Author: ian

It was twenty minutes past the hour of two o’clock when we awoke to the sound of our digital clock radio and finished placing the belongings we have brought on this holiday, into the ‘Galant’. Prior to our departure I noted that its odometer showed that the sedan had already covered thirty-seven thousand, eight hundred and thirty-seven miles.

Having departed right on schedule at three o’clock, I turned off President Avenue at Kirrawee in order that Tiki could place our smelly rubbish into a bin. “You To Me Are Everything” by the British group, The Real Thing, which went to number one in Britain around the middle of last year and is only now emerging as a hit in Sydney, was the first song played after the “2UW News” which had commenced on the hour.

It was evident that some rain had fallen between Liverpool and Marulan. Dawn began to break just before we reached the latter. The Hume Highway has been improved enormously since I drove my late mother back to Sydney from Kyabram in January of 1970. There are many lengths of dual carriageways as well as lanes which provide motorists with the opportunity to overtake.

I drove through Goulburn via Auburn Street. The temperature there was forecast to reach a maximum of twenty-eight degrees Celsius. David Soul’s “Silver Lady”, and Lesley Gore’s “You Don’t Own Me”, from 1964, were played on 2GN. By the time we stopped in Yass, at twenty-five minutes to seven, I’d covered a hundred and eighty-six miles without a break.

We each ate an apple prior to walking up and down Comur Street, which is really just the name the town has bestowed upon the Hume Highway, in a fruitless attempt to purchase a cup of coffee. In fact the centre of town led me to compare it to the proverbial morgue.

At a Shell service station, I found there to be little service as the obese attendant left me to watch the bowser and it was a matter of sheer luck that I managed to stop the pump’s price at exactly three dollars. The euphemistically named ‘rest rooms’, were filthy and I can assure you that the thought of having a rest there was the farthest thing from my mind. In fact, my body gave an involuntary shudder after I’d stepped outside.

Tiki drove the sixty miles to Gundagai. I was critical of the fact that she was speeding and, in doing so, getting too close to the rear of trucks whose tyres were all too frequently flicking up stones. We entered the town at ten past eight and parked in a shady position in front of the park at the corner of the main street and the Hume Highway.

Having walked up past the Niagara Cafe we turned around, in the belief that everything was closed. It was then that we noticed the sign outside of the Criterion Hotel on the corner, which advertised breakfast between the hours of eight and nine. Two glasses of pineapple juice, four slices of toast with marmalade, and two cups of coffee with milk only cost us two dollars.

I drove on as we listened to 2WG which emanates from Wagga Wagga where the maximum was predicted to reach thirty-six. Among the songs the station played were “She” by The Monkees from 1967 and Jamaican Carl Douglas’s hit of three years ago, “Kung Fu Fighting”. An overturned blue Ford ‘Falcon’ sedan was situated by the roadside between the turn-off to Wagga, and the town of Tarcutta whose claim to fame is that the left-handed Tony Roche, a champion at tennis, was raised there. Two police cars were in attendance and two occupants of the crashed vehicle appeared to be recuperating on the ground nearby. Tiki sat behind the wheel at Holbrook and drove the forty miles to Albury.

Buck Owens and The Buckaroos’ “(It’s A) Monsters’ Holiday” from 1974 and Herman’s Hermits’ “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter” (1965) were two of the tracks played on 2AY as we neared the city. We had covered three hundred and sixty-five miles when Tiki parked at the corner of Olive and Hume streets. It was exactly eleven o’clock when we set out to walk to the main street.

As we walked up and down Dean Street in the thirty-degree heat, we concluded that not only is it fairly short in length but unimpressive as well. Searching for somewhere to have lunch, we settled for the cafeteria in Coles. It was a real pity that Tiki had not adjourned to the so-called Ladies’ Lounge before we’d selected and paid for our food because Tiki rated this facility to be so dirty and uninviting that she returned to our table without having relieved herself. In fact, she told me of how she had had to summon up all of her willpower to suppress the urge to vomit.

It was, therefore, difficult for her to enjoy her chicken salad and me my corn beef salad as all we could think about, in dread, was that those preparing the food were presumably using them too.

Noon had arrived by the time we left Coles and I seemed to drive around in circles as we searched in vain for a Shell petrol station. Eventually, I abandoned that idea and, instead, pulled into a B.P. for five dollars worth of super. The female attendant washed the car’s windscreen of her own volition.

I wanted to buy a cartridge of film for my Kodak instamatic camera, however, this involved driving around in search of a place to park. We ended up back in Olive Street, opposite where we had parked previously. This meant that we had to walk back to Dean Street, which didn’t impress Tiki as her sandals were hurting her feet. There we came upon a chemist shop where a roll of film cost four dollars and fifty cents. This I considered to be a reasonable price as I had paid just ten cents less for the same product two years ago. Processing of the film is also included in the price.

I drove up the hill that not only overlooks this city of thirty-three thousand inhabitants, but the meanders of the Murray River. Tiki didn’t want to get the camera out of the suitcase and I could foresee that if I attempted to do the same I’d more likely than not be unable to close it again and hence, no photographs were taken. The tall, white 1914-1918 War Memorial atop the hill had been defaced by vandals and a smaller monument in front of it had even had its plaque removed, presumably by thieves.

Returning to the city, I parked the car beneath a leafy tree opposite the botanical gardens which contained an abundance of shady trees, many of which were palms. We sat on a circular wooden seat that encompassed the trunk of a large tree. Nearby, a woman was breastfeeding her baby. Tiki stretched out and lay with her head on my lap for what was probably fifteen to twenty minutes before she suddenly exclaimed, “Let’s go to Wangaratta!”

“Now I know why it’s called Albury…because they can BURY it ALL!” I responded.

Tiki took me by surprise by driving directly across the state border in the incorrect lane, thereby, passing the fruit-fly inspection point whilst we had four apples and an orange in our possession.

We left High Street, the main street of the border town of Wodonga and by twenty past two — nearly twelve hours after our departure from home — had covered the forty miles to Wangaratta. The radio station, 3NE, informed us that the temperature was thirty-one with the predicted maximum of thirty-five still something for us to look forward to.

Tiki was pleased that I’d decided that we continue on past the caravan park with its on-site caravans and ‘flatettes’ some three miles to the north of town. Wangaratta with a population of sixteen thousand five hundred, a sign informed us, is Victoria’s ‘Premier Town’, not only for this year but nineteen seventy-six as well.

