Meeting 2 August 2002
We lunched on 20 August at the RAC Club: Downer, Woods, Cherry, Main and Walker-Powell were there. Humphrey and Stoddart sent their apologies and good wishes from North Queensland and Craig and M Bevis sent theirs from the United Kingdom.
Our resident Marco Polo, Cherry (45-55), told us about his recent adventures in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. He went on an expedition to view and discover rock paintings made by people who inhabited that part of the continent before the arrival of aborigines. That makes them arguably the oldest rock paintings in the world. They are called Bradshaws after their discoverer. Cherry tells us that he is shortly off to New Zealand to get some ice training before his coming Antarctic expedition. Downer recently returned from a visit to Portsmouth, where he attended the Founder's Day service and enjoyed an escorted trip round the school. He told us that the new extension is changing the school to a degree that many of us find hard to imagine. The span of the pupils' ages gets longer by the year as younger and younger pupils join; some of us wondered how long it would be before the school installed a honeymoon suite to complete the process. Main has retired, again; he thinks it is for the seventh or possibly eighth time.
The remainder of us took advantage of the consolations of winter: the welcome of the peaty richness of Single Malts from Islay or Skye greeting one returning home on a cold night; Camellias and Wattle, Australia's national flower, blooming in the gardens; the dusting off of boxed sets of operas that can be listenened to in the Wagnerian-like splendour of eastern country New South Wales (see attached photograph). There are also wild-boar feasts in the woolsheds of country properties - alas, the tragic sight of the drought is all too evident. Stock is being hand fed and now the paddocks are biscuit coloured.
The next 4 meetings are on Tuesday 26 November 2002, 18 February, 20 May and 12 August 2003. Those of you with flexible travel plans please make a note; we would love to see you. Gap year students and backpackers in Australia should not be deterred by the thought of an unsought expense; I am sure we can work something out. If any OP's plan to come to the World Rugby Cup next year please get in touch so that we can accordingly schedule our spring meeting so they can attend.
Enc: A winter's morning in the Border Ranges NE New South Wales.
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