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Our Coffs Harbour Adventure by Colleen Keating

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Our Coffs Harbour Adventure

Coffs Harbour is a jewel on the east Pacific Coast of Australia 5 hours north of Sydney, and we are blessed to have some of our children and hence grandchildren living in this picturesque town.  

We are calling this time in Coffs an adventure, as it included Michael and I having a Van-life Experience –  yes living in a van nearly as romantically as portrayed in the movie when a van is a fun thing and not permanent!

Unfortunately it was not the time or  space to dwell on the simplicity, the freedom, and the fun of Nomad life.

It was not the time or space for re-discovering ourselves on the road.

It was not the once-in a lifetime adventure longed for, by many city people locked in  their routine.  

For we were here  to support our four and a half year old gorgeous little one get ready for school.

However it was in a wonderful  HAWK van that Jessica and Nathan have invested in, that they set it up in a gorgeous resort in Coffs near the beach, with pools and gardens, shady trees  and a haven I called a bird sanctuary every morning as I woke to  the most wonderful canticle of bird song. 

We had two experiences of accomodation. The first was minding a very beautiful home of neighbours of our family, while they were travelling, and that was luxury. Then back to Sydney for awhile to fulfil obligations .

It had been an exciting week in Sydney  with my writing awards at the Gala Luncheon and we returned to Coffs on a high.

And our van venture began. With Jessica and family it was our first time to take stock and realise what a wonderful fulfilling writing year it had been

We opened a bottle of champas and toasted another successfully year.  My Highly Commended Award for a Poetry Book 2022 with Olive Muriel Pink and the Highly Commended Certificate and a few hundred dollars (which will go towards my new computer next year) in the National Writing Award (poetry) was lovely to celebrate with Jessica  and family especially Jessica, who keeps saying how proud she is of me . 

 

Our first celebration after the Gala Luncheon and Award Ceremony in Coffs with Jessica.

Grandchildren 

It has been a lot of fun spending time with our grandsons in Coffs Harbour.

The main purpose for the month here has been to assist in getting 4 year old  Darcy ready for big school next year. This has entailed taking him to orientation days at big school and shortening his days at child care to help calm, reinforce some expected preschool knowledge.  . . . .spending some quality time with him in preparation.  

We have worked the time to give us some quality time with his 9 year old brother, Edison. We were firstly lucky to be here for St. Augustans Grandparents Day and so we could spend time in his classroom see his very talented art  – see below his self -portrait for The Archy  

 

Picking him up from his bus,  listening to his music, going to his cricket on Saturdays,  which was very exciting. At one stage holding our breath hoping he would get a hat trick and having to share the out field with a Kangaroo.  We enjoyed his company when they came to have tea with us, watching him  in the pool, on the jumping pillow, playing basket ball  shots  with Pa and family cricket.  We have been very proud of his Merit Awards leading up to  his second Principal Award. 

                                                                 Note:  the big Grey Kangaroo in the out-field.

Our two older grandsons Lachlan and Doc Cameron are out of town but we had a great Saturday barbecue with them and a full day on Sunday of helping 12 year old Lachlan create his project for Year 7 on planning an ecological and sustainable village for a population of  20.000 . What a project!  It took him a lot of brainstorming with everyone and then a lot of butcher-paper planning and a final drawing to scale on some good white cardboard Michael and I bought on our way to their place.  We are awaiting on our result . . . . Hoping for, expecting an A+

 

Our Leisure time

 In  between times Michael and I have enjoyed some lovely experiences.

Of course it included poetry readings, walks, sunsets, picnics . Note in photo below I cannot go very far without my bibles of Mary Oliver and Rumi.

1. Watching the sunset each evening with a relaxing glass of Shiraz

2. Our drive to see the Jacarandas in their full glory in Grafton. Unfortunately it was a Saturday of the Jacaranda Festival so was a bit too crowded for us but still a very special experience to be part of.  And we did finally find a seat for our thermos picnic in the shade of a jacaranda tree so purple petals could rain down in us

 

3. Our long coastal walk from our van, out onto the beach and then a walk to Mutton Bird Island, out to its far headland on the edge of the Pacific.