At the Flag Inn Motel on the southern side of town, we enquired as to the price of a double room and were told it was twenty one dollars and fifty cents and that this excluded breakfast. Across the Ovens River, at the Coast To Coast Caravan Park, the sign read: “No o’nite vans”. Therefore, we decided to return to the other side of town where we entered the Tourist Information Centre. The girl told us that there were only two caravan parks with overnight vans and that both were located to the north of the town.

One was on the left and the one we’d noticed on the way in, on the right. Neither of us liked the appearance of the first one, The Regal, so we continued on to the other. I rang the bell at the office, as Tiki waited in the car. A pleasant woman of a similar age to me came across from the adjoining Shell service station and after she’d deciphered her husband’s handwriting, decided that there was one flatette, with its own shower, for twelve dollars.

I talked it over with Tiki and it was concluded that we could do better than a flatette right on the busy Hume Highway. Therefore, I returned to the woman and apologised for having taken her time.

Back in town and away from the main street, I entered a hotel and wearily provided the licensee with my name and address before he informed me that a double room with breakfast would cost us twenty-four dollars. He became abrupt and rather rude when I declined his offer.

Having left the ‘Galant’ at a parking meter, at a cost of five cents for one hour, I entered another hotel where a woman quoted me twenty-nine dollars. By this time Tiki was wearing her thongs and her patience quite understandably was wearing thin. In the main street, at the Bull’s Head Hotel — which is located next to the Albion at which I had a counter lunch in November of 1974 — the chap was exceptionally friendly. He said that there was only one double, however, it had already been booked for eighteen dollars. His suggestion was to try next door or across the street, but I didn’t.

Tiki consumed the contents from a tin of ‘Rondo’ and I, a ginger beer. Unexpectedly, it was then that she caught sight of the sign: ‘Motel’. It pointed to the side street which was signposted Ely Street. Setting out on foot we came to the Central Wangaratta Motel and when the lady told us that a double room cost nineteen dollars and fifty cents and that this included breakfast, we gladly accepted.

Returning to the car by half past three, I found that there were ten minutes left on the meter. Fortunately, we had brought a spare key to the car’s ignition as, in her wearisome state Tiki had locked the vehicle with the key still in the ignition.

Our room overlooks the park below. At four o’clock we tuned the black and white television to GMV’s Channel Six, which has very few advertisements when compared to Sydney’s commercial channels, and watched a programme of the series, “Bonanza”, in which Sally Kellerman’s character makes advances to Hoss, played by the late Dan Blocker.

A new version of “The Mickey Mouse Show” followed at five o’clock and at half past the hour, “Land Of The Lost”. “The Bill Cosby Show” followed thirty minutes later. We’ve not watched this series before. The news bulletin at half past six is on relay from Melbourne.

The mercury reached thirty-two degrees Celsius here today and it is positively stifling in this room, notwithstanding the fact that the air-conditioning is running.

“She must have put it on heat!” Tiki quipped.

Although we have the fan on, there is little benefit to be gained from it either!

At seven o’clock “The Muppet Show” has Kay Ballard as its guest. Accompanied by a huge lovable muppet, she sings and dances to “Oh Babe, What Would You Say?”. “This Island Earth”, a film which was produced in 1955, follows at half past the hour. Its cast includes Rex Reason, Faith Domergue, Russell “Gilligan’s Island” Johnson and Jeff Morrow. We saw it, in colour, at Tiki’s parents’ when they were overseas this year.

Fifteen minutes later we turned the television off and left to walk up and down the Hume Highway, which in the centre of town bears the name of Murphy Street. There were too many youths of a rough appearance for my liking, using language to which a lady should not be exposed and consequently, after we’d each consumed a can of Eck’s ginger beer, we headed back to our motel. There are dispensers here in Wangaratta where one pushes a button and a drinking straw pops up.

Even with the door open and the fan on, the heat is so oppressive it’s suffocating. My eyes are understandably bloodshot, nevertheless, I notice that pterygium appears to be building in the inner corner of my right one and I certainly hope that I don’t have to have my eyeballs scraped, like “Brutus” had to!

At nine, we switched the television to Channel Four — RVN (Wagga Wagga)/AMV (Albury) — in order to watch James “Maverick” Garner in “The Rockford Files”, which this evening has Susan “Petrocelli” Howard as its guest star. Her character is kidnapped not once, but twice!

Tiki has worked out how to lock the door to our room from the outside. We’ve travelled four hundred and twenty-three miles today.

Hearing Craig Douglas’s “Kung Fu Fighting” today brought back memories of three years ago when, on the seventh of November, I set out on a driving holiday in my second-hand Volkswagen ‘Beetle’, which was already eight years old. Initially, my journey was meant to be a more relaxing one, but it didn’t take long before compulsion reared its head and in the ensuing calendar month I covered eight thousand and fifteen miles at an average of nearly two hundred and sixty miles per day.

My obsessive desire to be on the move meant that only once did I spend consecutive nights in the one location, Broken Hill. So disappointed was I in the fact that I’d had to do that, that I found it necessary to move diagonally across the street and spend the second night in a different hotel.

I’d resigned from my job, again, a fortnight before I left home and on that first Tuesday in November had ventured to Sydney’s Randwick Racecourse in an attempt to turn the six hundred dollars I had in my pocket into two and a half thousand, which I intended I would then spend on a holiday in England. I kept my money in my pocket until the tote betting opened some forty-five minutes before the running of the Melbourne Cup. Having pored over the odds in the newspaper I naively believed that they would at least be similar when betting commenced. The runner, “Igloo”, for example, which had been listed at thirty-three to one in the paper, opened at twelves. Such discrepancies threw my entire staking allocations into complete disarray and so I decided that in order to have any chance of returning a positive outcome I would have to totally exclude the champion mare and the favourite for the race, “Leilani”, safe in the knowledge that in order to win she would have to carry a record weight for a mare.

With my total stake divided unequally on perhaps half of the other runners I went up into the grandstand to watch the race on television. When “Leilani” found the front in the straight and was still in front with about a hundred metres remaining, I felt my heart sink. However, all was not lost because a runner suddenly flashed down the outside and although I didn’t know immediately just what it was, after the din from the rowdy spectators had subsided somewhat, I did hear someone call out the name of “Think Big”. This excited me because when I looked at my list of bets I saw that I had placed seventy dollars on it to win!

