Musical Kangaroo

Well the drive up the Stuart Highway can be boring to some.

Today we have an extra part to our Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. And it’s for free. Actually, I am unsure if I can even give it away! Those who have read my Top Ten list may have seen a comment from a transmogrified Welshman sandnsurf about wanting a Top Eleven rather than a Top Ten list. I am always one to try and satisfy my readers (don’t push it!).

HighHeels but not in the desert

Ok. I admit it. From the mulch you can see it is not in the desert. And that is a blackberry device and not a satellite phone so it also can’t be me! But the picture may give something else away.

Consider it showing my newer subscribers some earlier “quality” posts.

So my ten most popular posts are:

1. “A Drive in The Country: It took this truck driver and his truck 18 hours. Bogged three times in sand. That’s a lot of wheels to dig out. And some pretty big holes. I guess that is something to look forward to as I drive out next week”.

2. When Remote Australia and Mining Australia meet: This surprised me coming so high in the ranking. My view on how mining companies in Australia seem to disregard and damage the remote communities near their sites.

3. A Little Bit of Rain: With plenty of photos and video it showed what Central Australia can be like after rain.

4. Remote Weather Report was a report I sent out to people who may be travelling in our area which I later posted. Describes what can happen when heavy rain hits - particularly for a very mobile population

5. Can Bush Tucker Reduce the Burden of Heart Disease and Diabetes? Here I commented on an Article in the West Australian Newspaper and talked about food and prices out bush.

6. Kunmarnanya my Lord, Kunmarnanya. I’m known as Robbo almost everywhere I go. I started using my nickname for cultural reasons. This explains why.

7. A Snake in the Hand is Worth…. is a little story about a snake on my fence: I race to the gate and instead of placing my hand on the expected tubular frame it landed on something sinuous, scaly and muscular.

8. Oodnadatta Track is a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon story with a picture of a stop sign in the desert. Believe me. That is all that is there.

9. You Have Peak Hour Traffic and I Have…… was a video looking at the traffic obstacles I have on my way to work. Camels and lots of them.

10. CRANA Opens its Doors where I commented on Council of Remote Area Nurses of Australia opening membership to other professions with some comments on other bodies representing those out bush.

Well that’s it for another year!

Australia has nearly 1600 species of plants and animals listed as nationally threatened with 788 of them on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) Red List.

Bush Heritage Australia is working to save our biodiversity with a vision to protect 1 per cent of Australia by 2035. They currently manage 31 reserves with nearly one million hectares of high ecological significance under their care.

Merry Christmas

Robbo

I was a little disappointed that there was only a couple of comments, with no explanation, about the much higher incidences of cancer within our remote indigenous population. This is despite a number of studies being done. One has shown those living in the Kakadu around the Ranger Uranium Mine have a 90% higher incidence of cancer than the rest of the Northern Territory.

One paragraph in the report noted that:

Incidence rates for many types of cancer are considerably lower or higher for the Northern Territory than for other states and territories. These differences are mainly due to low or high incidence of these cancers in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who comprise 29% of the Northern Territory population (d’Espaignet et al. 1996; Condon et al. 2001).

There was no discussion on why the incidence rates would be so much higher despite several studies looking at this issue.

There was some discussion about lower rates of melanoma of the skin and the indigenous population. This discussion was about a quirk in the state based statistics. The largest number of indigenous people in Australia reside in New South Wales. However they are a still a small percentage of the total population in this highly populated state. A high percentage of the people living in the Northern Territory are indigenous. You would expect those living in the warmer northern parts of Australia to have the highest incidence of melanoma.

The incidences of melanoma per state are:

Queensland (65.3 cases per 100,000 persons)
Western Australia (53.0)
New South Wales (47.8)
Tasmania (45.5)
Australian Capital Territory (45.2)
South Australia (40.0)
Victoria (37.4)
Northern Territory (32.5)

We could perhaps expect that the Northern Territory would have a similar rate of skin cancer to Queensland. From the AIHW report:

8.2 Melanoma of the skin
The age-standardised rates for all forms of skin cancer are correlated with exposure to ultraviolet radiation (Jelfs et al. 1994). Therefore one would expect to see higher rates in the more northern states and territories, and lower rates in the more southern ones. However, the rates will also be affected by sun-protection behaviour and the percentage of the Indigenous population (which has a lower rate of skin cancer than the non-Indigenous population).

What about all the other cancers that indigenous people have a much higher incidence of. An article, again by Condon in the Medical Journal of Australia in 2004 (free registration required go to PubMed for abstract) explains why.

The NT Indigenous cancer mortality rate was higher than the total Australian rate for cancers of the liver, lungs, uterus, cervix and thyroid…… Differences between Indigenous and total Australian cancer mortality rates were more pronounced among those aged under 64 years for most cancers. NT Indigenous cancer mortality rates increased over the 24-year period for cancers of the oropharynx, pancreas and lung, all of which are smoking-related cancers. CONCLUSIONS: Cancer is an important and increasing health problem for Indigenous Australians. Cancers that affect Indigenous Australians to a greater extent than other Australians are largely preventable (eg, through smoking cessation, Pap smear programs and hepatitis B vaccination).

As well as cancer affecting our indigenous population earlier, the cancers that affect Indigenous Australians to a greater extent than other Australians are largely preventable (eg, through smoking cessation, Pap smear programs and hepatitis B vaccination).

Our indigenous population has smoking rates of 55% compared to the Australian average of 21% (men) 18%(women). The good news is that some money has been put aside for programs to reduce smoking rates in our indigenous people.

