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This weekend – today, in fact – marks 150 years since the Maryborough Fire Brigade came into being. They were one of the first fire brigades in Victoria and were formed when Freemason’s Hotel (the site of the current Albion Hotel) burnt to the ground. Today they’re part of the state-wide Country Fire Authority and vital part of the volunteer emergency service fabric of the state.

Last night the SES Controller and I had the pleasure of attending their formal dinner, and enjoyed good food and excellent company. We got to see and hear a lot of history relating to the brigade – some of which we knew, but a lot of was new to us.

Today the fire station had an open day with a BBQ, so the kids and I wandered down to say hello and have a look over the fire appliances.

New Year’s day in Maryborough has long been associated with the annual highland gathering. This year was the 150th celebration – and to mark the occasion, the Highland Society decided to hold a Scottish Tattoo.

The tattoo was preceded by a parade down the main road. Because I was behind the wheel of one of the SES rescue trucks I don’t have photos of the parade, but we certainly had fun being part of it. The kids lining the route loved seeing the trucks with flashing lights and blaring sirens.

Tattoo

The tattoo itself was fantastic. It kicked off with the Maryborough brass band playing a few introductions and was followed up by some re-enactment actors who played out a scene depicting the discovery of gold in Maryborough. Regular readers might recognise a few of the actors.

Next up was a ensemble of pipe and drum bands (something like 7 or 8 bands combined) that sounded fantastic. They played for 10 or 15 minutes and the crowd enjoyed every second of it.

Celine

Once the band left, a small stage was setup for Celine Toner, a Celtic singer. Her set of 5 songs were great and left a lasting impression on the girls. Because they shared a changing room with Celine they spent a bit of time with her and her band. We’ve got a personally signed CD and some great memories.

I’m afflicted

Peter, Diane and Terry (an acting friend of Peter’s) played a second set as a snake-oil salesman. They needed an audience plant who would be afflicted by some terrible disease and then miraculously cured. Cue Big Girl:

Marching Girls

No highland event would be complete without marching girls and sword dancing. There were two groups of marching girls – one group called The Originals who was made up of older women who have been marching girls at earlier highland gatherings. They weren’t as mobile as they used to be, but you could tell they were having a great time marching in front of a crowd again.

Next up were the modern day marching and sword dancing girls. There were four different groups and they all did pretty well – they were another crowd favourite.

The Windy Kilts

An actor played the role of audience warm up and MC early in the event. Later, he slipped into his role as leader of The Windy Kilts. They were great – very funny stuff. Completely unsophisticated slapstick humour, but I loved every minute of it.

Finale

The event closed with the whole arena filled with the Maryborough brass band, the massed pipe and drum bands, the marching girls and the actors. The bands played a few final songs including Auld Lang Syne (it is New Year, after all) and finished the only way the possible could with Scotland The Brave.

Next year

I’ve been told that if this year’s tattoo was a success they’ll make it a regular part of the new year’s event. I haven’t yet heard whether they’ve made a decision (it’s a little early to know) but given that Princes Park was full of people who loved every minute of what went on, I can’t see how it could be considered anything other than a success.

Bonus photos

A few more random shots from yesterday…

Yesterday was ANZAC day. The nation pretty much stops on this day to remember those who have fought and fallen in the service of their country.

Our big girl had the honour of being in the wreath party for the Girl Guides this year.

I took the day off work today (considering it marks the end of my 43rd year on the planet) so the Kids and I over to Castlemaine to have lunch with my parents. We also dovetailed in a visit to two of the gold mining heritage areas that are in nearby Chewton.

The first was the Forest Creek Gold Diggings. This is a walking trail around a few hectares of bush that still has lots of remnants of gold processing machinery. There were a few interesting things to see there. We only saw one piece of casting that had its origin embossed on it, and that was from the Sirocco company in Belfast, Ireland.

After lunch we went over to the site of the Garfield Water Wheel. I have to admit that I’d never even heard of this until Mum showed me an old photo of it a week or two back. The wheel itself is long gone, but the stone foundations that it stood on are still there. They are huge.

You can see from the curved markings on the inside of the right support just how large this thing was. It was 70 feet in diameter – around 22 meters – and when it was operating it could be heard from Castlemaine, which is almost 10km away. The wheel was fed from an overhead wooden flume and was used to run a series of stamps that crushed the ore.

The kids had a great day with their grandparents, and we all enjoyed wandering around the gold diggings. As Mum commented, it’s just so peaceful being out in the bush. At the site of the water wheel you can’t hear anything except a bit of wind in the trees and lots and lots of birds.

I’ve got a more extensive photo set up on flickr.

There’s a series showing in the US at the moment called When we left Earth. It’s all about the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions. Great stuff, made even greater because lots of the original crew and mission controllers (Gene Kranz, Gene Cernan, Chris Kraft, etc) are interviewed and discuss the details of what went on. Fantastic stuff. I can’t get enough of Apollo documentaries. Mankind’s greatest achievement, without any doubt whatsoever. The Saturn V rockets used in the Apollo programme are still the most powerful machine anyone has ever constructed.

