I had a mate come to see me yesterday. He is a photographer and is here in the Central Highlands of Victoria taking pictures and researching the Fryers Town area. In the 1850s Fryers Town was another gold mining shanty town. There were no police nor law and order. It was there before the Cobb and Co coach route started. I live on the old Cobb and Co route in Taradale. It is now called Davy Street here. My friend Ken is tracking the old road that went through Taradale and up over Fryers ridge to the west and down again into Fryers Town. From there the coach continued on to the gold mining town of Castlemaine. The old route is difficult to see, both because of age and because it was sluiced for alluvial gold, probably in the early 1900s. However, when the coach was running people built their shanties along the track and at this time of the year the daffodils are beginning to poke through and flower, marking the old road. I don't suppose it was a road, more like a rutted track. This has helped Ken plot the track of the old coach road to Castlemaine.

The area is littered with the remains of old towns. For example there is Irishtown that is not too far from me. The remains of Irishtown is in what is now called the Fryers Ranges State Forest. The area was was deforested in the gold rush days of the nineteenth century. The trees have grown back. They are mainly long leaved box, and stringy bark eucalyptus. The are not large trees as the country is poor and typically gold mining country. The average rainfall is about 650 millimetres a year although it has been a lot less in the last couple of years.

I slept in today because according to the weather forecast there would be no frost. They were wrong and my lemon trees endured another frost. I usually get up and hose them down before the sun rises. They lived through last year when we had twenty consecutively frosts at least. By the time spring arrived they were severely damaged. I pruned off the dead bits and they survived. I will have to cover the asparagus with straw soon because frost bitten asparagus spears are not very nice to eat. The spears start to grow in August here in Taradale. August is the last month of winter.

Tomorrow is my birthday. I went to the eye doctor this morning in Bendigo. I've got glaucoma and it wasn't diagnosed by my optometrist. It was only when I changed optometrists that it was finally discovered. Luckily it is under control. I had a peripheral vision test as well this morning. They're like torture and I hate doing them. I have to put in eye drops each night before going to bed. The trouble with that is I can't read in bed. I asked my eye specialist, Andrew Atkins, if I needed to keep using the eye-drops. He said you don't if you don't mind going blind.

I was home by about 1:30pm and I started up the ride-on for the first time since February earlier in the year. I have a lot of Cape weed because the bees fertilized it last year. Bees like Cape weed because it provides them with early protein in the form of pollen to raise young. I am looking forward to raising some queens this year from a very good hive of bees I had last season. They were good bees and I took about 50 kilograms of honey from them. The queen in that hive is a very good layer of eggs and the bees are quiet.

Australian Civilian Surgical Teams Vietnam 1964 - 1972

To commemorate the service of the South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) Civilian Medical/ Surgical Teams in South Vietnam 1964 to 1972.

As an Australian Government initiative, civilian nurses, doctors and allied health professionals volunteered to give their time, skills and expertise to care for the sick and injured Vietnamese people.

445 skilled people gave service under challenging working conditions and often their lives were at risk.

These visiting civilian medical/surgical teams were also called upon to provide care to some Australian Defence Force and United States Veterans.

Ba Ria

Bien Hoa

Long Xuyen

Vung Tau

At 10.30am on August 17th 2007 in the Memorial Garden, Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne, a commemorative plaque will be dedicated to the men and women who gave much to the embattled South Vietnam people in their designated areas.

Australian Surgical Teams in South Vietnam

Time is flying and it's true what they say, the older you get the faster time flies. Last night I had dinner with Barbara Sutherland who was a civilian radiographer who worked in the Long Xuyen hospital. Barbara was part of the old South East Asia Treaty Organization's effort to help Vietnamese civilians in the early stages of the war in Vietnam.

Barbara arrived in Long Xuyen in October 1966 and returned home to Australia in April 1967. She revisited Long Xuyen in 2005 and again in May 2007. She said the hospital in Long Xuyen was immaculate in 2005 but has since has not been so well kept. Barbara showed us lots of photograph of Long Xuyen as it was in May 2007.

Beryl McLachlan was another member of a SEATO surgical team present at the dinner, which was an informal one. Beryl lived in Long Xuyen from September 1967 until September 1968. She was there during the Communist Tet Offensive that began at the end of February 1968. In those days she was known by her maiden name of Beryl Nichols. During the Tet Offensive Beryl and other members of the team were moved to Vung Tau and Bien Hoa although there was no uprising in Long Xuyen itself. Beryl was a medical scientist and worked in haematology and biochemistry.

The Australian War Memorial has made an audio CD of an interview that Barbara Sutherland gave of her experiences in South Vietnam.

It's been a warm sunny winter's day in Taradale. The cape weed is getting untidy around the place but the bees love it when it flowers. It provides much need early protein for them to raise young bees. The hive has been dormant for a couple of months now and soon the queen will start laying eggs and the young lava will need to be fed. That's what the protein is for. I don't spray chemicals around the property because they would end up in the honey. Still I'll have to cut some of the cape weed because it is getting too thick.

Vietnam Veterans Day 2007

Vietnam Veterans Day falls on the 18 August, which is the anniversary of Australia's Battle of Long Tan that took place on August 18 1966 in a rubber plantation in Phouc Tuy Province South Vietnam. Eighteen young Australians were killed as they held fast against a large enemy force. Had they not done so Australia would have suffered many casualties.

This year we are having two special guests attending our commemoration ceremony at Kyneton in the Victorian Central Highlands. One is former 2nd Lieutenant David Sabben who was the platoon commander of 12 Platoon 'D' Company 6 Royal Australian Regiment. Dave is our guest speaker at the commemoration service.

Our second special guest is former RAAF fighter pilot Garry Gordon Cooper DFC. Garry was a forward air controller who was seconded to the USAF and flew small Cessna 0-1E aircraft known as Bird Dogs. The one he flew now hangs in the Pensacola Navy Museum in Florida. Garry was in South Vietnam in 1968 and he will speak about his experiences of the war. Australia provided 36 pilots who were forward air controllers during the Vietnam War, Australia's longest.

Honey Bees

It's been cold here for Australia. It's winter we can't complain. My half a million honey bees are tucked away in their hives. If it's sunny they fly and collect pollen where they can. Bees are marvelous creatures. They have been around for over two million years. I find that fact humbling. I have to get busy now and start painting their new hives. I have twenty eight boxes to paint and I have to build about 160 new wooden frames. The bees have been living on the honey I left in their hives. I also put some irradiated pollen in the top of their boxes so see them through the winter. My bees are in a good location in Taradale, Victoria. It won't be long and I have to get them to build this year's new queen bees.

I think it's g0od that so many young people want to reduce poverty. What we first have to do is put structures in place to reduce corruption so the the money gets to where it is intended.