The horse that I had really come to back was a jumper from New Zealand, “Aito”, which was having its first Australian start in the next race. Nevertheless, when I joined the long queue to collect my return of nine hundred and sixty-eight dollars, I soon realised that I might not have any money with which to back it.

Perhaps I would have placed my nine hundred dollars on something else, had I not reached that window with just five minutes to spare? Anyway, I did reach that window and I did place nine hundred on the nose of “Aito”. He kept attempting to get to the front during the race but a despised outsider just as regularly denied the jockey of his intention and my potentially two and a half thousand dollars and intended trip to England finished in about fifth place.

I frittered away another eighteen dollars and in an attempt to leave the racecourse in profit, placed my remaining fifty on the nose of “My Friend Paul” in the last race on the card at Flemington. He started at twenty to one and to my surprise, and disappointment, finished a gallant second, beaten by the margin of three-quarters of a length. As I left the course, with literally thirty cents in my pocket, I quipped to my mate, “If my car breaks down, we’ll have to hitchhike!”

Still! If I had won and gone to England I wouldn’t have sold my car and spent seven weeks on holiday in New Zealand. Nor would I have met my future wife, Tiki! Isn’t it funny how unfortuitous circumstances can sometimes work out to be to one’s betterment?

The reason I have digressed from my month-long, marathon journey, is because on its second day I was up near Walcha, attempting to locate another station that played music, when, just four days after he’d cost me my nine hundred dollars, I stumbled upon a broadcast in which the race caller described the fact that “Aito” was in the process of winning by a margin of five lengths; this time having started at the odds of five to one, not two to one.

There were several other memorable moments over the course of that month. The second was having the windscreen of my car shattered when an oncoming timber-jinker flicked up a stone near Rathdowney in southern Queensland. I drove some eighty miles to Toowoomba during which time I experienced intermittent showers. I dreaded the thought of them tending to constant rain, for as it was the raindrops cut at my face as if they were tiny slivers of ice.

The gentleman who replaced the windscreen failed to seal it correctly and I had to return to Toowoomba that following day where he had another attempt, which, I was to learn at a later date, had also been unsuccessful.

A policeman in Inglewood told me that the road to Goondiwindi was passable to light vehicles such as mine and hence I set out to drive there. It wasn’t until I came upon a rising creek that I had my doubts. The flowing waters actually moved my vehicle sideways to such an extent that I had my right hand on the door handle, as the desire to use it to bale out became almost insuperable. When the depth lessened to the extent that the tyres regained their utmost traction I actually had to drive diagonally in front of a stationary semi-trailer in order to get to the left-hand side of the highway.

Some kilometres further on I rounded a bend only to be confronted by a cow as it nonchalantly sauntered across the road. Fortunately for me it was half way through its crossing and the highway was devoid of oncoming traffic, for when I depressed the car’s brake pedal there was a total lack of response. The crossing of the creek had rendered the brakes to be totally useless, in the short term.

En route to Broken Hill from Cobar, I came upon an adult emu with three chicks. As I approached, I reduced speed to allow the four to leave the highway. All seemed well until in their haste the chicks collectively ran to the right while the adult chose the opposite direction. By the time the mature bird realised what had transpired and abruptly turned around to rejoin them, my vehicle was in its path. The large bird crashed straight into the passenger door with such force that it was repelled off its feet.

I was so shaken by this totally unexpected encounter that I drove on for what probably was a further five kilometres before I alighted to inspect the large claw mark. I gave an involuntary shudder as I envisaged what could have occurred had the impact happened that split second earlier and the emu had found itself on the car’s convex boot lid. I imagined that in such an instance my vehicle’s speed, reduced as it was, would still have been sufficient as to have propelled the huge bird towards the windscreen.

Three young men in a ute passed me as I drove out from Broken Hill to inspect the Menindee Lakes. Having done so, its driver, in what I viewed as a premeditated action, used his right arm to irresponsibly toss an empty ‘tinny’ back in my direction. The beer can bounced once before it fortuitously passed by, about a metre to my right, at eye level.

It rained continuously on the day I travelled between Hay and Deniliquin. Abandoned roadworks were centred upon a recently graded length of road. No sooner had I driven on to this firm, smooth unsealed surface than I was introduced to a situation that conjured up the belief that I was driving on oily cambered glass. As if that wasn’t bad enough that section of the low-lying highway had been built up by some two to three metres above the surrounding countryside to negate the effects of flooding.

Almost immediately my vehicle began to snake from side to side across both lanes of the highway. Fortunately, there wasn’t another motorist in sight as I feverishly did battle with the steering wheel, just to remain on the road’s surface. The brakes did nothing to slow the vehicle and panic had well and truly set in!

All I could do was to repeatedly turn the steering with an extreme sense of urgency as I rapidly approached each respective side of the road. All the time fearing that my own wellbeing, as well as that of the car’s, was in extreme doubt. The fact that there were no guardrails, in spite of the severity of the drop on either side, only served to heighten my terror and dread.

Reaching the bitumen at the other end of this vitreous surface was the only reason I didn’t crash. Despite that section of roadway probably only having been some several hundred metres in length, the terrifying experience left me with a feeling of utter exhaustion.

By the time I reached Kiama on that penultimate day it had become a struggle just to extricate myself from the driver’s seat and when I did, I stood bent over as if I were an old man. The bonnet’s lock had long ceased to serve its purpose and as a consequence the engine was literally smothered in dust. Having arrived home, I was on my to have it steam cleaned when a young woman drove into the rear of my vehicle. As she appeared to be at least partially stoned and as I could detect no visual damage to the car, I continued on only to reach the service station and discover that the rear bumper bar had been forced forward to the extent that I could no longer obtain access to the engine.

Pique overcame me and I offered the purchase of the vehicle to the young attendant for two hundred and seventy-five dollars. Luckily, for me, he was to begrudgingly decline my offer which was just as well for a month later I received five hundred and twenty-five for it. In the meantime he had handed me a large shifting spanner and I hammered a decisive indentation into the top edge of the bumper bar so that entry to the engine could be restored.

The holiday had transported me as far north as Kingaroy and Nanango in Queensland, throughout New South Wales to as far as Cockburn on the state’s border with South Australia and to many and varied parts of Victoria. These included the town we’re in tonight.

