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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: Australasia; Published: 04 July 2020; Hits: 10607

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The cruise up to Brisbane (about eight hundred kilometres) gave us an opportunity to find our way around the ship and to sample its various pastimes. The ship made it's way along the Brisbane to the Brisbane Cruise Terminal. It was some time since either of us had been in Brisbane so we went into town to see what's changed and to do a little shopping. We needed more wine for our cabin and I needed something that would float for the boat building competition on board (maybe empty wine bottles?); as well as some tools like: box cutters; string; and duct tape. See our final design later on.

above: Heading down the Brisbane River at a crawl - but no tugs
below: Brisbane CBD.

We found some previously unseen buildings in the CBD and new construction under way along the river. The Art Gallery, now close to the river, was also new to me.

Queensland Art Gallery

The Queensland Gallery has a fine collection of works by iconic 19th and early 20th Century Australian artists (Lambert, Bunny etc) that complement those in the Melbourne Sydney and Adelaide collections. There are also a few well known British; French; other European; and American artists represented. Overall it's a very nice collection but no other Australian State can compete with the Victorian collection.

The Queensland Gallery

Mackay

On the way up, through the Coral Sea, we had an unexpected diversion back into Australian coastal waters for two medical evacuations. Someone had suffered a serious heart attack and another had slipped in the shower and broken his hip - or so his wife explained to us later.

She was unable to accompany him and was obliged to complete the cruise alone - with two pre-purchased liquor allowances: quel dommage.

Two helicopter medical evacuations to Mackay - one heart attack and one fall in the bathroom - broken hip.

The helicopters don't land - the patient is sedated; strapped to a stretcher; and hoisted up - a bit like an Assumption (Protestants may need to Google this procedure).

En route again - passing through the Lousuade Archipelago on the way.

Once the extractions were over we were well off course and several hours behind schedule - so we took off at 23 knots towards Rabaul - passing through the Lousuade Archipelago on the way.

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Travel

Canada and the United States - Part1

In July and August 2023 Wendy and I travelled to the United States again after a six-year gap. Back in 2007 we visited the east coast and west coast and in 2017 we visited 'the middle bits', travelling down from Chicago via Memphis to New Orleans then west across Texas, New Mexico, Nevada and California on our way home.

So, this time we went north from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington, and then into Canada. From Vancouver we travelled by car, over the Rockies, then flew east to Toronto where we hired a car to travel to Ottawa and Montreal. Our next flight was all the way down to Miami, Florida, then to Fort Lauderdale, where we joined a western Caribbean cruise. At the end of the cruise, we flew all the way back up to Boston.

Seems crazy but that was the most economical option. From Boston we hired another car to drive, down the coast, to New York. After New York we flew to Salt Lake City then on to Los Angeles, before returning to OZ.

As usual, save for a couple of hotels and the cars, Wendy did all the booking.

Breakfast in the Qantas lounge on our way to Seattle
Wendy likes to use two devices at once

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Meaning of Death

'I was recently restored to life after being dead for several hours'

The truth of this statement depends on the changing and surprisingly imprecise meaning of the word: 'dead'.

Until the middle of last century a medical person may well have declared me dead. I was definitely dead by the rules of the day. I lacked most of the essential 'vital signs' of a living person and the technology that sustained me in their absence was not yet perfected.

I was no longer breathing; I had no heartbeat; I was limp and unconscious; and I failed to respond to stimuli, like being cut open (as in a post mortem examination) and having my heart sliced into. Until the middle of the 20th century the next course would have been to call an undertaker; say some comforting words then dispose of my corpse: perhaps at sea if I was travelling (that might be nice); or it in a box in the ground; or by feeding my low-ash coffin into a furnace then collect the dust to deposit or scatter somewhere.

But today we set little store by a pulse or breathing as arbiters of life. No more listening for a heartbeat or holding a feather to the nose. Now we need to know about the state of the brain and central nervous system. According to the BMA: '{death} is generally taken to mean the irreversible loss of capacity for consciousness combined with the irreversible loss of capacity to breathe'. In other words, returning from death depends on the potential of our brain and central nervous system to recover from whatever trauma or disease assails us.

Opinions and Philosophy

Australia's $20 billion Climate strategy

We can sum this up in a word:

Hydrogen

According to 'Scotty from Marketing', and his mate 'Twiggy' Forrest, hydrogen is the, newly discovered panacea, to all our environmental woes:

The Hon Scott Morrison MP - Prime Minister of Australia

"Australia is on the pathway to net zero. Our goal is to get there as soon as we possibly can, through technology that enables and transforms our industries, not taxes that eliminate them and the jobs and livelihoods they support and create, especially in our regions.

For Australia, it is not a question of if or even by when for net zero, but importantly how.

That is why we are investing in priority new technology solutions, through our Technology Investment Roadmap initiative.

We are investing around $20 billion to achieve ambitious goals that will bring the cost of clean hydrogen, green steel, energy storage and carbon capture to commercial parity. We expect this to leverage more than $80 billion in investment in the decade ahead.

In Australia our ambition is to produce the cheapest clean hydrogen in the world, at $2 per kilogram Australian.

Mr President, in the United States you have the Silicon Valley. Here in Australia we are creating our own ‘Hydrogen Valleys’. Where we will transform our transport industries, our mining and resource sectors, our manufacturing, our fuel and energy production.

In Australia our journey to net zero is being led by world class pioneering Australian companies like Fortescue, led by Dr Andrew Forrest..."

From: Transcript, Remarks, Leaders Summit on Climate, 22 Apr 2021

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