COVID-19 / Australia / 31st July Update

The spike in Covid cases continues.
Victoria reported 7 deaths and 627 new cases today after 13 deaths and 723 new cases on Thursday.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews says around one in four people who are positive cases have not been properly isolating at home and substantial fines have been issued to those caught.

Police have fined 124 people in the past day for allegedly breaching the lockdown orders in greater Melbourne and the Mitchell shire.

The state is at the halfway mark of the current six-week lockdown in those two areas.

It has also been a requirement that people in those districts wear masks while outside of the home.

Fifty three people received a $200 on-the-spot fine for failing to wear a face mask or face covering. Police said people refused to accept a disposable mask when it was offered to them.

From 11.59pm on Sunday night, every regional Victorian must now wear a mask.

Residents in specific areas will not be allowed visitors.

This state government is really tightening the screws once more. 

New South Wales has reported 21 new cases of COVID-19.

The active cases in NSW are all linked to strains circulating in Victoria.
It appears that perhaps the border closure with our neighbour to the south was initiated too late.
Other states seem to have things under control although Queensland has reported that some people are not complying with entry requirements, some outright providing false information, others trying to ‘run’ the border.
Sometimes you despair at the intelligence or lack thereof of your fellow Australians.

Severe East Coast Low

We were warned another east coast low weather system was on the cards and would probably be more intense for the south coast of NSW than the previous one.

So arrive it did on the Saturday night with some heavy rain showers.
However on Sunday through Monday the heavens opened up with non stop torrential rain accompanied by gale force winds.

Our creek rose quickly and virtually all our bottom paddock was flooded by fast running water.
Monday saw the wind reach gusts of 113km/hr from the south west.

Total rainfall for the three days was 350mm.
Thank goodness the fire affected trees were gone! The house could have been in a little bit of danger.
As it was three very old large cypress pines were ripped out of the ground in the back and front lawns. It seems like July is the tree clearing month here.

Then to cap things all off we had a power outage which lasted 8 hours.
So with no power there is not a lot to do.
Thankfully our mobiles and landline were working, the former for only part of the time however, so we could keep up to date with the electricity company’s progress with repairs. Their original estimate was 3 hours.

But it turned out 14500 other homes were also without power so the outage was across the whole region. Some are still out.
Other than that we settled down with our books in front of the fire and rode out the storm.
I managed to get access to some parts of the property late today to check for damage.
The creek is slowly retreating to its normal watercourse.
There are a few trees down over fences, lots of flood debris piled up against fences. And sadly, there is a cow missing. Hopefully she just wandered off somewhere and didn’t drown.
Will check with the neighbours to see if they have her.
Fire, disease and floods seem to be the way things are so far in 2020.
What’s next?
Update: 29th July
Cow found. Hiding in the bush and a little bit spooked. Home with her friends now.

COVID-19 / Australia / 26th July Update

Second wave?
Certainly looks like it.
A breakdown in security at quarantine hotels in Victoria released the virus into the Melbourne community.

AUSTRALIA 

And before the border between that state and NSW was closed, it made its way north with Sydney now the centre of some hot spots.
Granted the figures are not as bad as some other countries but it was thought that the extremely strict restrictions brought in after April had nipped the problem in the bud.

VICTORIA

Restrictions were subsequently reduced.
Of course many of the population then thought it was ‘all over’ and began to ignore the rules still in place eg. limited group numbers, social distancing and mask wearing.
As a result a return to increased restrictions is again in the pipeline.

NEW SOUTH WALES

Our ‘scare’ with the virus arriving in Batemans Bay just to the south has not yet eventuated into something more serious. However the town has been devastated by this event on top of the bushfires earlier in the year.
We are glad to be able to ride this out at home with minimal inconvenience.
A lot of people are doing it extremely tough out there.
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, with a population of 5 million is almost in complete lockdown.
Picture below is of the main station there which is usually the busiest part of the city.

Bushfire Damaged Trees Down

When the bushfire swept through our property last year, it partially burnt four big trees which grow really close to the house and the studio.
We thought this would result in their being unsafe.
So did the insurance company who allocated money for their removal.
We contracted a local tree feller, Mick, who had done work for us before. Obviously he has had a lot of work to do over the last six months with so much fire damage but finally got around to us.
The trees had, in the meantime, survived a couple of decent wind storms, one just a few weeks after ‘our’ fire, so we were not so on edge about the wait.

