News from Jupiter
From My Notebooks In 1976: Lunch with the Dame in Melbourne
May 3, 2024
First, thank you all so very much for your many birthday wishes. I truly appreciate them. I made a bad mistake in last week’s pages. I said that Melbourne’s famous newspaper, “The Age,” belonged to Murdoch. Untrue. It is and always has been quite independent of Murdoch, and my error is possibly due to my own mild obsession with him. Not everything belongs to Rupert […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Galahs and Snowy Mountains
April 28, 2024
Sunday, January 11th From Coonabarrabran. Very quiet on the roads and in the towns. Passed along a section of dirt road to Cudal. Stopped a while to talk and look at parrots. Beginning to realise how many there are – oddly enough there are more to be seen in the South than in the North. The grey ones with red breasts and heads are everywhere […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: Gribble in Brisbane
April 20, 2024
1879 was a year in which the British Empire confronted some 4000 Zulus at the Battle of Rorke’s Drift, with tales of heroism and a splurge of Victoria Crosses to excite the British public. It was also the year in which George Lucas launched his bicycle lamp, which might seem of relatively little importance. Nonetheless his lamp, mounted on the front wheel of penny-farthings, went […]
Visiting Mazatlán and San Cristòbal in Mexico
April 13, 2024
I think I mentioned a while back that I’ve been to Mexico. Got back two weeks ago. I flew into Mexico City and from there made two trips, one north to Mazatlán to see two dear friends from California whom I miss, the other south to San Cristòbal to see my German cousin’s daughter who has a house there. She’s a doctor, married to a […]
From My Notebooks In 1976: The Croc’ Hunter
April 7, 2024
Here, at last, what you’ve been waiting for – the tale of the croc’ hunter. We are in far north Queensland, where we had just caught a mud crab, but I forgot to note how utterly delicious it was. Huge clumps of white flesh. Never had anything like it since. So, on again, word for word . . . Monday 5th January, […]
From My Notebooks in 1976: A New Year In Australia
March 31, 2024
For a year or so I have been digging back into the notes I kept on my journey round the world in the Seventies. Here they are, word for word, as I wrote them. 1976, and it’s a New Year in Australia Friday, January 2nd Finished working on the bike in the morning. Went into Cairns to get food and see Botanical Gardens. Teak, […]
From My Notebooks In 1975: Hair From An Elephant’s Tail
March 11, 2024
Early on my journey, when I was passing through Kenya I became friends, briefly (all my friendships were necessarily brief) with a man whose brother had married and gone to live in Australia. When he heard that Australia was on my route he asked me to take along two bracelets woven with the hair from an elephant’s tail. They were remarkable objects. The hair was […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Rollingstone Creek
March 3, 2024
When I read what I’d written half a century ago, I found it so harsh that I almost skipped over this episode, but it’s a long time ago, things have changed and Australians reading this will know how much they’ve changed. You left me last week as we were recovering from a downpour in the night. Friday, December 26th At first the prospect seemed […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Christmas in Oz
February 25, 2024
After that extraordinary interlude with the truckies the rest of Australia seemed rather dull at first. In fact the word “dull” crops up too often in my notes. But before I get into Christmas in Oz, here’s a picture that somehow got away last week. Tuesday 23rd December We rode on. Felt like making time. Doubtful weather. In Mackay looked for waterworks and Mr. Cooley’s […]
From My Notebooks in 1975: Horror Road to Sarina
February 18, 2024
Before we get down to the pleasures of Australia in the Seventies, I want to say something about Putin, in the light of what has just happened. Like most people, I suppose, I have found it hard to imagine a human being of evident intelligence, acceptable appearance and in comfortable circumstances (to say the least) . . . it is hard to imagine such a […]