The PR Blog

Living in the real Outback of Australia is like confronting yourself with yourself. Seeing yourself for who you are. It is like meeting yourself as a stranger and wondering if you will like that person. 

It was back in the 1990's that I met Albert. A quiet man who had shunned the city and, after a trip to Brisbane in 1949, decided that the big lights were not for him. He returned to the Channel Country and never left again.

Albert was an older bloke who lived in my new hometown of 35 or so residents. It was a very very long way from the coast. 

I was thinking about Australia Day and what it means. Or, at the very least, MEANT. A day to celebrate being unique. Because there really is ( or was) no country like Aussie in the world. Find one, and I will eat my thongs and chuck a sickie and not turn up for work on the 25th while I get into practice mode for Australia Day on the 26th. 

It is OUR day. Like America's 4th of July we have unashamedly gone full Aussie bogan one day of the year and we just have  fun being, well, Australian. 

I have looked through some of the Aussie stuff we have published over the years. So here it is, a bit of Aussie humour and a bit of a wake-up call to all the lefties. Don't destroy our Aussieness. You Canberra and city elites will never know when you will need a boy from the bush to sort the swines out. 

Or worry that they might just go rogue....  

When I was in primary school, we were taught both English and Australian poems, many of which were favourites of my mother. I have decided to write an article on Australian poems which formed a part of my childhood. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, so I have decided to briefly review the poets and the poems, and then to post actual recitations or singing of one of their much-loved poems, which are no longer taught as they are considered racist.

As Australia journeys into an unknown and uncertain future, it is good to remind ourselves that we are here today because of those who went before us, and we have a sacred obligation to honour their legacy.

As Australia Day approaches, I cannot help but cast my mind back to when  ANZAC Day was subsumed by the Coronavirus lockdown and we were denied the right to celebrate it and honour our Diggers in the usual way by government decree.

It looks like this 26th of January may subsumed by the furore of the leftist activist minorities, aided and encouraged by  Corporate Australia. 

Many eons ago, millions in fact, what is now Victoria was a cauldron of volcanic activity, particularly to the north and west. Mt.Macedon, the prominent feature about 50kms north of Melbourne is reputed to have been the largest volcano that ever existed on this planet.

At the time Tasmania was part of the Australian mainland. Along with what is now the Mornington Peninsular a series of granite upthrusts formed a ridge which now features Mt. Eliza, Mt.Martha and Arthur’s Seat. Some millions of years ago Mt. Macedon erupted and sent a gigantic flow of lava to its southeast. This lava flow was restricted to the eastern side of the granite ridge which is about 100 miles from the crater. The lava flowed right across the land and ended at what is now the north-east tip of Tasmania. The rocks in that area have been confirmed as the same rocks that exist in the cliffs at Flinders. This is over 300 miles from the source. You can follow its path from the rich red soil that abounds in the Dandenong Ranges, Berwick, and Red Hill to the east of Arthur’s Seat. It emerges again in the form of the black cliffs of Flinders before disappearing under Bass Strait.

Commercial camping grounds anywhere in this great country during Christmas summer holidays downunder look awfully like those wretched railway lost and found sales of yore. Tents, boats, barbecues, golf clubs, surfboards, cars and trailers, and overflowing garbage bins all jammed together in abject disarray. It is a wonderful attraction for the curious.

However, this overly jaded curmudgeon wonders why people flee the city in search of the great outdoors and a little privacy to happily set up camp amongst hoards of strangers, close enough that family disputes can be followed word-by-un-Christian-word during a time of supposed spiritual reflection?