Yamba in world's top ten places

Charlie Kemp, a no frills blogger from the Old Dart, has just returned home after 129 days on the road.

Charlie, who blogs at Nap Year Diaries, listed the the Top Ten Places he visited. They are (in chronological order): Delhi, Pushkar, Jodhpur, Panjim, Arambol (India), Hanoi, Ha Long Bay, Hoi An (Vietnam), Siem Reap (Cambodia), Yamba (Australia).

Other highlights from Charlie's journeys include:
Best country - Vietnam
Best beach - Booti Booti, NSW
Best hotel - Hotel Siddartha, Agra, India
Best breakfast - bagels at Café Stir, Christchurch
Best lunch - 'Two-Steak Tuesday' at a forgotten pub on his first day in Sydney - a forgotten pub!?! I didn't think such an institution existed.
Best dinner - Tandoori Pomfret on the beach in Anjuna, Goa
Best beer - Tui (New Zealand)
Most attractive women - Vietnam
Most attractive men -New Zealand - Charlie didn't say if this was before or after the beer.
Best film - Invictus
Best book - Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Here are a few of Charlie's other thoughts about his journey:
Turning the corner into Delhi's Main Bazaar an hour after landing on our first day in India to see a seething mass of humanity, motorcycles, dust and rotting vegetables, and wondering if this was such a good idea.

Trying to catch the sleeper train from Agra to Jaipur, squeezing into an approximately coffin-sized berth, realising we were on the wrong train, giving up on our actual train once it was more than five hours late, heading back into the city and finding a hotel room around midnight.

Cycling from Siem Reap (Cambodia) into the ancient city of Angkor and around its remarkable temples in sweltering heat on decrepit but loveable bicycles.

Tweedie knocking an old Vietnamese man off his motorcycle almost as soon as we landed in Hanoi, and moments later the smiles on the faces of everyone involved.

Hopping into a tiny fishing boat in Hoi An where a tiny old Vietnamese lady had agreed to take us up and down the river, only for her to hand me the paddle and roll an enormous reefer.

Going on an irrelevantly unsuccessful fishing trip with our new Australian friends Paul and Gillian on their friends Ross and Helen's boat on an otherwise empty lake near Yamba.

It would seem that Charlie had an A-1 holiday.

Axe the billionaires!

Axe the Tax!

Save a mining billionaire!

Reweavers: the quiet achievers

David Bancroft, editor of The Daily Examiner, pens some well-deserved praise of reweavers on 8 June 2010:

IN about 1900, former US president Theodore Roosevelt wrote how he had been impressed with an African saying: "Speak softly and carry a big stick."

He believed people who followed the adage would go far.

It is an adage that would apply to virtually all the people who attended a modest dinner in Grafton on Friday night.

I was honoured to accept an invitation to attend the annual dinner of the Clarence Valley's reweavers group, a group committed to 'reweaving' the tapestry of society.

Most of those attending were committed environmentalists, people who had dedicated most of their adult lives to improving or at least protecting what remains of the environment of the Clarence Valley and neighbouring regions.

Those up for special mention were Stan Mussared, Carmel Flint and the Koala Protection Society.

These people, and the 70-plus others who attended, gain nothing from their environmental advocacy and hands-on effort apart from making the world what they believe to be a better place.

They are quietly spoken, reserved and non-confrontational but prepared to stand their ground when they believe it necessary.

It can sometimes get them offside with industry and government, but their motivation and commitment should not be questioned.

They offered a valuable lesson to us all.

Generation Yzzzzzz........

I'm flabbergasted - about one in ten Aussies eligible to vote have not bothered to enrol and around 400,000 of these are 18 to 20 year olds.

Most of the rest are between 21 and 39 years of age.

C'mon Noddy! Off the couch and out the door you go (or at least bootup that PC and click onto the AEC) and register to vote.

Remember it's all three forms of government which make the laws and by-laws which rule your life.

They'll decide how much you'll pay for your higher education, how much alcohol you can legally consume before getting in the car, the minimum wage a boss can pay you, the taxation rate you pay, whether or not you'll ever be frogmarched into national service or off to war, how much in land and water rates you'll pay on the home you eventually own, and much, much more.

YOUR OPINIONS WON'T AMOUNT

TO A HANDFUL OF CHERRY PITS

IF YOU DON'T VOTE!

The Coastal Emu - a local icon

Whilst our friends on the western side of the ranges might encounter emus on a regular basis, it is not so for those of us on the coast. The number of Coastal Emu is extremely low. There is one small isolated group to the north, but the core population is only found in the Clarence Valley.

Evidence suggests the Coastal Emu may be a distinct species from the inland emu due to geographical isolation. They are isolated from their inland relatives by several hundred kilometres, and limited by the escarpments of the dividing range. The coastal emus were formerly common, but now face the possibility of extinction.

It has been a pretty devastating time in recent months with two major fires burning more than one third (11 000 ha) of Yuraygir National Park, the stronghold for the Coastal Emu. It is likely that these large, hot and relatively fast moving fires have had an adverse impact on the emu population as well other populations of threatened flora and fauna.

