Spotted this poster on the Community Board down at the ferry terminal 
Free Positive Thoughts
“The voyage of discovery is not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes”
Marcel Proust
Having recently written a blog post about travelling on home turf its a quote that I love! 
I had to go into Brisbane last week ~
Old & New in Brisbane, Queensland
And with business done, I couldn’t resist popping into the Queensland Art Gallery for a quick look!
Queensland Art Gallery
It always fascinates me how they are able to have such a beautiful big water feature in amongst the delicate art works! For the longevity of the exhibits the building is constantly monitored for atmospheric changes to ensure the works are never too hot nor too humid; so how, I wonder, do they keep humidity in check with all that water in the building?
I liked the juxtaposition of this display composition
Mixed Cultures
All the craft-works in this group had been made in Queensland from local timber materials about the turn of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries ~
The shields and the woven basket made by the indigenous population, and the tilt top table made by a migrant Joseph Soblusky.
Queensland timbers, European design
Such beautiful designs and patterns from two cultural perspectives ~
I’m always taken by Margaret Preston’s work ~ I particularly love her renditions of native Australian flora, so this image of Sturt Desert Peas caught my eye.
Margaret Preston
However, the obvious indigenous influences in this work, painted in 1943, has in more recent times attracted criticism of her applying cultural designs without understanding their meanings.
QR Bench
Back out of the gallery and on my way home, I thought this was a nice little detail on the South Brisbane railway station ~ The platform benches with a QR (Queensland Rail) insignia.
Journey Jottings:
Where/When/How ~ What did I See, Hear, Smell, Touch, Taste?
I can barely believe that I’ve now been blogging a year
Last year on May 21st 2009 I put up my first post and from that acorn here I am 150 posts on 
100 Aker Wood and the Acorn
As outlined in my About Us page I love landscape, maps and journaling ~
Landscape, maps & journalling
To this end I have written about the wonderful Australian bush in the region where I live…
Grass Trees
And Scotland where I spent March & April this year watching the spring blossom…
Primroses and Celendine
…from winter’s icy grasp…
Posts with maps in them…
Mud Map
And journalling ideas
We're here ~ Where are you?
Last September, to emphasis how a journal transcends time, I started a series on September 27th reproducing journal extracts on the day they had been written 131 years previously recounting the voyage of a Mr A Whelan as he sailed aboard an iron clipper called the Hesperides from London, to his new life in Australia, landing in Melbourne December 30th 1878.
As there were a hefty 97 entries, I then pulled out 10 posts that I felt epitomized the trip in a Summary of the Voyage, which included a close encounter with an iceberg, throwing a cat overboard for a good wind, and rough weather where waves washed into the living areas setting their cake afloat around the cabin!
Sailing London to Melbourne Journal
So what stories await the telling for the coming year? Whatever, one thing’s for sure, I’ll be…
...tracking my trails & tales
On Saturday I went to the opening day of Ron Mueck’s exhibition at GOMA (Gallery of Modern Art) in Brisbane.
Entrance to GOMA Brisbane
It was an extraordinary experience of observing human forms; finding oneself staring transfixed at bodily details
Down to the scratch marks under the arm of this woman with sticks
Whilst peering into the world’s of these beings at the moment in time that they’ve been frozen.
Perplexity?
At times the gallery crowd seemed to become a part of the scene
Cornered?
Surrounding this terrified huge poor being
At other times, despite the disparity of scale, there were connections – even if it appeared to be one of distrust -
Who is observing who?
Suspicion? Disapproval?
One’s attention couldn’t not be drawn to the intricacies of the external form and the brilliance of technique
Yet, with the body being merely a vessel to take us on life’s journey
I found myself being drawn far more into what was going on unseen within
Inside the Vessel
The thoughts, feelings and desires dwelling deep within these forms ~ their hopes and concerns for the future…
...their past
and their unfulfilled aspirations taken unnoticed with them to their death.
But back to the real world… I stepped out into the evening light of Brisbane
Brisbane
Or was it Gotham City?!
At the end of January this year in Australia we had a glorious ‘blue moon’
Moon over Moreton Bay January 2010
Not literally of course!
The term ‘blue’ moon in recent times has come to refer to the second of two full moons occurring in a single calendar month. This can only happen when there is a full moon early in the month so as to allow for the twenty nine and a half day lunar cycle to complete its revolution before the 30 or 31 day calendar month is out.
When two ‘blue moons’ appear in the same year they will occur in January and March as they are separated by February that has but 28 days ~ This ‘phenomena’ is occurring in Australia in 2010.
There isn’t a single ‘original’ meaning of the term ‘blue moon’ but to understand any of them some mathematics is required ~
If one multiplies out the 29.5 days (lunar cycle) by 12 (calendar months) one gets 354 days, which equates to a ‘spare’ 11 days in each 365 day calendar year. This means every two or three years there will be a 13th moon (or to be precise every nineteen years there are seven).
