The Last Great Frontier

Organic Farmshare at the Currumbin Eco Village Open Day

2010-09-24T10:38:00.001+10:00

Organic Farmshare had a market stall at the highly successful Currumbin EcoVillage 2010 Open Day held on Sunday 12th September (more pics here). Organic Farmshare is a new public company whose prospectus is expected to be approved by ASIC and released shortly. It is an opportunity to own part of a farm just inside NSW, which is expected to be purchased late in 2010. At least 200 shareholders are needed at startup, and 700 is targetted for full realization of the farm. Expansion to more farms are envisaged as more shareholders buy in.

Shareholders have access to its organically sound produce, which will be transported to the Gold Coast.
A share is expected to cost $4,000. There is an option to pay by $400 deposit plus $158 per month over 2 years.
Shareowners may stay on the farm in holiday accommodation for a few days each year.

More details -

will be available when the prospectus is released
see their website,
attend a "Kitchen Table Talk" presentation - dates and locations are notified here. Email to reserve a spot, and obtain the address. (Edit 14/09/10: I attended one at Isle of Capri, and am pleased to note that this is an very interesting information and discussion evening, with no "hard sell" at all. These folk seem to hate "corporate hard sell" as much as I do.)

Commuting by electric bike. Fast, Fun - Go Green!

2010-05-18T15:35:00.003+10:00

A lovely promotional advert made in the USA in 2007.
Steps, to do, mate:

Watch this ad and get all enthusiastic
Get one:

Buy one eg off Ebay, or
Buy a bike and add a kit onto it to electrify it. I can help you there. See my Electric Pedro conversion service.

QLD NSW QLD NSW :)

2010-04-25T16:48:00.005+10:00

ODO 2031km :)
(From my mobile phone) ... posted immediately after taking the pic.

ANZAC day, 2010. My electric bike is for months old and I have taken the opportunity to take in ANZAC day events down at Currumbin and also finally prove that I can cruise from Labrador down to the NSW border and back. I set out somewhat rugged up at 6am, too late for the dawn services, but I shall do better next year. As I passed Surfers Paradise the attendees were heading away from the service there. At Palm Beach, I switched off the electric power and cruised slowly down the beachside tracks via peddle power only.

Apart from a minor detour to cruise down beside the Coolangatta airport sideroad to watch aircraft, I kept to the beachside, as per my usual preference.

By 8:30 I had cruised the Snapper Rocks headland, and then crossed the border to spend an hour cruising the sleepy backstreets and inlets.

By 10am it was time to start moving back north. I returned to Palm beach, mainly via peddle power at a leisurely 10 to 15km/hr, with an occasional help from e-power on uphill or stronger upwind sections.

On the way I stopped to watch the 11pm ANZAC march at Currumbin. It was a really great little march, just about 400m from Thrower Park to the RSL. A good contingent of marchers and equally good crowd of onlookers materialised 20 minutes before the start of the parade. The march proceeded. The onlookers clapped. It was very dignified, almost casual, yet formal and quite moving in its simplicity. You need to be there ...

One gentleman marched to represent World War One servicemen. I shall guess that he might be an officer of the RSL, as all WWI servicemen have now passed away. The ranks of the WWII servicemen are of course thinning out these days too. The final contingent were from the latest Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns. This now represents almost 100 years of warfare involving Australian servicemen.
I have put more pics up on Google Groups, covering almost the entire parade.

The idea was to keep e-power to a minimum for all riding south of Palm Beach, as I have e-cruised to there and back before, so I knew I had sufficient battery to journey there and back by e-power alone. This is about 44km by my fairly direct route. I ran the battery out recently in 52km hard powering, so I have a fair idea of how far I can go when I use some peddle power.
(Of course, if I peddle entirely I can go any distance, but the objective is to have an easy day without too much effort, and have some e-power to get the last 5 kms home, rather than have to peddle entirely the last bit home.)

Total distance today: over 80km and out for about 9 hours, mostly in sun or light cloud. I wear good head cover, but can feel mild burn on arms tonight as I write the text of this blog.

Zero Waste: the Clean Bin Project

2010-03-04T07:53:00.003+10:00

I am really looking forward to the release of this movie.

Taking out the Trash- The Clean Bin project (trailer1) from Grant Baldwin Videography on Vimeo.

