Friday 31 October 2008

When is a mountain a mountain?

Today I delivered to Mount Cotton in Redlands Shire near Brisbane. Mount Cotton has many diverse attractions including a winery and breathtaking views across Moreton Bay and to the Gold Coast. I wanted to check out the winery to maybe do some wine tasting, but I was there for work. There is also a driver training centre in Mount Cotton. A couple of the idiot drivers I met on the roads would have been well served doing a course there. But back to place names, to call the place a mountain or mount is really stretching it. Mount indeed! I mean the my job site, which admittedly is higher than the surrounding plains, is at elevations of 20m above sea level! Where I come from that would be the top of the silt accumulating at the Chico River delta in the sea off Appari from all the topsoil flushing down our creeks and streams.
“How many years can a mountain exist?” before you can call it a mount?
The answer gayam, is obviously blowin’ in the moreton bay breeze.
I suppose if we do not look after our mountains there’ll come a time when they’ll be laid bare and get washed to the sea. So let’s help preserve our mountains, our forests, hill and dale, meadow and vale, our land our home.
DENR reports state that the UN ranked the Philippines as the 47th biggest contributor to global warming. CO2 emissions in the country reached an annual average of 41,000 million metric tons in the last decade. Forest fires contribute immensely to these emissions. These happen from February to May at the height of the dry season. Fires on average destroy 2,750 hectares of forest plantation in Central Luzon and account for at least 65 percent of deforestation in the last 15 years.
The Cordillera region supposedly loses about 130 hectares of forest cover to fires each year. And one of the main causes of forest fires is the kaingin system. Let’s do our bit. Oppose commercial logging. Oppose mining and quarrying. Prevent forest fires. Regulate kaingins and the use of fire as farming tool. Help make our mountains a sustainable resource that will last far into the future.
I was born on that mountain, that mountain’s my home…

Wednesday 29 October 2008

i've been everywhere man, not

I work for a delivery company. This suits me well because I'm one of those that Haggard sings about:
I'm on the run, the highway is my home.
Well I'm not exactly running from any Cain that I may have raised in yesteryears, but I'm running just the same. In our vernacular, I am of the TNT type: tabon-ng-tabon.
Anyway so this month I did deliveries in parts of Southeast Queensland: Ipswich, Brisbane, Scenic Rim etc, and might be going to North Queensland next month. This all depends on our clients.

A few years ago, I was going around New South Wales to various towns such as Cooma, Wyalong, Goulburn in the south and west. I even drove to the Snowy Mountains. However, that was in the middle of summer so no snow of course. But the views are spectacular there. Just like the mountains back home. There is also the highest town in Australia on top of that mountain range called Cabramurra. It's a small town - just like the restaurant village above Sayangan in Atok near the highest point of the Philippine highways system. It's breezy of course, and warm clothing is essential. More recently, I have ventured towards the northwest of NSW. Places like Manilla, Tamworth, Dubbo. Along the north coast I visited Byron Bay, Taree, Ballina and those numerous small towns that attract tourists all year round. Musical expeditions, and the need to run have brought my feet to Gympie and Jimbour in Queensland. I have been to Cairns in North Queensland and tasted the popular Bowen mangoes from there on one warm December day.
So many of these sojourns were not work related. I just have the 'urge for going, but I never seem to go'. It's a journey. Might meet you down the road.