If you share my love of this stuff, you have to check out the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. It’s an incredibly detailed resource providing transcripts of all communications between the spacecraft and mission control, many of the transcripts with annotations by astronauts and mission control staff. Here’s an example.

I still get a lump in my throat when I read the CDR (commander) notes at 112:45 on this page.

Oh, and I still laugh my ass off at The Onion’s take on it. Lots of NSFW language, but really funny.

One of the hidden secrets of flickr is The Commons. It’s an area of the site where various institutions contribute items from their photographic archives.

Lots of institutions are represented: The Smithsonian, National Galleries of Scotland, George Eastman House (founder of Kodak and inventor of roll film), US Library of Congress, and others.

My personal favourite is the collection that the NSW state library are publishing. I like that it’s relatively close to home (give or take ~900km) and I can relate to lots of the images they’re showing. The shot to the left, for example, is rush hour at Kings Cross in 1938. I’ve driven through that area a few times.

The staff are very accessible, too: any comments left against photos where they can add further information are usually responded to pretty quickly.

Some images are foreign to me because I don’t know Sydney super well, but some are very familiar. The shot to the right, for example, is absolutely unmistakable. Any boy growing up in Australia could pick this bloke.

Click through to see the State Library of New South Wales collection. There’s some great photos there, and it’s well worth exploring.

In case you didn’t already know, I’m in California at the moment. I’m here for two training courses; this means I’m fortunate enough to have a free weekend here.

Yesterday I drove 140 miles to visit Mission San Antonio de Padua. It’s one of the original missions that the Spanish Catholics built when they were trying to bring civilisation to Native Americans. It was the third such mission built, and was founded on 14th July 1771. Since then it’s moved from its original location, grown and shrunk, fallen into disrepair and been restored, but all the while it’s remained an active mission community.

There are some missions that are closer than this, but I chose to visit this site in particular because it’s the most authentic of those that are still standing. Many of the remaining missions have had towns grow around them, but Mission San Antonio de Padua is unique because it’s a little isolated and unlikely to have anything built around it. It helps that it’s situated in the middle of an active US Army base.

To visit the mission you have to leave highway 101, take 15 miles of country backroads, then present yourself at the gatehouse of Fort Hunter Liggett. The guard will ask for drivers licence and car registration/insurance details (or hire car agreement), look over you and the car, then let you through. A further 6 miles into the base and you arrive at the mission. It’s just near the main buildings of the Army base, as can be seen from above.

The buildings are traditional Native American adobe buildings (mud and straw). It was the first building in California to be covered with fired clay roof tiles.

It was also the site of the first Catholic marriage in California.

The church at the centre of the missions is fairly large with a raised bell at the front (at the right in the top picture of this post).

Next to the church is a large quadrangle that’s referred to as the Padre’s Garden (second photo in this post). That’s surrounded by the main missions buildings. Many of the walls and doors facing into the garden are painted with themes relating to mission life and the local wildlife (some of which were circling overhead while I was there).

There’s a public gallery of mission photos on SmugMug. No photos of the army base.

Link cloud shamelessly stolen from Thomas Hawk.

Interesting times.

The political philosopher John Gray, who recently retired as a professor at the London School of Economics, wrote in the London paper The Observer: “Here is a historic geopolitical shift, in which the balance of power in the world is being altered irrevocably.

“The era of American global leadership, reaching back to the Second World War, is over… The American free-market creed has self-destructed while countries that retained overall control of markets have been vindicated.”

“In a change as far-reaching in its implications as the fall of the Soviet Union, an entire model of government and the economy has collapsed.

“How symbolic that Chinese astronauts take a spacewalk while the US Treasury Secretary is on his knees.”

More here.

I just finished watching Deep Water, a film about Donald Crowhurst. He was a competitor in the 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe Race, a single handed, round the world yacht race. There’s a trailer for the film on the the official film website.

Warning – spoiler follows.

In order to compete he had entered into a financial arrangement with a local businessman, as this was the only way he could fund the boat he needed. The contractual arrangement was such that if he didn’t finish the race he would need to repurchase the boat from his financier.

He was extremely under-prepared. His sailing skills probably weren’t up to the job, he didn’t have any real experience in the open water, and his boat was only just constructed in time. His overall lack of preparation caught up with him during the race, and he ended up falling far behind the rest of the field. He then started misreporting his position and taking a shortcut back to the start line.

The final section of the film is about his mental state unravelling as he realised that he couldn’t continue with the lie about where he was, because if he did win his logbooks would be scrutinized and the game would be up. He was caught between the prospect of financial ruin or shame and humiliation. His only option was to finish in second place and hope that his logbooks weren’t looked at too closely. That option disappeared when the boat in front of him sank, virtually handing him victory. Knowing that he would be publicly humiliated he turned his boat around.

It was later found by a cargo ship, but he wasn’t on board. His body was never found.

The photographic records he left behind, along with his journal and logbooks (both accurate and falsified) paint a picture of how the human mind can come undone in situations of extreme stress and isolation.

It would be easy to dismiss him as simply being a cheat, and although he did that, the film left me feeling sad for him and the family he left behind. The pressure of the situation he found himself in simply overtook him, and he was left in a position where he could see no clear way forward. It was a very moving film.