Driven: Shai Agassi's Audacious Plan to Put Electric Cars on the Road

2009-08-19T20:48:00.000+10:00

Driven: Shai Agassi's Audacious Plan to Put Electric Cars on the Road: "Driven: Shai Agassi's Audacious Plan to Put Electric Cars on the Road".

Will Australia become "a Better Place"? Let's hope so.

Inhabitat Contortionist Folding Bike Rolls Up Smaller Than a Wheel

2009-08-06T16:27:00.000+10:00

Inhabitat "Contortionist" Folding Bike Rolls Up Smaller Than a Wheel: August 5, 2009

Terrafugia: private car / aeroplane

2009-08-02T19:41:00.002+10:00

>Is this cool or what!

The Transition is expected to be released in 2011. The estimated purchase price is US$194,000.

Moon landing + 40 years

2009-07-21T23:09:00.002+10:00

Forty years ago today, Neil Armstrong & buzz Aldrin stepped onto the moon. Where were you? I certainly know where I was. I remember it well.

I had a sore throat, so I missed school and spent the day at home. I probably would have stayed home anyway, as I wanted to listen in to as much of the live radio broadcast as possible. I was more interested than most, as I had been very interested in astronomy since about 1965 when I was 11, and saw Fireball XL5 on our first TV. Soon after I attended a few night sessions at the observatory owned by the amateur Whangarei Astonomical Society, and was taken there to look through their telescope a few times by a very kind senior member, Mr Kerr.

At that time got a transistor radio, so at night I would spend hours listening in to the first pirate radio, and more interestingly, to short-wave stations from all round the world. I got to know the times when the BBC and Voice of America stations transmitted towards New Zealand.

Soon after we moved back to Wellington. At my school there we had an American history teacher in 1969, Peter Maunder. He took us to the US embassy to check out their library. When the Apollo 11 mission was approaching, Voice of America advertised availability of a Moon Landing information pack from US Embassies. I posted a letter ordering it, and got it a few days before launch. It included a program tracker: a plasticy double layered round device with an aperture in the front layer, so you could read programmed events written on the bottom layer. There was a metal grommet in the centre so the front could be spun round relative to the back, to expose the program through the aperture, hour by hour as the mission progressed. I wish I had kept that tracker, as it would have significant interest value today.

I would never have thought that after Apollo 17, no one would go back to the moon. In those days I thought we would have been colonising it by now. However, since then some of us have learned a lot more about ourselves, and space, and what our urgent priorities should be. Fireball XL5 and the conquest of space were nice escapist dreams for childhood. Those memories remain, but that was another time, a long time ago. There is an enormous amount to do right here on Earth, if we are ever to be in any condition to venture back out into space in any sort of useful and meaningful way, and I cannot see that we will ever have the capability to actually get to any other inhabitable body anyway. Its time to concentrate on looking after this little planet and making seriously long-term plans for true sustainability, right here.

Across the ocean in a pedal-powered submarine - tech - 28 January 2009 - New Scientist

2009-06-21T12:13:00.002+10:00

Across the ocean in a pedal-powered submarine - tech - 28 January 2009 - New Scientist

Ciamillo designed a carbon-fibre "tail" for divers, called the Lunocet. Modelled on Fish's CAT scans of dolphin flukes, the Lunocet has a hydrofoil profile, like an underwater wing. "As dolphins move their tails up and down, they create a forward-directed lift," says Fish. This lift becomes thrust, and lots of it: dolphins have been clocked at 54 kilometres per hour. They can turn 80 per cent of their energy into thrust, compared with a paltry 3 per cent or so for unaided human swimmers and about 10 per cent for people wearing ordinary swim fins.
(This article was saved in January, but lost in my cyberspace until now! I wonder how this project is coming along.)

'She can do it': Teen's sailing adventure - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

2009-06-19T00:56:00.002+10:00

'She can do it': Teen's sailing adventure - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

While 16 is somewhat young, it is certainly not too young to achieve this. How old were Hannibal and Alexander the Great when they were commanding armies and conquering the world? As long as she has the experience, which apparently she has, and her parents and other judge that she has the maturity of mind, there is no reason why she cannot succeed, and have a very inspirational time of her life.

And that is probably the perfect size and type of yacht for her to go round in too.

Best of luck Jessica.

Ocean rowers: what do they REALLY do out there?

2009-04-29T13:32:00.004+10:00

This post is really just a 'heads up' at this stage ...