It had become quite chilly during the night and I had been forced to employ the use of a blanket. We awoke for the final time at five minutes to six and our breakfast arrived at twenty-five past seven. I consumed both glasses of pineapple juice, ‘All Bran’ — into which I had had to pour my milky coffee as the cereal had come with an insufficient amount of milk — spaghetti, which came with a whole tinned tomato, and toast with honey. Tiki received her compote of fruit, which included a single prune, and bacon and eggs. I gave her my bacon in lieu of the pineapple juice.

As we were about to depart, a woman, who was presumably a guest from one of the rooms, warned us to keep an eye out for the white lines that are painted at intervals across the highway because, she said police in aeroplanes time vehicles travelling between such lines to determine whether or not motorists are exceeding the speed limit.

Tiki drove and covered the entire one hundred and forty miles to Melbourne. She really took exception to me warning her not to get too close to trucks in front of us, but she hasn’t been in a vehicle when it has had its windscreen shattered. I was threatened with the statement of fact that I’d be “left in Melbourne” if there was one more critique uttered on her style of driving.

The dual carriageway, which stretches the entire way from Seymour to Melbourne, bypasses Kilmore. We didn’t actually enter suburbia until we were ten miles from the city’s centre. The traffic, especially that heading away from Melbourne, was bumper-to-bumper. Tiki continued to drive as I did my best to navigate us through a terrifying maze of streets and tram tracks.

We remained on the Hume Highway until we turned to the left and into Bell Street at Coburg. Heading in an easterly direction we passed Pentridge Gaol and once past the suburbs of Preston and Bell turned to the right and on to High Street. Suburbs such as Croxton and Northcote appeared to be dominated by what many Australians by birth refer to as ‘New Australians’.

At Fitzroy we joined Queen’s Parade thence Hoddle Street, Punt and Toorak roads before eventually turning to the left and into Caroline Street, in South Yarra. We parked atop the hill and once I had surveyed a silvery blue Aston Martin of the 1950s, complete with a wooden dashboard, walked back down it. I espied Susan and Roger’s Ford ‘Escort’ sedan and noticed that it bore a dent in one of its mudguards which, I was to be informed later, was caused when a P-plater reversed his vehicle into their car while it had been parked in front of the property that they hope to purchase in suburban Mooroolbark.

Susan had not expected us to arrive for another hour and their rented home unit was untidy to the point of being unwelcoming. The burglar alarm at a nearby shop had sounded all night and the pair had received little sleep. Susan had rung for the police and had confronted the lady who owns the store.

Roger was absent as he was completing some shopping and, therefore, we didn’t meet him until half past eleven. The stairs that lead to the unit are uncarpeted and they smell similarly to the hallway to our father’s unit. When I mentioned this fact to Susan she reminded me that “Brutus” had stayed with them recently.

I parked the ‘Galant’ at the rear, in front of another block of units. After lunch the four of us walked for about a mile along Toorak Road and through the shops of South Yarra. Amongst Melburnians South Yarra, according to Susan and Roger, ranks second only to the suburb of Toorak in terms of wealth and prestige.

We reached Como Avenue where impressive and expensive houses stand. Having turned to the left, Roger produced his money before Tiki could ours and paid a dollar for each of us to enter Como House, which looks much like Vaucluse House in Sydney. I photographed the other three in front of the building, choosing to ignore the dirty fountain in the foreground.

Our return walk took us along the southern side of Toorak Road as the sky began to spit rain. Two tins of ‘Rondo’ — Susan and Roger shared one — and one of Schweppes ginger beer for me, cost the sum of ninety cents. We window shopped at ‘Jox and Sox’ and were informed that a chap often models the shop’s merchandise on the street as, indeed, do women at a nearby ladies’ lingerie store.

Once we had arrived ‘home’, at a quarter past five, Roger went downstairs to wash their car. Susan put on a tape of John Denver’s hits that includes those of three years ago namely, “Back Home Again” and “Annie’s Song”. She and Roger had attended a performance of his at the Myer Music Bowl.

Meanwhile, a strong smell of garlic filtered up from the unit below.

At seven o’clock and after I had handed Roger four dollars to cover the cost of petrol, they transported us to view his place of work which is directly across the road from Port Phillip Bay. He guided us through every room of the three-storeyed building. The gents’ bathroom even includes a sauna! He told us that the architects, who originally owned the building, had had it installed.

Roger returned us to South Yarra via South Melbourne where roughly-dressed characters were busily tying Christmas trees to lampposts along Domain Road, in which Malcolm Fraser’s mother resides. As we passed through the park at the Domain, thousands of people were walking to ‘Carols By Candlelight’ at the Myer Music Bowl. It brought back memories of how a crowd, estimated to have consisted of some two hundred thousand people, had gathered there a decade ago to witness The Seekers perform.

Back in the unit we listened to the radio station, 3KZ, before switching to 3MP, which is based on the Mornington Peninsula, and its disc jockey, ‘Baby’ John Burgess. He was working for 2UW, in Sydney, at the time I observed him cross a street in Double Bay. He played “Mull Of Kintyre”, the current hit by Wings, and “How Do You Do It?”, a hit of 1963, by Gerry and The Pacemakers.

We talked about New Zealand and I learned that Susan, too, had stayed at Waitomo Caves in the red ‘Tomo Hut’ youth hostel. Susan and Daryl are sleeping on an inflatable li-lo on the floor of the lounge room. From the single bedroom I can hear the raspy voice of a man as he repeatedly sings “Jingle Bells” through a megaphone down in Toorak Road.

We awoke at seven to an overcast sky and rain. However, we were still afforded the view beyond Toorak Road and across the many old buildings that pervade the area that stretches to as far as the Prahran Town Hall.

Departing at half past nine in the pouring rain, Roger drove us in their car out along the South Eastern Motorway past the Kooyong Tennis Courts, through Tooronga and fashionable Burwood from where the Burwood Highway and Bayswater Road conveyed us to Mooroolbark and the light brick home into which the pair hope to move next month. When the weather permits work will resume to connect the house to the sewer.

Roger remained in the car while Susan, armed with a black umbrella, showed us around the backyard which contains an above-ground rectangular swimming pool equipped with decking. Fruit trees line the back fence.

Our return journey was via the Maroondah Highway, past the sizeable white Croydon Hotel at which I stayed for a night in November of 1974. In doing so we passed through Ringwood and some lovely suburbs such as Nunawading, Box Hill and Kew whose avenues are a feature of their landscape.

