Garth and Florane

I have reached Brisbane, and am once more the happy recipient of the fabulous Australian hospitality.

The people who welcomed me here are Garth and Florane. Garth is Richard's uncle and Florane is his wife. They have three children and nine grandchildren, and a young cat (we're trying to call him Monty and not Tiger :).

They live in a vintage "Queenslander" type of house that is more than 100 years old. It is built entirely from wood and stands on stumps on the slope of a hill. The ceiling is more than 3 metres high, and the stumps are 2 m high on one side of the building and 6 m on the other! As the name suggests, this style of architecture is typical for Queensland. The stumps have three assets: they cool the house in summer, keep it dry when there is heavy rain or floods, and they help to keep the white ants (termites) out.

Garth is a retired professor, a doctor of biology and chemistry. Before he came here, he's lived not only in various places around Australia but also for longer periods in Britain and North America -- and even in Antarctica for a while! He gave me a nice tour of his garden and we immediately had interesting conversations on various topics. Florane is a very gifted painter, and I admired her paintings around the house.

I had already thought Sydney to look like a botanical garden. But now here, in Brisbane, the vegetation is even lusher, with palm trees and all kinds of subtropical plants in the suburban gardens. The European trees with their yellow autumn leaves are behind me now -- they need frost in winter and they don't get that here.

Crossing the border

I've just crossed the state border from New South Wales into Queensland and thought this might be a good moment to share with you some curious signboards I've come across in the last 24 hours.

Parts of Glen Innes have 50 km/h streets. For background why this sign is curious: in Australia the normal speed limit, unless otherwise signed, is 50 km/h in towns and 100 km/h in rural areas. So if you are informed by a big sign that "some" of a town's streets are 50 km/h, that's not really a surprising information, now is it?

This one is of a waterfall in a city park that comes by pressing a button. I liked that idea. Stand on the viewing platform and allow five minutes for the water to come.




The next picture is of a public swimming pool named War Memorial Baths. So while you enjoy yourself swimming laps in the water, you are supposed to think of the bloodshed, tanks, airplanes, bombs, guns and handgranades of war, and of the brave heroes who gave their lives so that you can live in peace and without fear that this might happen again. Enjoy your swim!

Worms for sale -- well, all kind of things are for sale here on the roadside (fruit, vegetables, even alpaca poo, I'm not kidding you!). So why not worms. Fishermen need bait (Köder).



The last sign was exactly planted on the state border. Not only does the government warn you again and again and again that you will die if you don't take sufficient rests while driving. (I grew too tired to take pics of these.) But this one was something new. Apparrently one of the greatest crimes you can do in Queensland is to keep a pet rabbit: 30,000 dollars penalty. Now that's almost as bad as the "small penis" threat of NSW for speeding.

The Northern Tablelands

The inland route takes me through a region known as New England, or the Northern Tablelands, a plateau of the Great Dividing Range.

The area, at first sight, seems not particularly spectacular -- mostly fields, and every now and then a nondescript town or village. Some of these hinterland towns have made attempts to create a landmark, as a tourist attraction, by building some big object out of concrete or fiberglass -- for instance, a big golden guitar or in the case of Singleton, the world's biggest sundial. These objects are usually not particularly pretty. They are mainly just big, which is what makes these efforts, although that is certainly the opposite of the intention, almost a little pathetic.

But when you keep your eyes open you will easily discover special things and great beauty everywhere. For example, just behind the car park of the scenic lookout at Moonbi, to the left of the stinking grafitti-stained toilets, there is a wonderful ficus microfolia tree that has overgrown a big rock. Nobody knows how this tree came here -- it does not seem like a native tree to this area, but maybe it is.

At that place I met a man named Noel, a passionate photographer who happens to have the exact same camera model as me, and a similar eye for beauty. We talked about these things and he showed me another, much smaller, miracle of nature: a seedling of the same tree which has sprung from, and caught hold in, a tiny crack in another big round rock, only 30 metres away. This baby tree has zero soil, but so far it lives. And if it will manage to survive another few years, its thin roots will eventually reach the ground. And then, who knows, in another few decades it might grow into a massive guy such as his parent.