Now that Olly Hicks, of Flying Carrot fame, has got taken ashore in New Zealand, I must stop procrastinating, and get round to writing up a waffle on my take of the exploits of ocean rowers I have kept tabs on in the past year or two, ie

* Roz Savage crossing the Pacific in stages.
* James Castrission & Justin Jones, Crossing the Ditch (ie the Tasman Sea, Australia to New Zealand)
* The late Andrew McAuley and his fatal attempt to cross the ditch further South,
* Olly's attempt to circumnavigate the planet even further South, via the Southern Ocean

Outside.online reports from the frontier

2009-04-27T13:17:00.004+10:00

Outside.online's Top 10 Adventure Twitters is another great place to find adventurers, probably even a better place than here, presumably because the operator of that site has more time to devote than I do (which would not be hard).

I know, I know, Katie Brown did not make their top 10, but she IS in the site somewhere, and climbing a tree is good too :-).

Steph Davis is their #2 and some of her movies on her site are great. She does some cool climbs, with definitely over "three feet of air" in most of her jumps.

Helen Baxter

2009-04-23T19:40:00.000+10:00

Feature: The geek squad by Olivia Kember | New Zealand ListenerIt seems that Helen Baxter and husband were born on the frontier. Interesting article, eg "They view with satisfaction the internet’s rout of traditional business models."

Cruising Scarier than Somali pirates - the real danger in our oceans

2009-04-11T17:30:00.000+10:00

Plastic: Scarier than Somali pirates - the real danger in our oceans. What is floating around the eastern corner of a 10-million-square-mile oval known as the North Pacific subtropical gyre? ... and the other similar gyres in each of the other of the world's oceans.

More clashes between cultures and nations

2009-01-04T22:35:00.000+10:00

I have linked to Mahesh Rajasuriya on Facebook, after he read my article 'Global Enslavement or the Collapse of Western Economic Model' and emailed me about it. Naturally I decided to check his background out, and subsequently I emailed him:

'I have read a little background at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6703831204 and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamil_Tiger. We hear about the Tamil Tigers from time to time here. Are you against their aim of "The creation of a separate Tamil state in the north and east of Sri Lanka"?'

His answer is captured here in the interests of more enlightenment, especially to those that read any of my stuff, because it is giving me food for thought, and an insight into yet another struggle on this planet. I have stuff to say about this, and must get it down here soon, perhaps after a day or three of reflection:

Dear David,

I took longer than usual to reply because I wanted to do it after careful thought. Today every citizen in Sri Lanka is very concerned of the international image of our country.

I can write up a book in reply to your question, but here are some important points. It is up to you to synthesise the answer.

* Many years back I strongly supported the Chechen "freedom fight". I was passionate about their cause. But suddenly one day I thought: why I support Chechens? I did not have a good answer. I did not know much about their history. It was just because they were the minority, underdogs in the fight, that I supported them. When I was in Melbourne recently for two years, I felt many Ozzies feel the same way about the Tamil cause in Sri Lanka.
* Tamils are a great nation but unfortunately they do not have a country of their own in the world. It is not a surprise that all Tamils consciously or subconsciously would support formation of a homeland, like the Jewish people did.
* The LTTE (Tamil Tigers), current leaders in the fight for a separate state for Tamils in Sri Lanka, would not have an existence if the war ended. They will have to continue fighting just to stay in power, and if they form a country, they will have to use military rule. One Tamil friend of mine confessed that he did support LTTE, but when they killed one of his university teachers, a strong human rights activist, he realised what their agenda was.
* Sinhala and Tamil cultures are fundamentally different from the Western culture. Further, Sinhala and Tamil cultures have many unique features on their own. Amalgamation of these cultures in an artificial way is a crime. If it is successfully done, then we would have a new nation, be it Tigon, or Liger, or whatever, that would look like the current Aborigine nation in Australia, a nation whose cultural backbone is broken.
* Natural amalgamation of the cultures is a wonderful phenomenon in the history of humankind. There are people in a certain part of the district I am currently working in that have a Sinhala name and a Tamil name, can speak both languages, or speak Sinhala and write Tamil. Along the A9, highway from Kandy to Jaffna, there are villages where the travellers, especially truck drivers, used to rest on their long journey from Colombo to Jaffna in the olden days. There was a unique culture in these villages. It was difficult to spot if they were Tamil or Sinhala without careful scrutiny. They ate, sang, traded and also slept with the Tamils.
* Many elements that thought Westernisation is the solution to our plights deliberately instigated racial hatred in 1980s. Many Tamils were killed, burnt alive and had their property looted. But what nobody knows is how thousands of Sinhala people risked their lives to protect many Tamil families. And many more silently wept inside.
* The Sinhala, as well as the Tamil, nations have gone through a great transformation during the last quarter of the century. True, we have not bridged our gaps yet. But there is a strong feeling that we will. Learning Tamil is mandatory for every child today. There has not been a single racially motivated killing since 1983.
* Sri Lanka or Ilankai, in Tamil, has a bright future. It has to evolve its own way of dealing with today's challenges. We have been great in the management of environment and natural resources in the history. If we are to successfully cope with the current challenges of global warming and economic collapse, we need to use some of our cultures' inherent qualities.
* Shall we march ahead with so much hope and dreams or shall we divide and create pure Tamil and Sinhala states?