They were all down and removed in just over two days and the area left tidy and ready for rejuvenation.
The only collateral damage were a few mothballed vines (it was either them or a septic tank), some fencing and our old non producing orchard which I had earmarked for removal anyway.
It was good to watch professionals in action both with the machinery and saws.
Two of the exotic pine trunks were to be ‘sliced up’ into slabs to be used possibly as table tops, bed heads etc.
The native silky oak is apparently in great demand by the woodworking community.
But now I have chainsaw envy. Their chain bars were much bigger than mine.
It was certainly not a job I would have tackled.
Our outlook to the south has completely changed now with this new open space.
It will take a bit of getting used to.
Next project is the rebuilding of the shed.

QANTAS / Last Boeing 747 Retired

Back in 2015, I posted about QANTAS flying their first Boeing 747 into the tiny Shellharbour Airport (WOL) just to the south of Sydney to be put on exhibition at the HARS Aviation Museum there.
QANTAS had gifted the City of Canberra (VH-OJA) to HARS because of its special place in Australian aviation history.
Thousands gathered at vantage points across the Illawarra and around the airport in 2015 to watch the aircraft's arrival when it retired after flying more than four million passengers around the world and covering 85 million kilometres in the process.
In August 1989 VH-OJA flew the first non-stop flight from London to Sydney, a Qantas delivery flight record distance of 18,001 kilometres in 20 hours, nine minutes and five seconds.

Yesterday they retired their last 747 which performed a low flyover (500m!) at the same airport on its way to Los Angeles (LAX).
From there, it will make its way to the Mojave desert aircraft graveyard where it will parked and stripped for parts.
And to top things off they took a flight path just off the coast that 'drew' the QANTAS insignia on tracking radar.

This is the end of an era for Australian aviation.
I had my first flight in a 747 in 1973.
This was not planned.
I had been working in Germany for a few months and taken a few week’s holiday afterwards in Scandinavia.
The flight from Oslo to Frankfurt to pick up my Lufthansa connection to Sydney was many hours late so I missed that flight.
Lufthansa put me on PanAm 747 flight 002 which originated in New York and flew around the world eastbound. Flight 001 flew westbound.
Talk about a long flight.
From memory, the route was Frankfurt-Istanbul-Beirut-Tehran-New Delhi-Bangkok-Hong Kong where, after a night’s layover, I transferred to a British Airways flight to Sydney via Darwin.
In fact it took so long my company reported me missing! This was partly my fault as I hadn’t let them know about missing the original scheduled flight. Granted communications in those days were not as easy as they are now.

A few things I remember about the trip were tanks meeting the flight in Beirut and escorting us to and surrounding us at the terminal. No one was allowed off.
Landing in Tehran we blew a tyre and had to wait hours for a new one to be flown in from somewhere. Again, no one was allowed off.
And finally the BA flight had more flight attendants than passengers, it was so empty.
So for years afterwards international 747 travel was the norm, right up until just a few years ago when United took them off the Sydney to USA route.
I still miss them. Listening to those four engines spool up to full throttle at the end of the runway as you rolled for takeoff always produced goosebumps.

COVID-19 / Australia / 18th July Update

The second wave continues to cause concern, particularly in Victoria.

NSW is not immune with a number of clusters/hotspots notified in the Sydney area.

We have had reports of some local cases but these have not been confirmed although two establishments in Batemans Bay, 25 minutes south of us, had contact with a couple who proved infected when they returned to Sydney *

It was obvious that the virus would spread once restrictions were lifted and so many of the population were blasé about the protective measures needed to keep things under control.

Victoria reported 217 new cases on Saturday, a noticeable drop from Friday's record 428 cases.
At least 150 Victorian healthcare workers are infected and hundreds more are in isolation due to contact with the virus.

VICTORIA

The Morrison government has cancelled the next sitting of Parliament due to the risk of COVID-19 spreading from Victoria and NSW to Canberra.

NEW SOUTH WALES

NSW reported 15 new COVID-19 cases on Saturday.

We are continuing our isolation policy.
UPDATE: 20th July

* Eight cases have been confirmed so far from people dining at the Batemans Bay Soldiers Club.
So now the virus is on our doorstep.
It had to happen I guess once restrictions were reduced and people started travelling again.
It is obvious social distancing is impossible in restaurants, cafes etc but the rules don’t seem to recognise this.

The Palace Letters / Part 2

Well, the letters and documents have been released completely unredacted.
Of course there is a division of opinion on whether they reveal interference in our democratic process by the Queen or her representatives.
There is a school of thought that the Governor General played it by the rules and never got the Queen involved.
Then there are those who say ‘who cares’ it was a long time ago.
But really it is obvious that interference went on. Maybe the GG didn’t directly consult with the Queen but he surely did with her private secretary, Sir Martin Charteris, as evidenced in the many letters to him. To say she wasn’t involved is semantics. As though a public servant, Charteris, would offer advice on such an important nature off his own bat!
The GG even discussed the situation with Prince Charles.

The upshot was the GG had a number of options to diffuse the political impasse but took the route of saving his own job by dismissing the duly elected government of the day before the Prime Minister could dismiss him.
The whole thing stank then and the odour still lingers today.
The political editor of the Australian Guardian said:
....this small treasure chest of letters, a primary-source account of one of the more explosive episodes in Australian political history, makes one thing abundantly clear. The governor general, the vestiges of another era, that cringing sensibility, that meek deferral to our betters, that quisling lack of national self-confidence, that passivity in the face of interference, should be done.

You can read her full summary here.
Professor Jenny Hocking whose concerted action led to the releasing of the letters is even more savage in her assessment.

Currently the support for Australia to become a republic is 60%. Whether ‘The Letters’ will influence this mood further is yet to be seen.

As far as I am concerned, let’s get on with it and get it done.

Bioluminescence

The bioluminescence has again been prominent at a number of locations in Jervis Bay, an hour’s drive north of us and is proving popular once more with residents and particularly local photographers.

The blue tide, as it is known, is the production and emission of light by a living organism. It is a form of chemiluminescence, which occurs widely in marine vertebrates and invertebrates, as well as in some fungi, microorganisms including some bioluminescent bacteria, and terrestrial arthropods such as fireflies.

Source: South Coast Register
Photographers: Dannie and Matt Connolly

Waverider Buoys

Around this time each year a severe east coast low forms off the coast of New South Wales.
In other words it’s a winter storm.
The result is high winds and torrential rain causing flooding and infrastructure damage.
In the last few days we were under a severe weather warning due to one of these.
As it turned out it was not as bad, for us anyway, as predicted.
The high winds however have caused huge waves to develop. Some as high as 10m (33 ft) have been recorded. Obviously for people living along the beaches it is a concern as erosion is always a problem.

How are these wave heights recorded?
The government has a series of seven waverider buoys moored at depths of between 70 and 100 meters at a distance of 6 to 22 km off the 1200km coastline.
There is one off the coast of Batemans Bay near us.

They record wave height, wave period and wave direction and send the data on an hourly basis to stations on shore.
The Bureau of Meteorology and the State Emergency Services then use the data to issue marine warnings and inform its responses to coastal storms.
We know the surf is big when we can hear it at our place.
And this is one of those times.

Even in Sydney Harbour they had to cancel the Manly ferry because of the wave action. Its route from the CBD (downtown) to Manly crosses the open sea at The Heads.
I bet the surfers are champing at the big to get out to all the well known big wave sites over the next few days.
It was too wild to venture out at our beach today. See video below

There should be some spectacular photos and videos to come *

* and here's just one on the 16th July and the video on the 17th.

Photographer:Spencer Frost               Surfing Deadman's in Manly

Severe coastal erosion 

COVID-19 / Australia / 14th July Update

There has been a resurgence of cases in Australia thanks to daily triple digit figure community transmissions in Victoria and a small but concerning increase in New South Wales.
Despite the border between those two states being closed, it appears the virus has taken no notice and headed north.
Both governments are working at suppressing the outbreak with lockdowns in certain areas and increased restrictions in others.
Sadly people in general do not seem to be complying with crowd gathering rules and social distancing.
Police are issuing stiff fines to individuals and companies caught doing the wrong thing.
Granted, we are all pretty sick of the rules and the economic pressure they are creating but we almost had the situation under control a few weeks ago.

