century’s rather long yet insightful poem from a man whose real estate family is well-known in Brisbane, Queensland, below is a copy from AIC for your reading pleasure. Strong billy tea is recommended with damper and golden syrup if you have it handy.
Brisbane, thou art a city of the sun, A forest queen, a sea-nymph, joined in one! Here Summer loves to spin her lengthened rule, While Winter’s care is but the earth to cool; Here golden wealth, from many a distant plain, Is piled in ships, to swim the billowy main — Here Commerce floods the tides, and minions toil To prove the measure of her mounting spoil!
How often, perched above the hilly bounds That wrap thee as a nest its brood surrounds, Wooing the wind that bears the ocean’s breath, And many a tale to such as listeneth — How often have I lovingly surveyed The scene before my wondering gaze displayed — The lengthening spires, that point the lofty way While yet the soul is idling in its clay; The spacious pile that lifts its stately head; The winding river, to its lover wed; The hills that rise above to kiss the sky; The valleys that within their shadows lie; The shipping crowding on the silver stream; The living threads that through the mazes teem!
And when soft Night, in sable vestment gown’d, Has wrapped her stole thy tranquil form around, ’Tis then, in panoramic splendour viewed, Thou’d be by fond Imagination wooed; For then, fair Brisbane, when thy fading bowers, Tipped with their beacons, turn to fairy towers, Thy beauty scorns the bounds of words, for dumb Are these, and ’neath the burden soon succumb! Now myriad lamps, upon its margin’s crest, With gleaming pennons light the river’s breast; And where the city’s constellation lies The glimmering haze ascends to gild the skies. The villas blazing on the craggy hills Augment the golden flood the night that fills; The bridge displays, above the Garden Bend, Its fiery lines, that in the cluster blend.
And, interspersed among the spangled sheen, Looks out in differing shades the darkened green — A background whereupon, in outline bold, Stands the rich mintage, silver mixed with gold. Now sound (for Night has giv’n the magic key) The pregnant chords of heavenly harmony; And softly floats across, in mingling rhyme, The mellowing cadence of the pealing chime — Such tones as wake the soul’s celestial lyre When pensive memories the theme inspire; And, each with each in concord blending true, With holy rapture flood the heart anew.
Ah, was it but a century ago When thou did’st in the womb of earth lie low, And yet unborn to bear the shame of men, And, rising, throw the burden off again? — When down the hollow gale, that trembling fled, At dusk and dawn, the wailing for the dead In eerie numbers woke the echoes weird, Till, floating down the vale, it disappeared? And was it where those stately buildings stand, Where lofty Art displays her lavish hand, That plenteous game before the huntsmen sped? Or down the maze the dusky dancer led? That round the turrwan, with his magic stone, The sick revived by simple faith alone; Or, failing this, full-toothsome morsels made To tempt their brothers to the festal shade?
Ah, yes, those primal scenes, with plenty crown’d, Made all the wooded valley hallowed ground, Till came the time — ill-omened, true, for them — When, first by truce and then by stratagem, The settlement unfolded in the vale, ’Neath Logan’s iron rule to fret and quail!
What curses now the trembling wretches spend As ’neath the blows their bleeding bodies bend — As, shackled to the rude triangle’s lines, The gory flood th’ adjoining ground defines! I seem to hear again the clanking chain, The creaking treadmill grinding small the grain; And see the convict turn the stubborn clod, Or, ’neath the pine, the sluggard bear the rod.
But why dilate? Those cruel days are done: Time’s ceaseless round has blotted every one: A fairer scene now meets the favoured eye — Thou, smiling city, ’neath my gaze dost lie. What though land-hungry Gipps thought passing fit To cripple where he lacked improving wit! Among the first of Austral fair will stand The one disfigured by his vandal hand!
And while the ages roll their waning round, Till earth’s but mortal mould the shades confound, May Plenty’s best thine every call attend, And smiling Peace her priceless treasure lend! May noble sons thy benison e’er bless, And daughters fair thy tender claims confess; And thus may every tongue conspire to name Thee and thine offspring heirs to Honour’s fame!
Hope you made it this far. William touched on a nerve, quite the fascinating poet. ❤ Gretchen Bernet-Ward 2024
The Turrbal and Yuggera peoples have lived in the Brisbane area for more than 32,000 years and their ancestors go back more than 60,000 years. The Turrbal and Jagera people speak Yuggera and their name for Brisbane is Meanjin. Written on Sunday 26th May 2024 National Sorry Day
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”
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.
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:
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:
You don’t have to be a budding author or full-time writer, all you need is an interest (or perhaps passion) for the written word and those amazing people who write them. You could be a reader, a part-time reader, a bookworm, a scribbler looking for literary inspiration, a serious new writer, or going with a friend who has a crush on the latest bestseller. There are special events galore and authors from far and wide. Make sure you book early!
“From blockbuster bestsellers to literary luminaries and everything in between, BWF 2024 is an unmissable adventure from beginning to end.”
Brisbane Writers Festival 30 May – 2 June 2024 South Bank https://bwf.org.au/
The main reason I enjoy Brisbane Writers Festival is to hear a good yarn up close from my favourite scribes. One year (I probably wrote a blog post about it) I listened to rugged Aussie legend Bryan Brown, screen actor turned writer. Another time UK author Jasper Fforde on a panel, then independently chatted over a group lunch on the terrace, before attending his final address at the closing ceremony—brilliant!
The following info is just a tiny taste of what’s on offer this year. Click on the link and have a look at the BWF website. For a real blast, read the 54-page online program here. Make a list!
Of course, there are books on sale and you can buy as many books and queue for as many celeb authographs (my new best word) as you have desire and stamina. Believe me, I’ve had some great conversations in those queues, and 😊 selfies, with a good book to read at the end of the day.
Birdlife co-exists with humans in every big city. Not sure if this Bush Stone-curlew was initially at the South Bank Cultural Centre to visit the Gallery of Modern Art or the Museum’s ornithological displays, but seemingly for dinner. Curlew was guarding its meal and nervously waiting until the walkway was clear.
Bush Stone-curlews live on the ground and are mostly nocturnal. This night it was not wailing its unnerving cry, just waiting for me, the photographer, to leave so it could get on with the job of takeaway for the family.
Feeding Habits: Bush Stone-curlews have a wide-ranging diet for such a fragile-looking bird, they prefer to feed on insects, molluscs, small lizards, seeds and occasionally small mammals. Feeding takes place at night. During the breeding season, nesting birds will search for food in the vicinity of the nest site, while at other times the birds may travel large distances. All food is taken from the ground. Bon Appétit 〰🐤
Thoughts Become Words 