In 2009, 30 volunteers from the community joined with staff from the National Parks and Wildlife Service to traverse over 800km of roads and trails by vehicle or by foot to record the habitat and range of the Coastal emu. Many local residents provided additional information on sightings and historical records.

A total of 68 emus were recorded.

Given the cryptic nature of these birds accurate numbers are difficult to ascertain, however, this is a perilously low number, and it is down again on the previous year's total of 110 birds.

Like many native animals the Coastal emu is experiencing the effects of living in close proximity to us. In some areas access to food is restricted by the proliferation of impenetrable fencing. Safe nesting sites are diminished by land clearing and the presence of feral pigs and dogs. Collision with vehicles has caused the demise of almost 60 Coastal emu in the last decade.

These threats can be avoided if we modify our behaviour. We can also ask our elected leaders to better accommodate our wildlife in their decisions and planning processes.
As the local community we need to play our part in the conservation of our local icon.

Imelda Jennings, Wildlife SOS

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak at live.com.au for consideration.

Conroy denies vendetta, but how many believe him?

Australian Communications Minister Senator Stephen Conroy was quick off the mark to deny any suggestion that his referral of Google Inc to the Australian Federal Police over its StreetView cars collecting digital information which they had no right to access.
Still, it's easy to imagine that he was filled with gleeful anticipation as he set the train in motion, against what he refers to as the "creepy" IT giant.
However Stevo appears more interested in getting his own hands on what he believes this data contains:
"(If) you were doing a banking transaction, or transmitting personal information, they could have hoovered it up, sucked it up into their machine," he told ABC TV yesterday.
"What we want to ensure now is that we get access to the information that's been collected.
"We want to know where it's stored, we want to know what the information is, and importantly we want to ensure that Google don't destroy this information." (Google has denied that it could read encrypted banking transactions).
Personally I'd be more worried about the Minister for Censorship & Moral Policing getting hold of any information downloaded from unsecured wireless connections, than I would be about Google having it.
Stevo's full frontal assault on basic freedoms in this country knows no bounds.

North Coast MP continues her anti-whaling stance as the Australian east coast prepares to count its whales in June 2010

Breaching Humpback Whale taken by Wayne Reynolds at Wild About Whales
Blue Whale and Humpack whale songs

Janelle Saffin, Federal Labor Member for Page on the NSW North Coast, has a genuine history of interest in environmental issues and opposition to whaling in the Southern Ocean.

2007: Coastal pollution, Japanese whaling, climate change, sustainable forestry and resource management will be among the topics up for discussion when the new Member for Page meets with Southern Cross University researchers at the Lismore campus tomorrow (December 14).
Janelle Saffin will receive a briefing on a range of environmental issues impacting on the North Coast from academic staff in the School of Environmental Science and Management.

2008: Page MP Janelle Saffin said the Australian public clearly wanted to put an end to Japan's so-called scientific-based whaling and that many young people in her electorate were very passionate about the cause. "Some people have asked why we don't send in the warships immediately, and it's because we obviously have an obligation to settle things diplomatically and peacefully," Ms Saffin said. "Our actions so far have been robust, sending an unambiguous message to the Japanese Government that whaling should be consigned to history.

2010 in the House of Representatives: I represent the electorate of Page, and the active communities across my electorate regularly raise a number of issues and priorities with me. Today I take the opportunity to put on the record issues impacting and affecting my electorate. The community's priorities are my priorities. I may not be able to mention all them that I want to in three minutes, but I will see how I go. There are two issues that many members of the community are passionately opposed to......There is a strong antiwhaling campaign in Page. There is support for the government's diplomatic efforts with Japan to get them to cease and for the legal case, coming by year's end, if diplomatic efforts do not bear fruit. There is support for Sea Shepherd and others who work to stop Japanese whaling in the southern ocean.

2010 in The Northern Star : FEDERAL Member for Page Janelle Saffin has welcomed the Australian Government's decision to initiate legal action in the International Court of Justice in The Hague against Japanese 'scientific' whaling in the Southern Ocean.Ms Saffin said she endorsed the government's commitment to bring an end to whaling in the Southern Ocean Sanctuary and around the globe, after unsuccessful efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to this issue in the International Whaling Commission and bilaterally with Japan."This decision is not one which has been taken lightly, but it will have widespread support across Page from all sectors of the community because so many local people are passionately opposed to whaling," she said.

This month the annual east coast whale census occurs and now is the time to make plans to participate:

On Sunday 27 June 2010, ORRCA (Organisation for the Rescue and Research of Cetaceans in Australia) will be conducting its annual Whale Census Day along the Australian coastline. If you are interested in whales, we invite you to head to your nearest or favourite ocean viewing spot to take part in the whale census and learn more about these noble and fascinating creatures.
To register and report your sightings, just call the ORRCA Hotline (24 hours) on (02) 9415 3333. Pack a picnic, sun block and your binoculars (and a book on whales if you have one) and enjoy the great outdoors.

You can also show your support for whales at Tails for Whales