Blog — Disjunctures

FIRE IS A DISH BEST SERVED COLD | FAT ALBERT IN THE FIGHT RING | COVID-19 TECH TRANSMISSION

24.07.20

March in Melbourne was meant to serve as a celebration for my grandfather’s 100th birthday, but just 14 days shy of this magic milestone, it sadly morphed into his funeral. Although Grandpa had already received congratulatory certification from the pope, the queen and Australian parliamentary royalty, my family felt short-changed on his behalf that he hadn’t made it to triple digits. In hindsight, had he survived to the big day, COVID-19 would have had him either blowing out the candles on his own or digging his own grave.

My very own COVID-19 great escape – permissible but ill-advised – was significantly more short-lived, with a trip to The Great Ocean Road. The pre-booked Airbnb property, which sold itself online as an isolated shoreline retreat, proved on arrival to be nothing short of a fenced-in dump. Whilst accepting full responsibility, I also accepted a full refund. The continuous four-hour round trip did however give me sufficient time to repent and conclude I needed to flee the state of Victoria.

This landed me in Meringo on the New South Wales South Coast. Unlike The Great Ocean Road all-talk no-action retreat, this property lives up to its great reviews. I should probably disclose that this is not my first time here and that I wrote a number of those reviews myself, but even so, the location deserves to be endorsed. Of note, it has an excellent open air theatre, which just yesterday staged “Dinner time: The tale of the kookaburra and the rat”. Critics were calling this a show-stopping performance, and it did not disappoint. The rodent was slammed to the ground and lifeless within two-minutes. Moving on at break-neck speed, the property also boasts more kangaroos than humans, more insects than kangaroos, and courtesy of big open spaces, the privilege to keep your distance.

Despite plenty of elbow-room, space has still managed to manifest as an issue for the community in the form of modern-day McCarthyism. Small towns have historically served as microcosms of misinformation because word of mouth is valued as the most trusted source of news. The first two weeks of my stay, echo chambers were out in force, and non-locals found themselves under fire. The mass migration of city-siders to their out-of-town holiday homes undoubtedly caused considerable angst for local populations. But authorities stepped in, even using number plate recognition cameras to catch commuters. In Meringo, over the Easter break, the police paid daily visits to popular surf spots to ensure the 12-20 people vying for a wave understood that the ride came second to health protocol. In hindsight however, a surf lifesaving service might have done a better job of keeping people in check.

Spare a thought for the poor paddle-boarder caught in a rip. Although he narrowly avoided a rescue, his board was hauled in by one of the older local residents. It is worth noting that the man in question was also in the middle of the international travellers two-weeks compulsory self-isolation. Although taking to the open sea with not a soul in sight was within Australian government regulations, the necessary proximity of a person-to-paddle rescue was not. When the older man found out he had been in contact with the personal property of someone who was meant to be keeping their distance, he naturally panicked. And so began the two-week long vendetta that culminated in the paddle boarder’s son being chased down the beach by a pair of angry fists, the old man breaching the 1.5metres he’d aggressively advocated to be observed.

The spatial situation for my family back in Melbourne played out quite differently; partitioning a suburban home is considerably more complicated than re-zoning real estate on the foreshore. My brother came home from overseas and started his mandatory two weeks of self-isolation at the same time as my father entered into 48-hours of quarantine whilst awaiting COVID-19 test results. With each person posing a risk to the other, my mother internally sub-divided the house into three zones, all the while maintaining a monopoly over the kitchen. One would think that control of the captives’ stomachs would have given her significant bargaining power, but negotiating skills seemed to take a turn for the worst when she wound up with a garden for a toilet. Three people, two bathrooms, and nowhere near the composting capabilities of the 40-acre property where I am now.

Having said that, the number of outdoor toilets down here is cause for concern. Every day, I watch on with reticent horror as a growing number of trees are nominated for a golden shower by one of the residents. So widespread is the irrigation system, the house is now rimmed by a man-made firebreak. I’m unsure whether to feel safe or suffocated by the initiative.

We’re not however, the only ones marking out boundaries and rethinking the role of vegetation. Post 2019-20 bushfires, the bush has been increasingly cast as the villain. Never mind the role of climate change and poor land management, never mind the fact that dense forests and rich ecosystems are our best line of defence against fire, instead the bush in all its variety, has been likened in a simple equation to fuel. On the one-hand, this has resulted in sizeable spikes in land sales. On the other, there are a growing number of landholders attempting to clear country.

The logic of this has been put on show by the ten or so houses that abut this property. Whilst some put forth a formal application to fell trees in the neighbouring national park, others were content to work within their own fence lines, eradicating anything bold enough to put roots down on the property. The only thing missing from the zero tolerance campaign was a sign stating “trespassing trees will be prosecuted”.