Northward bound

The time has come for me to leave Schönegg. I was sorry to say goodbye since I really enjoyed every minute there. They have given me not only board, lodging, and the opportunity to make myself useful, but also acceptance into their family, in short: a home. Upon my saying so, Richard told me this: A home is a place you can always return to.

This is food for thought. It tells me that I have not only one but actually several homes already here in Australia, and two or three homes in Germany. Which is no doubt a very happy position to be in.

I promised I will come back to Schönegg in spring. And now I'm finally northward bound as planned. I left Canberra, passed Sydney on my way spending two nights on two different couches (homes!), and am currently typing this from Newcastle, which I'll leave behind me in another 30 minutes.

You may have heard of the current floodings at the northern NSW coast. They mean to me that I can't take the coastal road but instead will use the inland route from here to Brisbane. So I will not get to see, or share with you pictures, of these floodings.

The other news is that I have booked my return flight for Germany. I will be back in the Fuggerstadt on the 17th of November 2009, exactly 11 months after I left.

Dick Smith

Today I met Dick Smith and his wife Pip at their homestead Bowylie, which is 45 minutes east from Murrumbateman. They had invited a party of 80 or 90 (mostly elderly) guests and we from Schönegg did the catering for afternoon coffee and refreshments.

Now to give you an idea who Dick Smith is, he is an Australian entrepreneur, and a very successful one. He is the one who founded Dick Smith Electronics, a huge enterprise whose shops are all over the country. He is also a famous aviator (Pilot) who flies planes and helicopters. He also founded Dick Smith Foods, a food brand, and the magazine Australian Geographic, is a patron of Australian Skeptics, and has received highest awards and honours in various other areas. In short, whatever you call him would be an understatement.

In 1995 he purchased Bowylie, a beautiful old homestead (built in 1860) sitting on a huge lot of land, and he expanded it and turned it into one of the most charming places you can imagine. Not only is there a magnificent landscaped garden, but also a runway for his planes and helicopters, and a real steam train (Dampfeisenbahn) for him and his guests to take a ride around the property.

So this was really an Australian VIP meeting. And I, Martin Maurer, was there and shook Dick Smith's hand and told him who I was (and petted his cat Mathilda and even played on his grand piano)! There's no picture or video of that but you can believe me it's true.

To summarize, Dick and Pip Smith are examples of how you can grow to be one of the world's wealthiest and most successful people and still talk on eye level with the catering staff. (See also number 14 and 18 of my list.) Where their success comes from, if you want to condense it into one sentence? To be exceptionally good at everything you do, in all respects, including the art of how to handle (and motivate) people.

An inspirational day.

Home alone

Martin allein zu Haus... Evelyn and Richard have gone away for two days, and the kids are with friends, so at the moment I'm "king in the castle Schönegg". The business is closed, so I don't have to look after any guests, just a bit after Omi and Opi, and Libby, and the chicken.

By the way, Schönegg also has a YouTube channel with 3 videos, in case you want to learn more about this place. And another link I can share with you today was given to me by Magda. It is CMS, Canberra's local ethnic radio station. They broadcast in many languages of ethnic minorities in the region. The German radio programme on Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings has become an important column in Magda's life, whose English is still on a simple level. But she's not only a faithful listener: she is proud to tell that she actually regularly contributes to the radio programme herself. Those who know her can imagine that she must be a real character there! CMS has an audio stream link on their website, so you can listen to the current broadcast if you like.

Sunny Sunday

We had a beautiful sunny Sunday, and I took Mathias and Katja in my campervan for a picknick lunch to the park in Yass. We had some lovely soup, bacon-egg-tomato-cheese pies, and smoothies and lemonade... yum.

In the afternoon, Evelyn and Richard took us all to a winery in Murrumbateman where they offer wine and cheese tasting and sell all kinds of local delicacies. And then we had a cup of coffee (respectively chai latte) in another winery. The autumn here is really beautiful when the sun shines right into those yellow leaves. (The eucalypts stay green, though; it's mostly the foreign, European plants that make for the nice autumn colours.)