It was eleven o’clock when we entered their unit and set about exchanging our presents. The radio station, 3KZ, was playing music which took my fancy. This included “Our House” by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, from the year of 1970 and “Rikki, Don’t Lose That Number” by Steely Dan from three years ago.

We left for a walk at about a quarter to three in an attempt to wear off some of what we’d consumed. The temperature was only about twenty-two degrees Celsius in spite of twenty-eight having been forecast. Thankfully, the rain had ceased although this meant that it had become more humid. We were, however, still subject to intermittent drizzle at the Botanical Gardens where we viewed swans, ducks with their ducklings, seagulls and pigeons. Susan and Roger assured us that there are eels there too, but we didn’t see any.

Continuing along the lake we passed Government House, at which Prince Charles recently stayed, prior to our arrival at the entrance to the Myer Music Bowl in which those in attendance had sung carols by candlelight last night. Upon our entry to St Kilda Road we viewed the floral clock which is situated across the street from the relatively new National Gallery. Some fairly deep pools in front of the gallery acquired our attention. The Victoria Art Centre, which is but a hole in the ground with many cranes in attendance, is to become the gallery’s next-door neighbour.

We crossed the Princes Bridge and passed Flinders Street Station. Along Swanston Street we came upon a tall artificial Christmas tree which stands in the City Square and is adorned with ‘presents’. A left-hand turn at Bourke Street took us to where a crowd had gathered to observe animated scenes from “The Snow Princess” through the window of a department store. Models of animals such as rabbits, squirrels and polar bears, as well as people, were used during the performance.

Returning to Swanston Street, we walked along its eastern side past Dino’s Restaurant. Upon our arrival at St Paul’s Cathedral, we crossed to a narrow island in the street to wait for a tram that bore the number eight, sound in the knowledge that it would transport us to the intersection of Toorak and Punt roads. I purchased the tickets at a cost of twenty-five cents each.

Having alighted in Punt Road we peered through a window of the Flightdeck Restaurant whose interior has been made to resemble that of an airliner, complete with overhead lockers and numbered seats. Boudior and Baths, which is situated on the opposite side of Toorak Road, sells — at least, according to Susan — toilet seats for fifty dollars and toilet paper priced at two dollars a roll.

It was five o’clock before we set foot in the unit and once we’d each had a cup of tea Tiki and I set about washing and drying all of the dishes which had been left unattended since our Christmas lunch. Tiki can’t leave ‘Yorrick’, the toy monkey which hangs from the fridge, alone.

As we were all becoming somewhat bored from just sitting about in the claustrophobic unit and listening to ‘Mellow 3KZ’, it was proposed that we embark on another walk this time in a southerly direction along Chapel Street and almost to the Prahran Town Hall. We window-shopped all of the way there, which meant that our return was completed in a fraction of the time.

It had been at the window of a ladies’ store that Tiki spontaneously exclaimed, “Look, Ian! A jockstrap!”. As she pointed to a pink eyeshade, which incongruously possessed a visor of clear plastic.

“That’s for protecting eyeballs!” came my reply. To which Roger added, “Yes, that’s for upper balls. Not lower ones!”

When compared to South Yarra, Prahran is a cross between Sydney’s Mascot and Redfern complete with the similar high-rise developments of the latter suburb.

Charlie Chaplin died today, in Switzerland, at the age of eighty-eight.

We awoke at half past six to an overcast, breezy and slightly chilly morning. Nonetheless, I requested of Tiki that she write some messages on my bare back with her finger. It’s a game we sometimes play to relax and determine if we can guess just what the other’s message is. Tiki showered at ten past seven, washing her dirty underwear as she did so.

During breakfast, we listened to Peter Evans’s dry sense of humour on A.B.C. radio. He played Abba’s current hit, “The Name Of The Game”. It was still overcast when the four of us boarded a tram for the city and alighted in Flinders Street. We walked along it in an easterly direction, past the building which houses the ‘Herald-Sun’. Billboards displayed the headline: ‘Charlie Chaplin dead’.

In the Treasury Gardens we came upon the smelly pool and fountains which, in combination, is a memorial to John F. Kennedy. Continuing on into the adjoining Fitzroy Gardens, I produced a twenty dollar note to purchase four tickets, at twenty cents each, in order that we might enter Captain Cook’s Cottage. The gentleman, however, informed me that his availability of change did not permit his acceptance of such an amount.

As Roger paid for the entrance of the four of us, a voice from the assembled crowd indicated to me that I had been recognised. A lady with whom I work introduced me to her son of twelve years and her sister. The trio was on a coach tour of the city with ‘Pioneer’ after having flown down this morning aboard a flight which had left Sydney at seven o’clock. The sun had been shining there at that time. They were due to be at the Tasmanian Ferry Terminal this evening by half past five to prepare to board the ferry that was scheduled to leave for Devonport two hours later. Their holiday of ten days was to ensue from that port, which is virtually in the middle of the island’s northern coast.

We looked through the rather empty Cook’s Cottage and walked up to the fenced miniature Tudor Village that was donated to the citizens of Melbourne in return for the parcels of food that were sent to England in the years that immediately followed the Second World War, when food there was in short supply.

Returning to the city centre via Collins Street, we passed the area where many doctors and dentists have their practices. En route to Swanston Street we passed the approximately octagonal tower that is a part of the Southern Cross Hotel. Having turned to the left we passed the fountain in the City Square in which the detergent that was apparent yesterday had all but disappeared.

Once we had crossed the Yarra via the Prince’s Bridge, we headed for the National Gallery where I changed the twenty-dollar note by buying four tickets at a cost of fifty cents each. Locating a cafeteria on the ground floor, Roger purchased four waxed cups of tea. We sat outside at a table overlooking the pool which is accompanied by a semi-pyramidal waterfall.

The ancient artefacts on the ground floor date back as far as three thousand years. On another floor I paid a dollar, which allowed Susan and I to enter the exhibition of British paintings while Tiki and Roger chose to sit outside in comfortable chairs. Some forty paintings date back as far as three hundred and fifty years and include the works of artists such as Gainsborough. One, which depicts the death of James Wolfe, is on loan from Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

Exhibits on other floors range from antiques to crazy modern art to the interesting, yet quite poignant photographs of Robert Falcon Scott’s Antarctic Expedition which were taken at the South Pole before it set out on its ill-fated return journey. The negatives were actually found eight months later on the bodies of its members.

We boarded a tram and returned to South Yarra by two o’clock. The sun was well and truly out as we just sat about the lounge room and relaxed. Roger was reading the book, ‘Bicycles’ and appeared to be particularly tired as he lay on the floor and partly behind the door. About four o’clock we left in the appropriately brown Ford ‘Escort’ in search of a chemist shop so that we might buy some tablets to ease Tiki’s constipation.

It was extremely warm in the car and I was, therefore, only too willing to alight between Prahran and Armadale and purchase a small container of senokot tablets from a roughly spoken, gum-chewing woman. Roger drove us — Tiki later told me that he was particularly sharp with Susan while I’d been in the chemist because he hadn’t wanted to drive anywhere — in a westerly direction out past the Albert Park Golf Links to Port Phillip Bay. There he turned to the left and continued to Elwood thence inland to Elsternwick and north to South Yarra, by about half past five.

After dinner, at a quarter past eight, we left again and walked up Caroline Street, across Domain Road and down to Alexandra Avenue and the Yarra River where we walked for a mile along the southern bank’s bicycle track, which is divided in two by an unbroken white line. We followed the activity route while Roger tackled the monkey bars, hurdles and other objects while also exercising his sense of humour.

It was almost dark when we reached the First Parliament House. I expressed my view to Susan and Roger that walking can be enjoyable once one has overcome that initial period of determination that is required to prevent one from slipping back into one’s sedentary ways.

Right-arm, fast-medium bowler, Ian Callen, took eleven wickets during Victoria’s outright defeat of New South Wales, which materialised at the Melbourne Cricket Ground today.

A Melburnian tram stops at various stages of its journey and waits, should its driver be ahead of schedule. This permits him to turn his key in a clock at the times he has been designated.

Heavy rain accompanied by a strong wind awoke us at five minutes past five. Tiki arose to shut the bedroom window while I did likewise to use the toilet. The window, however, blew open even wider at the very moment she freed it from its fastening and by the time she had retrieved it and replaced the flyscreen which had fallen off, she was drenched.

It was five past seven before we awoke for a second time, as the rain continued to teem. We entered the lounge room for ten minutes to farewell Susan and Roger, both of whom were about to leave for their respective places of employment for half a day of work. They’ll probably call in to visit us during the course of their two weeks’ holiday in March.

During breakfast and the writing of my diary at the kitchen table we, again, listened to Peter Evans on A.B.C. radio. I shaved, showered and washed my hair by nine o’clock, as Tiki packed our belongings. We departed from the unit by a quarter past the hour just as it was about to rain, again.

Under my navigation, Tiki drove along Toorak and St. Kilda roads and over the Prince’s Bridge. We turned left immediately at Flinders Street and just as immediately to the right, into Elizabeth Street. It was a relief to us to find the centre of the city to be almost deserted.

Veering to the left, we entered Flemington and thence Smithfield roads. The latter took us past Flemington Racecourse with ‘Chicquita Lodge’ in the foreground. In all honesty, we found the directional signs to be rather indecisive.

Farms supporting sheep and wheat can be found only fifteen to twenty miles from the heart of Melbourne. The drive to the city of Geelong is a flat one, with the You Yangs being the only hills in sight. An hour of sunshine was terminated when it once more began to teem as we entered our destination.

An electronic clock, which doubles as a thermometer and is perched atop what appeared to be silos, indicated that it was half past eleven and that the temperature was just thirteen degrees. The rain ceased and the sunshine reappeared as we parked within a block or two of Moorabool Street before walking along Malop Street, in the direction of Melbourne, to the small roundabout which possesses a correspondingly tiny statue in its centre. Crossing the street, we entered Johnstone Park which is located in front of the Art Gallery. The rotunda there is dedicated to Howard Hitchcock, who was the Mayor of Geelong in 1919.

It literally began to pour, yet again, as we were walking down to Corio Bay. Consequently, we dashed back up Moorabool Street and across Mallop Street and into the corner takeaway bar where we each purchased a cup of tea at a cost of forty cents. Upon our return to the ‘Galant’, the sun was, again, shining.

I drove down to the bay and parked opposite the new — it wasn’t there six years ago — seafood restaurant, Fisherman’s Pier. We walked along to the ‘Hi-Lite’ amusement park before continuing on to Eastern Beach, in the face of a biting wind.

Taking the ‘Galant’ along the Tourist Drive, we entered the outer suburb of Newcomb where I purchased petrol to the value of five dollars at a Shell service station. The young attendant thought we were from South Australia. Returning to the city’s centre, I drove down Moorabool Street passing the ‘Palais’, which is now painted brown, and the youth hostel situated at number one Lonsdale Street and diagonally opposite Kardinia Park, the home ground of the Geelong “Cats” Australian Rules team.

Geelong’s northern outskirts were visited before I returned us to the central business district, yet again, where I pointed out the Travelodge and the circular “dome” upon its roof. The building had been nearing its completion in January of 1972. I passed St. Mary’s Church prior to our departure from the city that is second only to Melbourne within the state of Victoria.

Shortly after we had passed through the town of Elaine, we came upon the sight of a caravan blocking the road. Towed by a Holden panel van, the caravan had jackknifed and overturned in the strong winds. The police were in attendance and it wasn’t long before we were, again, on our way. Quite a few of the farms that border this Midland Highway between Geelong and Ballarat possess old boundary fences constructed of gatherable stones.

Before we began our search for accommodation, I drove out from Ballarat to the village of Napoleons to cast my eyes upon the now apparently deserted youth hostel. As a hitchhiker, I’d found it to be a difficult hostel to reach because vehicles travelling out there from Ballarat were few and far between.

Backtracking, we re-entered Ballarat through Sebastopol prior to entering the broad, picturesque Sturt Street via Skipton and Armstrong streets. Having parked at an angle in Sturt Street, we walked down to Bridge Street and up to Main Street, which leads to Sovereign Hill. There we entered a hotel to shelter from the wind, rain and perishing cold while we took time to ponder how the season could possibly be that of summer.

After convincing ourselves that we’d thawed out a little, we returned to Sturt Street where we walked backwards and forwards before, at two o’clock, finally selecting a cafe near Bridge Street at which to order a belated lunch. Tiki ordered a chicken Maryland while I opted for a T-bone steak. A cup each of espresso coffee followed along with the bill for six dollars and seventy cents.