4. Picnic lunch at the Botanic Garden .  Observed the whole courtship dance and song of the Blue Satin Bower Bird.  Had two very close encounters with a swooping kookaburra which got part of Michaels chicken sandwich  and part of my less tasty cheese and corn thins .and enjoyed a wonderful display with the Scrub Wren the fairy blue and  his harem of brown wrens all flitting about and then noticed the small red Finches also in the same area. 

5 Visited the Coffs Harbour  Fish Markets  on the Mariner and bought wonderful freshly cooked fish and chips  – snapper and salmon. and had a lunch picnic in a shady sea scape spot.

6.  Enjoyed a leisurely drive home with a little stress to get back to our world in Sydney. We tried to remember it was the journey not the destination.   We took the Waterfall Way over the Mountain Range and had our picnic brunch at Ebor Falls, one of our special vortex places.

We had a lovely visit  in Scone with my dear friend Sharon.

She had prepared a yummy lunch from her garden. 

We never stopped chatting and laughing and amazing how we can not see each other for months at a time and pick up where we left off last visit. Her garden struggles with drought and flood and high wind of country but she perserveres.

Because of the land slides on the mountains and the flood damage and road works on the New England Highway, it was a slow journey and we arrived home late and tired.

 

Fun things we did with the boys

Beach walk to be the first to spot the full moon.  A bit windy and the moon snuck up without us seeing it. 

BBQs here in the park and playing cricket.  

Bird watching. Lots of wonderful bird song especially in the mornings. brush turkey, Ibis, yellow-winged black cockatoos, seagulls, top knot pigeon, koels,  magpies,  plovers, galahs .

Here in our park playing on the jumping pillow, basketball, climbing frames, cricket,  and swimming pool, water slides and spurting water fun.

 

Playing bingo and cards with Pa: painting and magnetic sand play with Grandma.

Bush walks  to the nearby green koala corridor and Botanic Gardens.

Reading stories 

Kicking the ball with Pa  and listening to and identifying local birds. 

The greatest of these discoveries was observing two Yellow winged black cockatoos and the Blue Satin Bower Bird.

 

  Our little Pikachu

 

 

 

BOOK LAUNCH OF OLIVE MURIEL PINK WITH PROFESSOR EMERITA ANNE BOYD AM

colleen General, Olive Pink, Olive Pink Botanic Garden , , ,

 

Great news . . .  we are on our way to Alice Springs for a week of events  including the above launch of my Poetic Journey with Olive Pink

It will be a celebration  of the life of a  little know Australian  woman , visionary for the Indigenous people in her day, Anthropologist, Gardener and curator of the first Arid Botanical Garden in the world.

Dinner under the stars with Professor Emerita Boyd and Olive Pink

colleen General, Olive Pink, Olive Pink Botanic Garden , , , , ,

Dinner under the stars

with

Professor Emerita Anne Boyd AM and Olive Pink

ABOUT

Dinner under the stars at Olive Pink Botanic Garden

with leading lights in Olive Pink’s journey

‘From obscurity to centre stage’.

Featuring Professor Emerita Anne Boyd AM,

Gillian Ward,

Cheryl Kensett,

and Colleen Keating,

authors and artists who have been inspired by Olive Pink, and helped take her life to centre stage. What was it about Olive Pink that inspired them? Why is she relevant today? Questions panel compare and Olive Pink Opera Producer Claire Kilgariff will be posing. Ticket is for event only. Purchase dinner from the Bean Tree Cafe’s new dinner menu.

DATE

Saturday 1 October 2022 7:00 PM – 8:30 PM (UTC+09:30)

LOCATION

Olive Pink Botanic Garden
27 Tuncks Road , Alice Springs NT 0870

IN-STORE POETRY READING AT RED KANGA by Colleen Keating

colleen General, Olive Pink, Olive Pink Botanic Garden , , , , ,

   

 

   IN-STORE POETRY READING
with the author of
   Olive Muriel Pink: Her radical and idealistic life 
Colleen Keating
Friday 7th October, 12noon – 1pm
Bring your lunch!