The cost of vaccinations on each states vaccination schedule is covered by the federal government’s Immunise Australia Program. As well as Hepatitis B, the Human papillomavirus vaccine for teenage girls is now covered, hopefully reducing the incidences of cervical cancer.

Ngaanyatjarra health has won an award for its vaccination efforts in the past. However, when a new vaccine is introduced there are no funds provided to assist in a program to vaccinate all members of a remote community.

These higher cancer ratesin indigenous Australia I feel highlight our health authorities failure to make funding available to ensure this hard to reach population group, who are often moving about in very remote areas, can be followed up and vaccinated.

Currently the nearest the food truck can get is 125km to us (nearly 300km to the most distant) and we have been bringing pallets of vegies on the back of 4wds and a load of bread in my troopie. We will have to drive over to get our Christmas hams and turkey as it is unlikely a truck will get through in the next couple of weeks

A couple of days ago I posted a Weather Report. It had a few pictures, but today in my Pleasant Sunday Afternoon post there are videos and pictures galore.

The pictures in the slide show are not in any order, but are from December 1st to the 10th. Don’t forget to check out the videos below.

It took us a couple of days before we heard the truck was bogged. It took two cars to get out to him as the roads were a little “iffy”. Watch the video for part of the drive out to the truck. I apologise for the sound…but I love being where I am!

It took us until Thursday to get the truck out of the 1st hole. We had to pump water out of low lying areas to assist the road to dry out and take the weight of 75tonnes. However we had to leave the second trailer behind and hit the road at speed with 45 tonne on the back.

Eight kilometres down the road and the truck was stuck again. There was no way to get past, forcing us off the road with the troopie in low range as we led our little earthmover along the high ground to try and get in front of the truck. This also sank and took us a little while to get out.

The pump got rid of a lot of the water, but we had to manually unload 8 tonne of food stuffs to lighten the load on the rear axles to make it easier to pull out. The food, box by box, was placed into the bucket of our little tractor and driven out of the mud to then load into a small truck for the run into the community.

Two days later right on dusk the truck was freed and did a high speed run into town as the rain started to fall, thankfully not getting stuck again.

Watching rain on video can be a bit boring. But there is an occasional flash of lightning and clap of thunder. If you haven’t heard the sound of rain on a tin roof then this is also the video for you! Only roughly edited - do I need to fade in and out for rain?

If you have made it all the way to here, take a look at the following posts that you might enjoy such as my video on my Peak Hour Traffic and my little post about a Drive in the Country.

Our community has been having daily (if not more frequent) generator failures and today all communication across the lands (and into Alice) was disrupted for most of the day with an equipment failure (being out here it probably won’t make the news). Wingellina, due to flooding and irregular deliveries has run out of fuel for vehicles. Unsure about fuel left to run the community generators. Here is a weather report I sent out a few days ago.

Weather Report

Great Central Road to the west of Warakurna (Giles) (70km wide storm front) and all Mulga Park Road through to Wingellina has had rain continuously from about 7pm (now midnight WDT) from 2-6mm an hour. Wingellina is in the middle of the 70km wide storm front. Suggest Mulga Park Road will be difficult if not impassable, and probably closed by Shire.

Why was it on the Cut Road?

Roadhouse at WBR informed me Wingellina could not get a vehicle out along bottom road up to pick up stores. The Wingellina-Blackstone road has been receiving the same rain as Mulga Park Road. Shire vehicle travelled road on Tuesday and got through. Today anecdotal reports of number of cars stranded as people try to get to Amata for a funeral.

Storm front

Jameson to Blackstone road has had very long extended water on road (several hundreds of metres) and has been receiving showers over the last five hours. Vehicle from Blackstone apparently did manage to get out to retrieve stores from Warburton today (Wednesday)

The Cut Road from Jameson to the Great Central Road is impassable 30km from highway. A track has been made to the west through higher, but still waterlogged ground just prior to logs over road. This alternative route may be impassable depending on amount of rain. Regular showers of up to 2mm/hr have been falling on Cut Road since 6pm. There is a tree over the road (16km) and some very marshy ground where truck was previously bogged (36km from central road). Two vehicles will be travelling out that way from Jameson early am. Will know more then!

Warburton – Jameson Road has been receiving occasional light rains. Bog ~40km from Warburton quite slippery and deep with numerous vehicles bogged there in last few days. Otherwise Warburton side of road is not bad. Jameson side has large amounts of water still on road and road washed completely away in a couple of places. Stick to road or well defined side tracks as country is completely waterlogged.

Five cars pulled from bogs on roads around Jameson today prior to current rains. This has included some you-beaut white fella 4wds including one whose front suspension broke and tyres damaged as he found a hole a bit deeper than usual.
Thunderstorms expected Thursday morning.

As showers fall in Jameson: Happy Travelling!

If you liked this you might also want to look at my video on my Peak Hour Traffic and my little post about a Drive in the Country.

I hope to have a few more pictures up for my next Pleasant Sunday Afternoon post. Keep watching!

Robbo

Click on the picture for the best view.

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Take a look at these young Yolngu men as they mix traditional dance steps to Zorba the Greek and more. Most are filmed in the community of Yirrkala with the local community as the audience. Turn up the volume and laugh and enjoy with the community. if this is not good for one’s health nothing is.

Zorba the Greek is on twice, purely because their performance has improved so much the second time around. enjoy the didgeridoo on the last video. Take a look at the website The Mulka Project and the YouTube profile

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