NEW SOUTH WALES

VICTORIA

All other states currently have their situations under control.

How to Wear a Face Mask Correctly

The Palace Letters / Part 1

On 11th November 1975 the socialist Labor government of Prime Minister, Gough Whitlam was dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr, who then commissioned the Leader of the Opposition, Malcolm Fraser of the conservative Liberal Party, as caretaker Prime Minister.
The Queen of England is also the Queen of Australia ie. our nominal head of state ( yes really!) and the Governor-General is her representative in the country.
Theoretically the Queen’s position is symbolic and apolitical and should have no influence on the running of the country.
That this occurred was a monumental event in Australian constitutional history and people were immediately on the streets in protest.
It’s one of those times you remember exactly where you were when you heard eg. JFK’s assassination, Elvis dying.
While the Whitlam Government had introduced many new policies and programs that had taken Australia out of decades of dark ages of conservative rule, it was also rocked by scandals and political miscalculations.

Whitlam                            Fraser                               Kerr

The opposition was demanding an election to clear the air and with their majority in the upper house, the Senate, had blocked supply ie. cut off the governments money, in an effort to force one.
But Whitlam called their bluff, or at least thought he had by calling a half Senate election, when Kerr dropped the hammer!
In the following election a month later, the conservatives won a massive victory.
The whole affair became known as The Dismissal.
What has stuck in the craw of a vast majority of Australians is the possible interference of the royal family and potentially the British government in our affairs.
There is already proof that the USA’s CIA was actively ‘white anting’ our administration at that time.
It is known that Kerr corresponded with the Queen on at least 200 occasions on the matter and that there are numerous associated documents.

These papers however have been stashed away in the National Archives, not to be released as they were considered ‘private’ property.
Many attempts have been made to get them into the public arena to no avail.
However after four years of concerted effort by Professor Jenny Hocking the case went to the High Court of Australia which decided 6:1 they be should be released.
This will happen, unredacted, tomorrow.
What will the ‘Palace Letters’ reveal?

Those in the Republican movement are hoping it will be another nail in the coffin of our constitutional monarchy system.
The Monarchists are hoping it’s a ‘nothing to see here, time to move on’ event.

Stay tuned!

COVID-19 / Lifestyle Changes

Life hasn’t changed much for us since all this chaos started.
We, well me in particular, were almost hermits anyway.
We don’t do lunch or breakfast out anymore but still get the odd takeaway coffee or takeout Thai or Japanese meal. The co driver had reduced her social interaction by limiting it to one on one coffee dates.
Beach walks are still on the agenda.
Of course we don’t travel any more. Our New Zealand and USA trips are on hold and the one to Tasmania in late September is still pending although their border closure keeps getting extended.
The only major change has been grocery shopping.

We now do ‘click and collect‘, ordering on line and picking up at a designated parking spot at the supermarket. This not only reduces contact with other people, many of whom don’t think social distancing applies to them, but also reduces our shopping time from 45 minutes to 5 minutes.
The only downside is not readily seeing what is new, not being able to impulse purchase, having some products unavailable eg. fresh bakery items and not being able to select the longest ‘best by’ or ‘use by’ dates.
We have also replaced our meat purchases at the supermarket with much better products at a local butcher who enforces social distancing rigorously in his shop.
Of the four supermarkets in town, the two majors, Coles and Woolworths, have embraced on line purchasing to the fullest.
When this is all over (if it ever is) we would consider continuing down that road.

The Platypus

The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is a semiaquatic egg-laying mammal found in eastern Australia, including Tasmania.Together with the four species of echidna, it is one of the five surviving species of monotremes, the only mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth to live young.

Photo: Matthew Higgins

It is one of the few species of venomous mammals with the male platypus having a spur on the hind foot that delivers a venom capable of causing severe pain to humans.
The unusual appearance of an egg-laying, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal surprised European naturalists when they first encountered it. The first scientists to examine a preserved platypus body in 1799 judged it a fake, made of several animals sewn together.

1799 Sketch

The platypus is a carnivore feeding on annelid worms, insect larvae, freshwater shrimp and freshwater yabby(crayfish) that it digs out of the riverbed with its snout or catches while swimming. It uses cheek-pouches to carry prey to the surface, where it is eaten.

Platypus spend an average of 12 hours daily looking for food.

Its habitat is rivers and their riparian zones for both a food supply and the banks where it can dig resting and nesting burrows.

Video: Matthew Higgins.
It is a notoriously shy animal and difficult to find. I think I have only seen one in the wild just a few times.

Until the early 20th century humans hunted it for its fur, but it is now protected. While the platypus is vulnerable to the effects of pollution and the destruction of its habitat, it is not under any immediate threat.

So it was nice to come across a video recently shot in the Bega River just a hundred or so kilometres to the south of us. 

It seems they are alive and well down that way.

COVID-19 / Case Spike / Victoria 2

Australian figures overall still look ok although, as reported a few days ago, there has been a spike in the state of Victoria. This has continued over the weekend.

Victoria has recorded 127 new coronavirus cases, its highest daily increase. It comes after the state recorded 182 new coronavirus cases over the weekend, with just one of those cases in a returned traveller in hotel quarantine.

Residents of nine public housing towers in the suburbs, North Melbourne and Flemington have been told their lockdown could last beyond Friday after a spike in coronavirus cases on the weekend.

The New South Wales -Victoria border is set to close from Tuesday midnight, following talks between both states' premiers and the Prime Minister this morning. 

NSW will seek to define all of Melbourne as a coronavirus hotspot in its public health order today, effectively placing a travel ban between the two cities.

This a major development and is the first Victorian/NSW border closure in over a hundred years.
It was closed in 1919 during the Spanish flu pandemic (which, by the way, was actually first recorded in Kansas USA, not Spain).

A major headache is where communities stretch across the border like Albury - Wodonga which for all intents and purposes is considered one city.
So how successful are border closures?
Western Australia closed its border on 5th April. It’s still closed. They have not had a community transmission in 86 days.
Queensland, Tasmania and South Australia borders are also closed
Update: 7th July

Due to the ongoing spike in infections in the capital, Melbourne and the Mitchell Shire to the north, some 5 million people, will go into a six week lockdown from midnight on the 8th July
Residents will be unable to leave their home unless it is for:
Shopping for essentials
Work
Exercise
Medical and care giving
Exercise outside of residential shire is prohibited.

Gathering in groups of more than two or your household group is prohibited.

School holidays will be extended for at least a week.
Retail will be open (subject to density) and markets are open for food and drink only.
Cafes, restaurants, pubs, clubs and bars are back to takeaway only.

Meanwhile police and army personnel will be patrolling the 55 border crossings to prevent Victorians entering NSW.

This is all about as serious as it gets.
Update: 8th July
There have been 147 new cases of Covid-19 recorded in the 24 hours to 1.30pm.
The share of transmissions that occurred overseas has dropped to 10%, indicating a surge in community transmission.
134 of the new cases are from Victoria.
In Australia there have now been 8886 cases of Covid-19 to date.
Update: 9th July
In Victoria there are now 3,098 cases of coronavirus with 165 new cases today. Of the new cases there are 30 connected with outbreaks and 135 under investigation

Update:10th July
Victoria has recorded 288 new coronavirus cases in a single day. That’s the biggest daily total from a single Australian jurisdiction since the pandemic began.

Post Bushfire Fencing Demolition

With the burnt shed and other damaged infrastructure removed, we had more room to tackle the last section of western boundary fence.
This was certainly a mish mash of wooden and steel posts, barbed and plain wire, chicken wire of various gauges and hinge joint wire.

This section of fence was here well before we moved in and had obviously been added to over the years by the occupants of both properties. I know I had added small mesh bird wire on one section to protect the grapevines from rabbits when they had suddenly appeared for a short time (the calici virus soon got them) a few years ago.
So I attacked it section by section with a wire cutter, pliers and claw hammer and occasionally a shovel.

Most of the wooden posts were severely burnt and broke off easily. Those that weren’t I dug up and they will either be cut up for fire wood or recycled for other fences depending on their condition. Steel posts (star pickets) that wouldn’t pull out or break off easily were hacksawed off at ground level and the remainder rammed further into the ground.
All the wire was severely fire damaged and unusable so it was all rolled up together and will be taken to recycling.
Less than a week’s steady work and it was done.
The new fencing materials have arrived.

Neighbour Bob and his grandsons and I will install a new fence when our fire damaged trees are finally removed in two to three weeks time. It will be a simple four strand barbed wire structure supported by star pickets with large wooden strainers at each end. This part of the fence separates the domestic areas of the two properties so will not come under any animal pressure so there was no need for over engineering.
This will mean only one 100m internal fence to go (also waiting tree removal) and then all the fire damaged fencing replacement/repair is done!
Next project to contemplate is rebuilding the shed.

COVID-19 / Case Spike / Victoria 1

Back on the 25th June I wrote about a potential spike in cases in the state of Victoria.
Unfortunately this has occurred.
After a week of daily double digit figures totalling 349, mainly blamed on lax quarantine hotel health security measures* and subsequent transmission by staff to families and friends, the state government has taken action.
After 73 new cases overnight, 10 hotspot postcodes (zip codes) of the capital city, Melbourne, will again enter lockdown from midnight as the state tries to bring the cases under control.
This covers 36 suburbs!

Only three of today’s cases were from hotel quarantine, with community transmission becoming a growing concern in the state over the past fortnight. The source of 42 of Victoria’s newest cases remains under investigation.
With the Victorian / New South Wales border still open, the NSW health minister announced any Victorian from one of the hotspot suburbs entering NSW faces fines of up to $11,000 or six months’ jail. Residents from NSW face the same penalties if they go to one of the 36 suburbs.
It is a disappointing development for the whole country as things were looking relatively good with restrictions being reduced and states with closed state borders considering opening them.
* it differed from other states in that it used private security firms, where the other states used either police, or police supervision of private contractors.
Some of the breaches are mind boggling if true. An enquiry has been established.
Update: 4th July
Unfortunately the situation in Melbourne has worsened. More suburbs in total lockdown.

Happy New Financial Year

Today is the first day of the 20/21 financial year in Australia.
Over the last month we have been bombarded with television commercials for EOFY sales ie. “buy now and you purchases could be tax deductible for 19/20”.
And soon, as tax returns are due 31st October, the ads for a myriad of tax agents will grace our screens.
This year is going to be a tough one.
The fallout from COVID-19 will affect most of us some way or the other.
For us non tax paying retirees, who own their home, things might not be so dire. Our retirement funds will continue to suffer from patchy business performance however. But at least some of us have the government pension or part pension with all its perks to prop us up should the going get really tough. Belt tightening is already the order of the day.
But that is really nothing compared to the working population with mortgages, rents and other financial commitments to pay.
Rising rates of housing stress, particularly among younger Australians and job losses among workers aged 51 to 65 show the Covid-19 recession is causing insecurity at both ends of the life cycle, according to two new reports from The Brotherhood of St Laurence and the Australian National University (ANU).

Nearly a third of people who have lost work or had hours cut as a result of the pandemic are aged 51 to 65 – fuelling “rapid growth” in the number of mature-age, low-income Australians, particularly women, who may fall through the cracks of government support.
Industries affected by the Covid-19 shutdowns are often significant employers of mature-age people, along with other precarious and low-wage groups. Based on industry breakdowns, the largest number of job losses or hour reductions among people aged 51 to 65 are accommodation and food services, education and training, and retail trade.
Not yet eligible for the pension or aged care, many of these people are caught between employment and retirement: too old to work and too young to retire.
The proportion of Australians not able to meet their regular housing costs jumped from 6.9% in April to 15.1% in May, with young people the hardest hit.
The ANU study, based on a longitudinal survey of 3,200 Australians, also found particularly high levels of rental stress among people aged 18 to 24, with 445 unable to pay their rent on time.
The study also found an almost threefold increase in housing stress for Australians aged 35 to 44 over the same period, with the proportion rising from 5.9% to 19.1%.

The government will have its work cut out trying to come to grips with this potentially desperate situation despite already opening the welfare treasure chest which, according to them, is not bottomless.

(Source: Guardian Australia)