A rare opportunity: an in-store poetry reading from Colleen Keating

One of the great joys we have at Red Kangaroo Books is the opportunity to host writers on behalf of our readers—and this is a special event!
Colleen Keating, author of Olive Muriel Pink: her radical and idealistic life, will be here at Red Kanga to read with us some of her work from the book. This is fabulous timing in conjunction with the Olive Pink Opera, a key highlight of the. Desert Song Festival.

Olive Pink’s life floats off the page – very much the character I’ve come to know and admire while translating her experience into music across this past decade.  Colleen Keating gives us a seriously beautiful work based on research that brings Olive vividly to life.  It is wonderful to see the astonishing story of this Australian woman Olive Pink, given the attention she so deserves.
Such a visionary.

Emeritus Professor Anne Boyd AM  Composer of the Olive Pink Opera

Troublesome Women of Central Australia: An event in Alice Springs

colleen General, Olive Pink, Olive Pink Botanic Garden , , , , , , , , ,

                  

                                  Troublesome Women of Central Australia
Thursday 6th October, 5.30 – 7.00 pm

Central Australian Aviation Museum 6 Memorial Ave, Gillen
Free event, no bookings required

Who were Olive Pink, Annie Lock, Ernestine Hill and Daisy Bates?

Join authors Cath Bishop, Eleanor Hogan and Colleen Keating for a lively evening of conversation and readings from their books about these complex white women who thought Aboriginal lives mattered and challenged boundaries of female behaviour.

And visit Olive Pink’s grave

                in the cemetery next door

                                     if you haven’t already!

“Celebrating women who write ” Newsletter of Society of Women Writers.

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CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL SHORT LISTED. I FEEL PROUD TO BE NAMED AMONGST SUCH A GREAT GROUP OF WOMEN. THANK YOU. I AM HAPPY FOR OLIVE PINK THAT HER STORY IS OUT THERE FOR ALL TO KNOW THIS WOMAN WHO WAS LOST TO HISTORY FOR THE PAST 50 YEARS 

MEMBERS’ BOOK AWARD

CELEBRATING WOMEN WHO WRITE

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the Members’ Book Awards 2022.
Congratulations to the authors involved and thank you to our judges.
Alphabetical by author

FICTION JUDGED BY MARGARET WICK 

Maureene Fries   Stones. Bones and Hollyhocks
Helen Lyne   Disappointment and Other Joys of Life
Catherine McCullagh   Secrets and Showgirls
Susan Steggall   The Heritage We Leave Behind
Julie Thorndyke   Divertimento
Kelly Van Nelson    The Pinstripe Prisoner

NON FICTION JUDGED BY SYBIL JACK

Valerie Clifford  Fijian Shadows
Jan Conway   Skimming the Surface – Expats in Kiribati
Robyn Elliott   Sing the Burnt Mountain
Kate Forsyth & Belinda Murrell   Searching For Charlotte
Colleen Keating   Olive Muriel Pink
Christine Sykes   Gough and Me

POETRY JUDGED BY CARMEL BENDON   

Anne Casey   Portrait of a woman walking Home
Anne Casey   the light we cannot see
Antoinette M. Diorio   Attachments
Pip Griffin   Virginia and Catherine, the Secret Diaries
Colleen Keating   Olive Muriel Pink. Her radical and idealistic life. A poetic journey
Denise O’Hagan   The Beating Heart

CHILDREN & YOUNG ADULT JUDGED BY GAIL ERSKINE 
SPONSORED BY CHRISTMAS PRESS

Libby Hathorn   The Best Cat the Est Cat
Libby Hathorn & Lisa Hathorn Jarman   No! Never! A cautionary tale
Pamela Rushby   The Mummy Smugglers of Crumblin’ Castle
Pamela Rushby   Interned

NATIONAL WRITING COMPETITION 2022

GIVING WOMEN A VOICE

We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the National Writing Competition 2022. Congratulations to the authors involved and thank you to our judges.
Alphabetical by authorsSHORT STORY FICTION JUDGED BY JENNY STRACHAN   Alexandra Dunn   Violet
Paulette Gittins   Forget it Jake
Meira Gorcey   Looking for Peace
Felicia Henderson   Gardens in the Rain
Julie Howard   Recipes for Sisters and Wives
Judith O’Connor   The Past is a Dangerous FriendSHORT STORY NON -FICTION JUDGED BY PAULA McLEANCarmel Bendon   Birds of a Feather
Pippa Kay   Fear Itself
Stephanie Phillips   Here, There and Everywhere
Judy Rowley   The Only Way
Sally Jane Smith   Blood and Gratitude
Gwen Wilson   Living in the Shadow of Tito

POETRY JUDGED BY EILEEN CHONG
SPONSORED BY GINNINDERRA PRESS

Anne Casey   Architecture of Chronic Pain
Colleen Keating   petal by petal
Meira Kirkwood   Woman to Dog
Joanne Ruppin   Bright New Home
Josephine Shevchenko   Undying the Sea
Mocco Wallert   A Stranger in my house

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

An Indigenous Map depicting a holistic world of a sacred land by Colleen Keating

colleen General , , , , , ,

 

Our recent visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art  with a new exhibition on recent Indigenous Art.

This full wall mural was the one i kept returning to. It made me feel so much joy and every visit I learnt something new and yet it is about a desperately sad story.   Uranium Mining is threatening their homeland. Hence there is fear, stress, worry and powerlessness as it has happened before.

The map is unlike a Western Map which depicts a linear idea of a place . This map depicts water  –underground, shows geography, culture, seasons, biodiversity, environment, fragility,  beauty of the land and our interdependence on the it.

 

Kalyu 2014

“We painted to save it from the uranium mine . . . and to tell them there is underground stream. There’s no water on the surface to keep the dust down. That’s why we painted this big painting – to tell them and to teach others about the water system in our land “

–Ngalangka Nola Taylor, 2014

 

This extraordinary painting depicts a vast area in the Pilbara region of Western Australia that encompasses the Martu Aboriginal communities of Parnngurr and Punmu,

and represents the Martu Native Title detemination area in its entirety.  

Painted by nine artists from Parnngurr, it reflects the Martu people’s intimate knowledge of their desert country.

The work is a map in the most expansive sense.

Representing the landscape from below the ground to above the surface.

It brings together aspects of geography,

cultural knowledge

and seasonal time.

Through careful sequenced layers, the painting documents

the fragile, interdependent relationship

between different environmental elements,

indicating how the hidden underground waterways (kalyu) play

a vital role in the biodiversityof the areqa.

 

Kalyu was made in protest against uranioum mining exploration taking place on the edge of Karlamilyi National Park, which continues today. The national park is exempt from the 2002 Martu native title determination yet is considered by the artists to be

the ‘heart of martu Country’.

 

My poem written many years ago but still relevant today.

ghost of terra nullius

(in the search for a nuclear waste dump)

i arrived at Newtown community centre

free coffee  plenty of flyers  lots of chatter

and then sat as a welcomed outsider

beckoned by an email  that plucked the right chord

(amidst all the other vibrations including

marine parks   fracking   dumping  our reef)

a woman from Muckaty country stood 

quoted a prominent politician

why on earth can’t people in the middle of nowhere

accept low and intermediate level waste

and then she faced us 

unfortunately the already converted

and she answered his question

this is not nowhere mister politician

this on your Canberra map might look remote 

and empty

out of sight   out of mind 

this is not uninhabited space

this is somewhere   a sacred somewhere

we are here in this back of beyond 

our ancestors breathe and live in the red dust 

we are the land   our dreaming

our journey   our story 

this land is our song

the journal we write

the pictures we paint

this red earth is home to our people

creator and  creation 

no separation for us 

do not come here mister politician 

treading this desert

puts red soil on the soles of your shoes

and you wouldn’t want that

red dust gets into your soul 

makes you feel somewhere

it might choke you when the wind blows

here our horizon is circular   shimmers its mirage 

our population is sparse

yes it gives you space 

for your uranium dump I hear you say

            but we have reason to revolt at ignorance

maralinga   jabaroo and we hear of chenobyl

            maybe just words to you

     

            our song is our blood poured forth

            our hearts pound for our children

            for us life is timeless 

            for you I sense a rage of time 

but we have our animals and our food 

we have our water  our soil

our precious billabongs and springs

they are not for your contamination

Beachcomber featuring Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Colleen Keating

colleen General, Poetry Collection now available , ,

 