Braving the cold, we crossed the main street and bought some apricots and bananas. At the Tourist Centre on Armstrong Street North, a vocal redhead treated us, along with a family that was bound for Creswick tomorrow, like children. Nonetheless, she did supply us with some pamphlets and sold Tiki a map of Ballarat, which has a population of sixty-eight thousand five hundred, at a cost of twenty cents. The woman then presented us with a questionnaire to answer, by the use of ticks, on some facts about our visit to, and stay in, central Victoria. Tiki became irked by this, as she seemed oblivious to the fact that we still had accommodation to find. As stated, her demeanour had already started to grate before this for example: “Close the door and come over here, so I won’t have to say this twice!”. As a result, Tiki responded by writing “COLD” in that space set aside for comments at the bottom of the page.

Soon afterwards it was my turn to have my feathers ruffled when, during our search for accommodation, Tiki decided to read the local paper, ‘The Chronicle’ instead of navigate. Therefore, after a visit to the Lake Wendouree Caravan Park, in an unsuccessful attempt to rent an on-site van, we changed seats and she drove. At The Arch Motel, the last building on the left-hand side of the Western Highway, we paid twenty-two dollars for a night’s accommodation. As breakfast was included in our tariff, Tiki filled in our menu for that in front of the somewhat distant young woman and at four o’clock, we walked across to the room, which is equipped with a ‘Baird’ colour television.

After I had delivered our luggage to the room, I drove Tiki around Ballarat. In Eureka Street we passed the historic Montrose Cottage and the Eureka Military Museum before proceeding on to the Eureka Stockade Memorial, where I alighted, in spite of the freezing cold, to walk to the Eureka Diorama. Others had gathered and someone had already inserted ten cents into the slot in its outer wall to activate the wonky tape which delivered an account of the historical event.

I backtracked to Queen Street where we passed the Old Curiosity Shop prior to entering Victoria Street. We visited the observatory beyond Sovereign Hill after which Tiki drove as I navigated us along dirt roads and through a forest of pine to Mount Clear Road which led us to projects that involve the construction of new housing estates. We located Victoria Park, having passed the Bray Raceway where a trotter was observed to be fractious in what was by now torrential rain.

Upon our return to the motel I noticed that the car’s rear tail-light wasn’t functioning as Tiki reversed the vehicle almost to the door of room seven. I turned on the radio at five o’clock and learned that the temperature was just six degrees Celsius. This really hadn’t come as any great surprise as our room’s interior was bitterly cold. There was some sunshine, as we sat and observed the rural scene and the passing traffic on the highway. Nonetheless, this sunshine was interspersed with squally periods of rain and even a hailstorm!

At half past five, Tiki watched a programme of the series, “Gentle Ben”, from the late Sixties. ‘Ben’ is a huge bear. Lorne Greene’s “Last Of The Wild” followed at six and is about the beaver. The ‘News’ on Channel Six, at half past the hour, is on relay from Channel Seven in Melbourne. The “A.B.C. National News”, at seven o’clock, informed us that Sydney experienced a maximum temperature of thirty-five degrees today with bushfires being fought at Menai in the city’s south-west. Melbourne only recorded a maximum of sixteen which is the average reading for Sydney in the middle of winter. A maximum of seventeen is forecast for Ballarat tomorrow, with the showers predicted to decrease although the wind is to remain strong. My work-mate’s voyage across Bass Strait last night must have been a rough one!

Johnny Farnham narrates this evening’s programme from the series, “Survival”. It is about the bee. We watched the concluding half of the Australian series, “Glenview High”, from eight o’clock. Its cast includes Grigor Taylor and Elaine Lee. Bob Raymond’s “Australian National Parks” series tonight looks at national parks of Tasmania. It is a programme that we’ve seen previously and Tiki fell asleep shortly after its commencement.

Whilst on the subject of Tasmania! That state today won its first full first-class match when it defeated India by eighty-four runs. India could only score ninety-five runs in its second innings.

It became too cold for me to sit in the chair provided so at twenty minutes to ten I placed a blanket of our own on our bed and turned the electric blanket up to the reading of three. Before I fell asleep at about ten o’clock, I turned it back to one.

We awoke to a temperature of five degrees Celsius at five minutes past seven and at ten past the hour 3BA played Bobby Goldsboro’s “See The Funny Little Clown”, which had been a hit for him in 1964. Prior to ten past eight we’d heard Vicky Leandros’s classic of five years ago, “Come What May”. Breakfast had been consumed by then, however, it was to be twenty-five to nine before our departure from the motel was noted. The majority of our belongings remained in our room.

Tiki drove under the Arch of Victory only to then begin to head towards an oncoming car as she pointed to a mark on the inside of our car’s windscreen. I instinctively reached out and turned the steering wheel in my direction. My actions infuriated her and I was told to alight from the vehicle once she had brought it to a halt outside the B.P. service station. Someone from there had washed our car’s windscreen whilst it had been parked at the motel and left a card under the wiper to inform us of what they had done.

Having done as she’d commanded and made her aware of where she could locate me, I walked across and along Sturt Street in the six-degree sunshine. Upon my arrival at the Botanic Gardens, I visited the Olympic statue that signifies that the rowing and canoeing events were held on nearby Lake Wendouree, in 1956.

I made my way past the tame black swans on the edge of the lake and the gardens themselves. I had just begun to wonder if Tiki had really meant what she’d said when she’d insisted that she would not come looking for me, when I espied her driving about in search of me and followed her around until she parked the car.

We made up and I showed her through the gardens I first visited six years ago. The mammoth tree, Seqaoia Gigantea, that grows there, is a native of California. The Botanic Gardens also houses the locked cottage that belonged to the poet, Adam Lindsay (1833-’70), and I took the liberty of jotting down the quote that is on the pedestal of his bust:

Question not but live

And labour

Till yon goal be won

Helping every feeble

Neighbour

Seeking help from none.

Tiki informed me that the ‘Galant’ might have made contact with the attendant at the B.P. petrol station when, in her fury, she had attempted to start the vehicle in first gear.

She drove around the lake and stopped outside the Shell House in Lindisfarne Crescent. We opted to forgo entry and put the forty cents each towards our admission to Sovereign Hill, which we reached by ten minutes past ten. By doing this we childishly reasoned that our admission there had cost us two dollars and sixty cents each, as opposed to the three dollars. It costs an extra six dollars to have oneself photographed in period costume and/or ten dollars for a couple.