One origination of the term ‘blue moon’ comes from the Middle English word belewe that means not only ‘blue’ but also ’betray’. The clergy who use the moon’s cycle to calculate when lent and Easter should occur had the problem that a 13th moon every few years would throw out their calculations and so 500 years ago this additional moon was referred to as a belewe moon meaning a ‘betrayer moon‘.
Amusingly, what has now become today’s ‘common usage’ term for a ‘blue moon’ (two full moons in the same calendar month) has evolved from an incorrect statement in the March 1946 edition of the ‘Sky and Telescope‘!
The power of the printed word!
For those who’ve been reading this blog for the last few months, you will have been following a day by day account from a Mr Whelan’s journal as he sailed from England to Australia 131 years ago aboard the iron clipper ‘Hesperides’ . After 93 days at sea, on the 28th December 1878 he landed at Williamstown Pier, Melbourne, Victoria and two days later took a buggy up through Richmond to a cottage where he and his family were to start their new life.
The 6th January, being the 12th day of Christmas, marks the end of the festive season, and …
the exciting new year starts in ernest!
Living by the sea I’ve become very aware of the ever changing tides… their times and their heights.
Governed by the moon the two high tides and two low tides, in each twenty-four hour period, follow the lunar cycle of a twenty-nine and a half-day month. This means that each day the tide occurs 50 minutes later than the same event on the preceding day.
Moon Map by Johannes Hevelius dated 1645
When the moon is full, and then two weeks later when we have a new moon, the gravitational pull due to the moon, the earth and the sun all being aligned results in a much higher high tide and a much lower low tide.
Alignment of Sun, Moon & Earth create Spring tides
These tides are called Spring tides. This is nothing to do with the season, but is rather from the old English word ‘springan’ to well up.
The Bay of Fundy in Canada has the claim to fame of having the largest range between its high and low spring tides, which reaches nearly 16 metres. Avonmouth in the Bristol Channel, UK comes in second with a range in excess of 15 metres.
Here, in the bay off Brisbane the difference between high and low spring tide is a mere 2.5 metres but at low tide on these weeks the bay looks as though someone has pulled out the plug as the water drains far away exposing the silty sand.
In North-Western Australia where the spring tidal range reaches 10 metres it creates a natural phenomenon called ‘Staircase to the Moon’. For three nights each month between March and October, when the full moon creates an exceptionally low spring tide, it then reflects off the exposed mudflats of Roebuck Bay, Broome to create a beautiful optical illusion of a stairway reaching up to the moon!
Staircase to the Moon, Western Australia
On alternate weeks between the full and new moon, when the sun, earth and moon are at right angles to each other resulting in a less intense gravitational pull there are Neap tides. Neap is derived from the old English word ‘nep’ meaning to nip in the bud. On these weeks, here in Queensland, there is then only a metre difference between our high and low tide so happily there is nearly always something left to paddle in!
For the time and height of tides here in Australia:
Time and tide wait for no man
For about 4 years I worked in mineral exploration as a geological draughtsperson.
I was contracting to a company in Perth who saw the light in sending someone out into the field with the reconnaissance team, who could plot the grids and interpolate the data as it came to hand.
Most projects ran for 3 months, where the accommodation was a tent and the annexe was my office.
My fondest memories are from a job that had us camping on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert in WA not far, metaphorically speaking, from Wolf Creek meteorite crater.
We had a weekly chartered airplane come in with supplies to last for the following week, on which I would put copies of the latest plans so head office could see what we had done and where we were at.
A sun-printing method was used to produce these prints, where the pen and ink drawings on draughting film were laid over light sensitive paper in a darkened tent – This entailed pulling down all the flaps when it was 40 degrees outside and working as fast as possible to get the plans strapped to a board that was pulled back in an arching position to ensure a good close contact was being made. Then outside, pouring with sweat, to stand and face the glaring sun with the board held aloft for a timed 2 minutes, before back into the steaming darkened tent to wipe a solution over the now exposed film that would develop the image. Voila!
Exploration crew in the Great Sandy Desert
This is a photo of me, on the left, with Jim, Phil, Verne, Noel and John at the end of the project as we are about to pull out and hit the road.
Need some inspiration for what to do in or with a journal?
Check out the 1000 journals site.
The 1000 journals project was initiated in the year 2000 when 1,000 journals were sent out into the public domain; some to a fixed location, others that roamed the world, but wherever they were they were open to anyone to make an entry –
It was so successful a selected collection of the results has been published.
While these are not travel journals per se they all reflect the essence of the moment in which they were created and so convey an emotion that comes from making spontaneous entries responding to where you are and what you are doing.
There is now a 1001 journals project operating.
The joy of travelling is its spontaneous nature –
Events change courses and lead to unexpected adventures –
Let your journaling follow suit
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