Despite staunch attempts to pockmark the bush at the front of their properties, these same landholders opposed the erection of a low-lying wire fence at the back of their properties on the basis that it would disrupt the seamless transition to uncultivated grasslands. There were also more residential concerns, including that the fence might be too high to climb over and collect a stray ball, or my personal favourite, the inability to continue mowing a 10metre strip of grass beyond the border as a deterrent and early warning system for snakes who dare cross the threshold.

The odds were however considerably higher on the Western perimeter with the horse stud. Whilst this side of the fence is protected by a wildlife covenant and frequently hosts injured animals as part of WIRES Wildlife Rescue program, the property manager next door has launched her own shooting program to eliminate kangaroos that allegedly eat the horse feed. In a bid to try and reconcile the competing and completely counterproductive schemes, it was decided to buy a 30-percent stake in the neighbour’s best and brightest racehorse, Side Cut. Despite a promising profile, the horse lived up to its reputation in nothing but name. It’s tendency to zig-zag along the track as opposed to cutting a straight path, landed it in early retirement.

When I opted for the straight path on my morning run, I landed thigh-deep in the middle of a puddle. Running outbound, I attempted to dance around the body of water, but instead landed a glorious ankle twist accompanied by an audio production of profanities. A pair of hikers had set up camp right next to the scene of the crime, so they got their money’s worth. Running inbound, I offered my apologies for the aural assault, and feeling giddy with a newfound light conscience, charged along the puddle’s peninsula, paying no heed to the fast-approaching headland. I effectively disappeared for two strides, but when I emerged sodden and a little surly, I gave the hikers no follow-up comment.

On the days that I didn’t bathe myself during the run, it was customary to end the dash with a dip in the ocean. Until either the swimwear companies develop something that can support the personality of a long-distance runner or the bra business crafts a waterproof number, land-based attire will be prioritized. This philosophy was greatly challenged when I was forced to remain submerged in the ocean – on account of my chosen outfit of no outfit – well beyond the recommended time for an athlete to spend in an ice bath.

*The sun had set and the moon risen by the time I left the water.*

My de facto father in law – if there ever was such a thing – had decided to go for a paddle. Whilst I was pleased to see that he had not been deterred by the aforementioned rogue rescue, it had clearly left its mark. In order to reduce collateral damage out on the water, he had devised a pre-paddle routine of push-ups and yoga. I was already a little unnerved to have company, but this paradoxically became ever more pronounced as all bodily feeling was increasingly dulled by the cold.

The good news was that upon return from my arctic expedition, there was a fire burning at the house. The bad news, it went out almost immediately. Although fuelled with emotion, the so-called fire was entirely ceremonial; a cremation of an empty tub of Connoisseur’s caramel honey macadamia to commemorate the end of a great round of ice cream. At first I thought it was perhaps a fondness of flames and a little too much time spent without social stimulus that was driving this behaviour, but the real reason was far more flavoursome. The denouement came the following week. Whilst collecting firewood, Oliver Twist (née Luke) took centre stage with a basket in each hand, twirled around singing, “Would you like to buy some milk today?” It dawned on me that my allergenic aversion to the cow was taking its toll on him. This was not a case of solitude or sparks; it was nostalgia. These were musings of the days when dairy moved freely through his veins.

In order to try and offset the enduring trauma caused, I offered my services with hair-styling scissors. It was mullets for all. The front offered class, the sides gave an edge, and it was dirty down the back. At the time, I hadn't anticipated the shape would serve any long-term purpose, but less than a week later, we were formally recruited into the Moruya Grogans – a veteran soccer team united by flannelettes. The mullet was naturally well received.

Match day was defined by ruthless competition, biased umpiring, regular streaking from the children’s cheer squad, and most recently, the recruitment of a number of high-skilled Europeans. Many of us hedged our bets that the drastic spike in players would prove too much for the co-founder and self-appointed umpire of the competition, Ted, who was admittedly finding the logistics of match day to be overly stressful. But the import of talent meant the game suddenly played itself.

Although representation spanned Italy, Portugal, Germany and the UK, the recruits were all united by a common cause: a visitor visa with a terminated termination date. Three-months in rural Australia has historically been a working holiday visa holder’s ticket to an extended stay, but now held captive in Australia courtesy of COVID-19, many are seeking means to shorten that stay. For the trans-continental athletes, farm work morphed into bushfire recovery work with Blaze Aid. Many of them resembled mine workers when they took to the pitch, faces covered in charcoal. I’m ashamed to say that prior to learning they were fresh off the fire fields; I had thought that they were either racist or advocating for racial equality in poor taste.