We were chilled to the bone as we waited for the tour of the underground quartz mine, which commenced at half past the hour. A bloke with finely plaited blonde hair divided those of us who were waiting into three smaller groups before we  entered the adit. Our guide, a more presentable dark-haired gentleman, informed us that the gold ore is obtained from the veins of quartz and of how young boys worked six days per week, ten hours per day for a payment of seven shillings and rarely lived beyond forty-five years.

They worked by candlelight, in knee-deep seepage. I enquired of the guide as to how they had overcome this seepage in this particular mine and he explained that firstly it was dug horizontally and secondly it was situated above the level of the beds of the creeks and rivers in its vicinity.

We really felt the bitterly cold wind after half an hour of being underground, however, this did not deter us from visiting all of the shops and buildings in what is the recreation of an early mining town. Tiki even took the opportunity to pat a grey draughthorse when it had offered her its head above the fence of its enclosure.

The fare offered in one of the restaurants was considered by us to be too expensive and the service too slow and so we left our seats and crossed the street to the new ‘Sovereign Hill Gold Museum’, only to learn that it was yet to open. As we were about to leave Sovereign Hill, we noticed that the car park contained vehicles from every state.

I drove out of Ballarat via Victoria Street and in the direction of Melbourne for a distance of about five miles. There Tiki paid two dollars and sixty cents for each of us to enter Kryal Castle, which had been opened by the Premier of Victoria, Dick Hamer, on the 29th of November, in 1974. The building overlooks the entire area, with the inclusion of Ballarat.

The countryside really is pretty!

Shops inside the castle sell copperware, glass-blown figurines, and the like. We saw an old-fashioned telephone on an accompanying table, priced at two hundred and twelve dollars. Tiki noticed that there were licences on sale which permit the holder to have sex; to bludge and to drink. We also came upon a tall half-completed Trojan horse. Some methods of medieval torture, which are depicted in wax, are so lifelike that they made me feel quite repulsed. Such models included that of a naked woman who was suspended by two large metal hooks that had been passed through each of her bosoms, and a man on a rack who is having his stomach eaten out by caged rats which have been driven into a frenzy by the heated coals that had been placed above them.

The castle’s maze didn’t present us with any problems largely due to the fact that we were taller than the actual maze itself and, therefore, always knew of our whereabouts. While we were truly impressed by most of what we had seen we decided not to wait to observe the whipping of the wenches at three o’clock — a joust is staged on Sundays only, at this same time — and departed by twenty past one to return to Ballarat via some of the back roads. In doing so we came upon the house whose rear had been gutted in the fire that we had witnessed from one of the castle’s turrets. Fire-engines and about twenty cars, which presumably, in the main, contained sightseers, were in attendance.

Having parked the car before a parking meter to the south of the confluence of Bridge and Sturt streets, we deposited ten cents into the machine. This was to allow our car to remain there for forty minutes but, as we were to notice later, it actually allotted to us forty-five!

We entered the Coles’ store at the commencement of Bridge Street and boarded an escalator to arrive at its Country Fare Restaurant only to be informed by a girl who worked there that there were no gents’ toilets. As I left the store to walk down an arcade and across a street in order to relieve myself, an elderly woman was still revving the insides out of a VW ‘Beetle’, as she continued in her quest to execute a three-point turn. I joined the long queue at the restaurant and laughed at the humorous reaction from the young man, who wore a cap almost identical to that worn by Alan Hale Jr. in “Casey Jones”, after I had informed him that there were no public toilets for males in the store and just where the nearest one was.

Two servings of assorted egg, ham, tomato and tuna sandwiches, a large slice of passionfruit pavlova and a slice of cheesecake only cost us three dollars and sixty cents. The cheesecake proved to be a little too rich for Tiki’s liking and so I got to finish that, as well!

I drove along a much busier Sturt Street, as the public holiday of four days reached its conclusion yesterday. Eventually, I located the entrance to the Ballarat Golf Club at the Arch of Victory only to find that the clubhouse, itself, was totally deserted. In sunshine, I carded forty-six for the nine holes of which we partook. This included an eight at the last hole after a hare was seen to run across a contiguous fairway of the inward nine and the reactions of the four chaps playing that particular hole, coupled with Tiki’s excitement, had destroyed my concentration.

At the eighth of two hundred and forty-six yards, one has to hit over a railway line.

Upon our return to our room at The Arch Motel, at ten minutes to five, we turned on the Baird colour television and tuned to A.B.C.-TV’s Channel Three to watch a programme of the “Gentle Ben” series, which features Dennis Weaver and Ron “The Andy Griffith Show”/”Happy Days” Howard’s brother, Clint. Channel Six screened the local, western Victorian news, however, it contained no mention of today’s house fire. Channel Seven’s news is on relay from Melbourne and, at seven o’clock, the A.B.C.’s “National News” also emanates from there.

This year’s Sydney-Hobart Yacht Race is proving to be held in the roughest conditions on record. The Melbourne-Hobart race, whose course takes the yachts via Tasmania’s west coast, is being held simultaneously.

At half past seven on Channel Three, the Australian singer, Johnny Farnham, was heard to narrate a documentary about the Sargasso Sea. The programme details the seaweed and living creatures that survive in this becalmed area of the Atlantic Ocean, which is located off Bermuda.

“Whodunnit?”, a British series, screened from eight o’clock and had as its guest stars Richard “Doctor At Large”/”Doctor In Charge”/”Man About The House” O’Sullivan, Honor Blackman and Norman “Softly, Softly” Bowler. Tonight’s host is Jon “Dr Who” Pertwee. Once that had concluded we turned to BTV Channel Six to watch Walter Matthau portray an old man in the movie, “Kotch”, which we’d viewed as recently as last year.

It is perishingly cold, again, and I’m about to leave the chair at which I’ve been writing my diary and join Tiki in bed. I shall be sleeping on the side by the window tonight, as the electric blanket apparently only works on one side and Tiki had complained of being cold when I awoke this morning.

Following “Kotch”, I watched the programme, ‘Brethren Island’, of the Australian series, “Riptide”. American actor, Ty “Bronco” Hardin, was the star of the defunct series in which he was cast as Moss Andrews, the owner of a cruiser for charter. Tonight’s edition, from 1968, has Helen Morse as its guest star.

Traffic lights in Victoria not only turn amber when they change from green to red, but vice versa. It is something I would like to see introduced in New South Wales.