Kind regards,
Mahesh.

This lady can do ANYTHING on a bike!

2008-07-19T01:51:00.001+10:00

My Mobile Hut project

2008-05-15T21:27:00.000+10:00

In order to present as complete a blog as I can of citizens of the Frontier or at least the left - field, I had better add this reference to the year (2005) when I lived in a 7' by 4' box trailer. My days of hanging out in the ocean are long behind me, and even then I had no desire to live the experience alone. Nowadays I am happy to sit in my hut and look out at it from there. The hut project was partly an exercise in living in as basic and minimalist style as possible, while still being able to engage in a professional business, job or trade profession, and without looking or behaving like a homeless hobo after any length of time; ie its not hard to do for a few days or a week or two, but its worth going through at least 4 seasons in order to get a proper picture. I remember being inspired by Steve's Behemoth bicycle and the Microship vessel, and deciding to do something far more simplistic and bereft of as much gadgetry and mod-cons as possible. Somehow a portable black and white TV still crept in for a while though.
A few pictures of my Mobile Hut project survive. I suppose that the modern thing to do would be to set up a website to more fully document the project. I shall add that item into the "Things To Do Real Soon Now" basket.

Steven Roberts: Nomadic Research Labs

2008-05-15T20:57:00.000+10:00

This is the first "Last Great Frontiers -man" that I read about on the 'net several years ago. He seemed to be into a sustained simple mobile lifestyle in a way that interested me, except he seemed to be quite focussed on using technology, especially comms and internet technology to remain linked-in in realtime to the rest of the planet. (This is similar to The Ultimate Taxi, which probably should have its own blog entry here).

Steve's projects include

Winnebiko & BEHEMOTH bicycle adventure - (17,000 miles around the US from 1983 to 1991)
Microship Expedition
(amphibian pedal/solar/sail micro-trimaran, 1992-2002)
Bubba the kayak
(with location tracking and solar power, 2003-2006)
S/V Nomadness
(nautical substrate for open-ended voyaging, 2007 and beyond)

Get more from Steve's website... and check out the first comment to this, where I have reprinted a sentiment that I am sure is echoed somewhere in all the journals/blogs of the other Frontiersmen featured here.

Roz Savage

2008-05-15T20:18:00.001+10:00

Following her successful crossing of the Atlantic in 2006, Roz Savage is bidding to be the first solo woman to row across the Pacific Ocean from California to Australia.

Best of British, Roz!

More info is at the Roz Savage website

Pete Bethune: Earthrace

2008-05-15T20:16:00.000+10:00

An attempt to circumnavigate the world in record time in a biodiesel powered speedboat. Skipper Pete Bethunes' dream has always been to increase awareness of the use of renewable fuels and it is important to him to reach as many young people as possible.
Earthrace is a 24m (78ft) tri-hull wavepiercer that has been designed and built specifically to get the record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe. She is an advanced endurance vessel, capable of submarining up to 7m (23ft) underwater as she powers across oceans.

More: Earthrace website

Greg Kolodziejzyk: Pedal The Ocean

2008-05-15T20:11:00.000+10:00

In Dec. of 2009, Greg is planning on pedaling his human powered boat "WiTHiN" 3000 miles across the Atlantic ocean in less than 43 days setting a new world record for the fastest human powered Atlantic crossing. Pedal The Ocean explores the limits of what is possible with human power.
Our modern sedentary lifestyle is putting our kids at risk of becoming the first generation that will have a life expectancy shorter than that of their parents. Worldwide, between 10 and 15% of our children are obese and 60% of the general population is overweight.

He looks like having a better chance of success that our ill-fated plans to windsurf around the sun back in the last century. Maybe someone will get around to it before this one ends.

More: