Past Blogs

eDog-14 DOES DAD THINK I\'M STUPID? May 17, 2012 Posted by Tommie

Woof
I think you will agree that I never complain about Dad. I know what side my dog biscuits are buttered on. So please take this in the spirit it is written.
In Dad's latest blog he says "Meanwhile Tommie is trying to make sense of boxes and my spring cleaning. He recognises the different quality of the pack up. He isn't leaving my side until he knows he is part of the future."
Does he think I am stupid? What have we been blogging about for 3 months....

5 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog, Swag Blog

eSwag-14 THE ITALIAN PENTHOUSE May 15, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Just at this time I feel like my life is on hold. I am all set to hit the road but am waiting for some important bits and pieces to complete my home on wheels.
It is as if the Gods who watch the soap opera of our lives in hysterics each night, especially at the bits where we pretend to be in charge of our own destiny, have clicked the pause button.
As I wait for signage and other items to arrive I am enjoying reducing my possessions to fit into my Adventure Camper . The...

18 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog, Swag Blog

eDog-13 I AM POWERLESS OVER COWS May 8, 2012 Posted by Tommie

WOOF
Dad and I went to Mt Wilson the other day. It was great and I met some nice dogs. But then, on the walk back to the car, there they were. About ten of them. COWS! All content and grazing on grass without a care in the world. Or so they thought.
When I see a cow every inch of my body strains for release. I seek only to control the enormous animal. I don't have much of a say in what happens in my daily life but I can herd a 3 ton beast. I love it. No.
I NEED IT!
The dingo...

8 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog, Swag Blog

eSwag-13 ON THE EDGE OF THE WORLD May 6, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Mt Wilson, in the northern Blue Mountains, sits firmly in the world of grand estates and manicured gardens. Symphonies are held in the gracious gardens while displays of autumn leaves hover somewhere between refined and psychedelic. Red maples play with yellowing ones against a background of deep evergreen exotics in a show the equal of a Monet garden.
As with most pictures of serene natural beauty it is a function of catastrophic geological events. Volcanic intrusions capped most of the...

19 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog, Swag Blog

eGuest-4 DARYL FROM OODNADATTA May 3, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Daryl is a meditation teacher and cattle farmer from Oodnaddata, a small community west of the Simpson Desert.
It is fair to say Daryl is to the alternative health industry of Oodnadatta what Genghis Khan was to Mongols. In this, his first podcast, Daryl speaks of the importance of 'letting go'.
I have let Daryl speak unedited but warn that some of his language can be a little strong.
DARYL FROM OODNADATTA MEDITATION TAPES - 1
...

23 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog, Swag Blog

eDog-12 COMING HOME May 2, 2012 Posted by TOMMIE

Woof.
Dad and I go got back home late last night. Well it's not actually home anymore now we have our Adventure Camper.But it is still somewhere we can visit sometimes. Home is now on the road. I think are heading to the High Country of Victoria next or maybe the Warrumbungles in Northern NSW. The thing is we don't really know where we are going. .

Our new camper is wonderful. Dad has been talking about it for a long time and dreaming about it even longer. But things happen...

6 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog

eSWAG-12 BLOG ON BLOGGING - THREE MONTHS WRAP April 30, 2012 Posted by Raymond

The internet is a billiard break shot by a black swan , possibilities scattering into unimagined and unimaginable alignments. Just ask Julian Assange.
Five years ago, while still in 3G range, I pulled off on the side of the road about 50 kilometres from Coober Pedy. I had an appointment to skype an English colleague on the small Japanese Island of Shikoku. As the flies buzzed in the Australian desert, his kimono-wearing wife walked past and bowed to my laptop.
You...

23 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eSwag, Dog Blog

eDog-10 ROLLING OVER April 23, 2012 Posted by Tommie

While Dad was away on his last trip I stayed with Damien and Nicolas and the mob in Hermannsburg. I know them all now. There is Clarabel, Emmo, Jenise, Qintin and lots of others. I sleep on Jenise or Quintin's bed. When someone says 'get on your bed Tommie' I jump on their beds. That cracks everyone up.
I sleep outside mostly at night and bark at anyone who comes near the house like I own it.
The Hermannsburg dogs are really skinny. Because I am pretty big because...

6 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog

eSWAG-11 CONTACT & THE DINGO April 20, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Driving back on the Stuart Highway there is a glimpse of a dingo by the side of the road. Suddenly I am not alone. Eyes from another world are watching the car, the dingo's instinct working overtime. Am I friend or foe? Is there food or not?

I pull up slowly. The dingo stays within sight. On the boundary of its safety zone. Perhaps to that point where a gunshot could be avoided. He doesn't leave. Maybe it's the possibility of food. Or just plain curiosity....

25 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eSwag-11

eDog-9 SAD BUT BEAUTIFUL April 11, 2012 Posted by Tommie

Woof
Thank you for the dogs and people who sent emails last week. It was good to feel part of the pack again.
Anyway Dad and I are in Hermannsburg after a great drive up here. We are running a trip with a family. They were really happy when they found I was in the Toyota. They love me. Especially the 7 year old who is the youngest but they are all great people. When the car started I jumped on her mum's lap and they all laughed.
They have gone off to Palm Valley...

6 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eDog-9

eSWAG-10 VICTORY WITHOUT TRIUMPH IN HAY April 7, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Hay is situated half way along an old stock route called the Long Paddock that stretches from Echuca in Victoria to Wilcannia in New South Wales. It is a town with a history of welcoming travelers. Shearers arrived seasonally and swagmen intermittently.
During the Second World War trains unloaded hundreds of German Jews who, having escaped from the Nazis to England, were transported across the world to the outback town as enemy aliens. Sanity finally prevailed after Winston Churchill's...

20 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eSwag-10

eSwagVid-1 NOSKOPAR April 4, 2012 Posted by Raymond

NOSKOPAR

52 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, NOSKOPAR, SKIN CARE

Elder-1 ALISON HUNT - SENIOR DESERT WOMAN April 2, 2012 Posted by Raymond

The Desert Oak grows slowly in its first years, appearing to linger in an extended adolescence.
Beneath the surface the tap root furiously seeks the water table.

Sometime in the late 1940's, Alison Hunt was born in the small mission community of Areyonga. While the country traditionally belonged to the Malbunka family, it became a refuge for displaced Pitjantjatjara people. Alison's mother had walked...

28 Comments

Alison Hunt, Uluru, Electronic Swagman, Areyonga

eDog-9 I AM NOT ANGRY - JUST A LITTLE DISSAPOINTED March 31, 2012 Posted by Tommie

Woof
Dad has a lot of sayings. When I do something wrong like chase a postman or jump on the lounge, he says "I'm not angry, I am just a little disappointed in you Tom". It always Tom when I'm in trouble. I wish he'd just growl at me and get on with it.
Anyway, I only got one comment on my blog last week and it's left me feeling a bit flat. Now I know what Dad means because I'm not angry, I am just a little disappointed.
I know your only as good as your...

27 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog

eDog-8 HOLIDAY WITH THE CHOOKS March 26, 2012 Posted by Tommie

Woof
Thank you to Max who wrote my blog last week. It isn't that I can't write without Dad around, its just that he won't give me the website password. Anyway, I stayed with Steve and his family. We always have a great time.
Kiree is Steve's labrador and she is very friendly. We chase balls together and when there was a cold snap she let me sleep in her kennel.
Steve has a wife called Annette and daughters called Maddie and Mia and they all really like me....

2 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog

eSwag-9 EAGLE HAWK NECK March 25, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Eagle Hawk Neck is a narrow isthmus that separates the Port Arthur Penal Settlement from the rest of Tasmania. To an escaping convict it was a hundred metre barrier called the Dog Line where a collection of bull mastiffs and assorted mongrels spent their lives in chains, ready and willing to rip apart any escapee brave or desperate enough to attempt a crossing.
Eagle Hawk Neck is a magical place where squares of rock [or tessellated pavements] extend out from the coast like a chess...

30 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eSwag-9

eSwag-8 WHAT ABOUT THE HANDSOME PEOPLE? March 21, 2012 Posted by Raymond

You know when you are alone and your mind goes into crazy places and you think "Thank God no one knows what I am thinking" Well. This is the first of the series of
THANK GOD NO ONE KNOWS WHAT I AM THINKING.
I have never really had the ability to NOT say what I am thinking, maybe it's a form of Terretes without the swearing. Yes that's it. I have a "condition" and all these years I just thought I was incredibly rude. Turns out I needed help.
...

16 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog

eDog-7 MAX IN HAHNDORF March 21, 2012 Posted by Max

There is an old question regarding whether dogs are born with the ability to blog or it comes from their owners. Whatever the answer, Max has clearly benefited from his writer mum Heather's guidance in his Letter to Tommie. We thank them both.
Dear Tommie,

The other day, Mum took me to Hahndorf because it was such a perfect Autumn day. It was a sunny day with a cool edge and some of the trees were starting to turn red. Mum knows I like to go for a walk down the...

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog

eSwag-7 DRUGS & RADISHES March 14, 2012 Posted by Raymond

It will come as a terrible shock for those who know me to hear I embraced the drug culture in my youth. I know. Who'd have thought?

Standing by the Gundagai Bridge as the flooding Murrumbidgee River surges past the blurred memory of those times comes back to me, in as clear a focus as possible, given the state of semi-consciousness in which i lived for the greater part of a decade, or two.
To the left of where Tom sniffs right now is a work shelter. Sometime around 1973 I slept...

22 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eDog-7

eDog-6 MY NAME is TOM AND I AM AN OVER EATER March 9, 2012 Posted by Administrator

Woof
Well It had to come out. I have hinting at it in my last blogs. I AM A CHRONIC OVER-EATER.
I feel I can share it all now because I have just come back from getting weighed at the vets and I am 25.6 kilos. That's down from 29.9 kilos about 3 months ago. It hasn't been easy. I love food. I crave it. Even when I am shoveling breakfast down I am wondering where the next feed is coming from. When it's finished I chase the empty bowl around for 10 minutes with my nose in the...

14 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eDog-6

eDog-5 BOGGED AND STRANDED March 5, 2012 Posted by TOMMIE

Woof
We have had a great time since we left Alice Springs. Big rains were coming when we drove out of the town. Then in Uluru it poured all night. As I lay in bed I thought of the water rolling down the face of the rock and filling the little waterholes around it. In the olden days that would have meant fresh water for the people and their dingos like me.
We got bogged in Port Augusta. Dad drove off the road to sleep for the night and then reversed into slushy clay. We couldn't move...

6 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, Dog Blog

eSwag-6 BUTT NAKED IN MORGAN March 4, 2012 Posted by Administrator

When I rolled into the little town of Morgan, all I wanted was a Cornish pasty. Then it was so tasty all I wanted was another one. That meant I stayed in the bakery long enough to meet Joe.
After all the recent rain the first question on everyones lips out here is when the Murray River will break its banks.
How we got from there to the gross injustice of gay men being able to show their bums in public when Joe can't I don't know.
The Mardi Gras had...

24 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eSwag-6, Morgan

eDog-4 ON THE ROAD AGAIN February 26, 2012 Posted by TOMMIE

Woof
We have been on the road for a week or so. We drove up to Uluru and stayed with Alison Hunt who is a friend of our's. She let me sleep in Dad's room. I really like her. Dad is going to tell her story sometime. She told Dad that I was much better behaved than her dog who nips people all the time. Alison said he just loves fighting any chance he gets he's into it. She loves him though.
Anyway, to get to Uluru we headed up through Willcannia and I swam in the Darling River....

2 Comments

Dog Blog, The Electronic Swagman, Into the Blue, Ilpurla Trail.

eSwag-5 The CHEF, the ABORIGINALS, the BLOND & the BULL February 24, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Translated literally from the German, Schadenfreude means shameful pleasure . More loosely it is joy in another's misfortune. Like watching a vegan being told the macrobiotic rice was cooked in the same water that rehydrated the beef jerky.
As I drove from Uluru to Alice Springs I encountered another Schadenfreude moment. In a separate vehicle I followed Aboriginal elder Alison Hunt and her grandson Damien. Out the front of Curtin Springs Roadhouse a stray bull was lingering...

8 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman, eSwag-5

eGuest-2 THE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE AMANDA February 20, 2012 Posted by Anne Looby

The bio on Anne Looby says "Anne Looby is an Australian actress who won an AFI award for Simone De Beauvoir’s Babies. She has appeared in the TV classics A Country Practice, GP, Wildside and All Saints. She has a distinguished career in film, TV and theatre. She is married with two children and lives in Sydney."
I say Anne is one of life's gems. She is a woman of deep compassion and energy.

THE CAMPAIGN TO SAVE AMANDA
High Grade,...

Guest-2, Into the Blue, Electronic Swagman, Anne Looby

eSwag-4 A SADHU OF THE OUTBACK February 19, 2012 Posted by Raymond

AND ON THE 7th DAY ACCOUNTANTS CREATED THE BOTTOM LINE, discarding the fancy notions of The Enlightenment, The Renaissance and Mysticism as unquantifiable speculation. The opium of religion was replaced by the opium of consumption. Wars fought in both names were of equal ferocity.

Then just as you are actually starting to listen to the All Ordinaries Index, whatever that is, a spark torches the spreadsheet.
I was driving along the Olympic Highway on the way to Cootamundra. Just another...

18 Comments

Electronic Swagman, Into the Blue, Swagman, eSwag-4,

Dog Blog 3 TOMMIE, STEVE AND KIRA February 14, 2012 Posted by TOMMIE

Woof
Firstly I'd like to say thank you to everyone who commented on the blog, especially Lily, Amooti, Dubbo, Tinkerbell, Molly, Roxy and Max. Maybe we should start our own Facebook page.

Just one thing little thing. Dad has a way of finding out who gets the most hits on the blog. Well I got more than him and by a fair bit. Actually I got more than him and Fr. Kelly on the Guest Blog put together. I know he was a little upset because I could hear him saying ... or rather crying...

4 Comments

Dog Blog, The Electronic Swagman, Into the Blue

eSWAG 3 CONDOMS & BIRD SEED February 14, 2012 Posted by Raymond

CONDOMS AND BIRD SEED

Tom and I pulled up briefly in the little NSW country town of Junee. The stop was short & sweet like the pastry I picked up from the award-winning, and deservedly so, Junee Bakery.

This is clearly not a wealthy town but nor does it suffer from obvious social disadvantage. The local IGA store on pension day wasn't exactly Toorak, more shuffling uggies than the click-clack of designer heels, but at least the shops weren't boarded up along the main...

20 Comments

Electronic Swagman, Into the Blue, Swag Blog, Junee

Dog Blog 2 ADELAIDE AND BACK January 28, 2012 Posted by Raymond

Dad and I are just back from a week on the road. We went to Adelaide to look at our new 4WD trailer which will be ready in 8 weeks or so. It will be great for me because there's plenty of shade and places to sleep. Plus we will camp in forests and beaches and in the desert.

We seem to get on even better now than we used to. We don't have to talk that much or do master/dog things. It's more that we just hang out together. I know...

9 Comments

Dog Blog, Electronic Swagman, Into the Blue

eSWAG 2 GUNNING READY OR NOT January 22, 2012 Posted by Raymond

This was to me my first spoken blog but I sounded like John Howard ... worse ... I sounded like Billy MacMahon . I don't know why but when I get in front of a mic, even when I know it can be wiped, and theres no one around; the jaw freezes, the mind solidifies and I feel like my now dead aunty is going to give me a wet kiss on the cheek any minute. So my blogs will remain as the written word until I learn to use my normal voice.

...

23 Comments

Electronic Swagman, Into the Blue, Gunning

eGuest-1 The Nature of the Journey January 22, 2012 Posted by Fr. Michael Kelly SJ

Fr. Michael Kelly is my friend of 50 years. When we were 9 in the playground at St. Mary's School, North Sydney, I asked ... What do you want to be when you grow up Michael ? ... A priest was the immediate response. He never wavered from that conviction as all the other boys moved through the mandatory firemen and pirates stages.
I asked Michael to be the first guest blogger because the eSwag is about the journey, something Michael knows much about ......

4 Comments

Michael Kelly, Electronic Swagman

eSWAG 1 AN IDEA IS ANSWERED December 25, 2011 Posted by Raymond

Some ideas knock loudly on the door to your mind and demand immediate entry, although they are often the first to leave. The Electronic Swagman was not one of those. It lingered outside my daily life for decades, waiting patiently, never giving more than a polite but regular tap. The idea surfaced at a time when blogging sounded like an act best performed in private. Since then the internet has exploded and my life is spent on the road and in the bush . The time has come to...

8 Comments

Into the Blue, the Electronic Swagman,

Dog Blog 1 TOMMIE December 19, 2011 Posted by Tommie

My name is Tommie and I am a dog. Dad and I are off on another adventure soon. We always pretty well are. Dad and rust never sleep. But this will be a big one because we’ve sold our house. I will be sad to leave Blackheath. I’ll miss brown dog who lives next door, and Stuart and Snez but not their dog Freddy. Talk about small dog syndrome. He's like Napoleon stuffed into a terrier. I want to growl back but I like Stuart and Snez too much and they dote on him. Thats him in...

5 Comments

Electronic Swagman, eDogBlog, Into the Blue