The week before, the township known as Moruya which belongs to the people of the Yuin Nation, held its own Black Lives Matter protest. The demonstration was led by an elder, but organised by two young Indigenous girls who made a point of what they described as the sickening privilege their white skin gave them. Aboriginal in all but appearance, they explained how their life was enjoyed without the systemic racism those who look Indigenous experience on a daily basis. The 200-strong crowd – appropriately distanced and masked – started at the Eurobodalla Council Building where we listened to stories of oppression and calls to action, observed a traditional smoke ceremony, and then moved on foot through the main street of town. There was one loutish passer-by who shouted something derogatory, and one child who stripped off all their clothes and went to the toilet on the lawn in front of the council building – the ultimate form of protest – but that was the full extent of incivility. Most cars honked in support.

Australia’s continued neglect of Indigenous rights and traditional practices, was particularly acute during the 2019-20 bushfire season. Most commentary rightly focused on the role played by man-induced climate change, but colonial land management has had an equally large impact on the severity and frequency of fires. Be it forest removal or ecosystem mismanagement, Australia has instituted a path of environmental degradation and destruction. And in the same way that ignorant assumptions about fuel have ignited a campaign to make the bush environment hostile to bush, bushfire policy and practice operates on a basis of ignorant homogeneity. The process of hazard reduction burning is a quota-based, per hectare exercise that fundamentally fails to recognize that the land is not uniform. It exploits fire as a hot resource and caters exclusively to species highly tolerant to flames. The reality is that the land is made up of hundreds of different types of Country, that each require burning at different times and with different heat intensities.

First Nation’s people have burned the Australian landscape like this for thousands of years, so it was a real privilege a few weeks back, to observe and record an Indigenous cultural burn on this property. Unlike Australia’s ‘official’ fire practitioners operating under the hot burn badge of the Rural Fire Service (RFS), traditional owners of the land deal exclusively in cold fire, burning only that which is ready to be burned. In an RFS scene, flames lap around head height, fire burns to the beat of its own drum, it is deemed high risk and unpredictable, and as a result volunteers are on site with water trucks to fight when it gets out of hand. At a cultural burn, the fire is contained at knee height, crawling across the landscape on a course set by those who lit it. It is mesmerising to watch the gentle flame and music to listen to the crack of seeds. The mood is reflected by the mass of people casually standing around, drinking tea and coffee, and sharing stories of the land.

The aftermath also has a different look and feel. Rather than the white residue of an inferno, the ground is coated in black charcoal and the soil is immediately cool to the touch. The ground is fertilised, regrowth is encouraged, weed species are purged, and fauna flocks for food. Even during the burn – which is slow enough to allow animals and insects in the path of the fire front to up and move – it facilitates a feeding frenzy. The kookaburras were on cloud nine with a 10-course degustation of critters.

This predator-prey dynamic played out a few months earlier under the main house. Following a succession of noise complaints, it was discovered that an extended family of rabbits were squatting in the alcoves. Originally they were left to their own devices, but one too many rounds of kicking up dust, and attempts were made to evict them. These efforts were in vein; no amount of political intervention from upstairs could take the romance out of their new home. Instead they doubled down and continued to make love. A few weeks later, Fat Albert the ferret burst their blissful bubble and bust down their front door. The head honcho and his team slid themselves into the rabbit burrows and either ate them on the spot or chased them out into a trap. Deemed an effective way to curb the growing population of pests, the process was proudly shared with a cohort of WIRES workers, who reluctantly relayed the news that pitting an animal against another is in fact illegal. Up until that point, I’d received numerous invitations to cover the breakthrough story. Now, the headline reads, “Animal carer done for facilitating a fight ring”.

In the cottage, pest control is better managed by the pests themselves. The resident rat was found fried in the fuse box, having short-circuited the system by nibbling his way through the wires. As doltish as this rodent may seem, it would be an injustice to not disclose that I too made some foolish electrical judgements whilst in lockdown. In the interests of pandemic best hygiene practices, I disinfected my devices, killing the keyboard and leaving my computer on life support. This first recorded case and casualty of a computer contracting COVID-19 has completely revolutionised the field of hard drive virology.The aftermath also has a different look and feel. Rather than the white residue of an inferno, the ground is coated in black charcoal and the soil is immediately cool to the touch. The ground is fertilised, regrowth is encouraged, weed species are purged, and fauna flocks for food. Even during the burn – which is slow enough to allow animals and insects in the path of the fire front to up and move – it facilitates a feeding frenzy. The kookaburras were on cloud nine with a 10-course degustation of critters.