 

Most gulls don’t bother to learn more than the simple facts of flight –

how to get from shore to food and back. 

For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. 

For this gull though, it was not eating that mattered, but flying. 

More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly.

– Richard Bach

 

A poet as beachcomber walks the beach, sometimes with pen and paper,

gathering sights and sounds, shells and stones, scents and seagull scenes.

Yet it is not always about the waves and wind, for the sea  carries the stories of the world;

how it connects and disconnects, how it gives and takes, reveals how we treat it. Humanity is always present in its deep moans and its dance of exaltation. When you listen, the ocean has much to say. Pick up Beachcomber  and, like Jonathan Livingston Seagull, these poems will take you flying.

 

 

Colleen Keating is a Sydney poet. Her

      poetry explores the paradox and wonder

of nature, the realities of life, of inequality,

injustice and the increasing threat to our

environment. This is her sixth collection of

poetry. For Colleen, poetry is vocational.

            I not so much choose it as my medium

of expression as much as it chooses me.

Awareness, mindfulness and an unperishing

sense of wonder are my guides.

 

 

Launch of a new book, Sandhill Island 75 by Jo van Kool

colleen General , , , , ,
Congratulations
Jo van Kool on the launch of her new book Sandhill Island 75 .A quintessential Australian conservation story. I was honoured to join with Barry Melville, Director of Radio 2RPH to assist in this .
   
Sandhill Island 75 is inspired by the late John Sinclair, who fought to save Fraser Island from sand mining and maintain its pristine beauty. Set in the 1970s on an imaginary island off the NSW coast, the story chronicles the ideological clash between conservationists and economic rationalists.
Central characters include aging artist Jim (inspired by Ian Fairweather who spent his final years living on Bribie Island) and 18-year-olds Tracey and Steve also inhabit the story.
It was a warm welcoming launch twith writers, poets, and interested friends enjoying comraderie, wine and nibbles at the Lane Cove Municipal Library. It was also very special to launch her new poetry book Here and There.
Thanks to Ginninderra Press and thanks to Library for their hospitality.

In memory of Uvalde’s children by Colleen Keating

colleen General ,

 

As I think of those families mourning the children who died in the Uvalde Elementary School mass shooting in Texas I find myself reflecting on the shining eyes of my Grandchildren: whispering to me about the gift they have made for their Mum for Mothers Day, describing to me how they think they saw the Easter bunny,  the light in their eyes as they open the birthday gifts we bring.  I think of the love I have for them and how I would do anything to protect them from evil that lurches about and my heart weeps for the Grandparents and their lost grandchildren  in the Uvalde Massacre and who have to standby powerless watching their sons and daughters grapple with the loss of a child.  

Poetry can not stop the pain, but poetry can give words to addressing  the agony.  it can stand quietly by for those who are experiencing wrenching heartbreak at this time.

In memory of Uvalde’s children

 our once big world   now a global village
with space and time a lillyput in a satellite realm
is real its song of humanity
its agonising cry

today’s message carries
visions of a school shooting
school photos only left–
tiny faces peering out
their shining eyes
show all the little dreams
children dream
and strip to nakedness
a whole nation

staring once again at emptiness
we are the witness
with adults bent over in pain
– many in foetal position
holding their bodies
from its bloodbath

it is said giving attention
is the rarest and purest sense of generosity

focus on
a small town  a primary school
a classroom
children
focus on
the good
alive in the agony of dissent
weaving
weaving in