Camp Granada

Back a couple days now from a week in the region north of Brisbane known as the Sunshine Coast. The name puzzled me, as for the first five days I saw neither sunshine nor a coast. In fact, during the first days the tropical rain showers were so relentless (Eastern Australia's having a massively wet Wet Season) I found myself humming the classic Allan Sherman song of the title.

Ani Tenzin drove me up, past tantalizing billboards enticing drivers to visit the late and lamented Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo. My desire to go there is strong, made even more so by the odd fact that the Dalai Lama recently gave a public talk at its amphitheater. Maybe in the week before I leave.

Before arriving at my hosts’, we stopped for lunch at the lush hilltop estate of Ani Tenzin’s friend Rob. This was one of those friendly, energetic, outdoorsy men you seem to frequently meet throughout Australia but with a decidedly unlikely story. Early in his life, Rob was a champion motorcycle racer. This evolved into overseeing three bike dealerships and sponsoring/nurturing young riders. Somehow in there, Rob encountered the Dharma and his lights switched on. Now we found him retired and singlehandedly building a small temple on his property, roughly between his hundred-tree olive orchard and the feeding station frequented by vivid Australian King Parrots. His intention is to finish the temple, build out modest men’s and women’s dormitories, and, when his own Sakya lama is not in residence, offer the space for retreat to other Dharma groups. Couple all this with the fact that Rob made the long drive down to Maroochydore to attend one of my Mongolian Buddhism talks and make a nice offering to the project and I am now happily calling Rob a friend as well. Maybe not quite good enough a friend to ask him how the ends of all the fingers on his right hand got severed off, but hopefully soon.

Reluctantly leaving, we wound our way to Maleny, a small, left-of-center burg that claims to have the most cooperatives per capita in the Southern Hemisphere or some such. In any event, it was charming, as were my hosts, Dechen and Mark, and their kitties Tushita and Bodhicitta. They’ve been involved with Dharma for nearly 30 years and made things very homey and welcoming for me – I’ll not soon forget the cake Dechen made from passion fruit plucked from their own backyard tree. Nor did I fail to notice Mark’s latent qualities as a great teacher, or mine as a student of radically abstract concepts. The evidence is that within a couple hours one afternoon of scowling at the India-Australia “test match,” after far more than 20 questions, Mark managed to illuminate for me at least the rudiments of the peculiar imperial pastime known as cricket. Though not, now that I think on it, why it’s called “cricket”.

Dechen and Mark organized two venues for me to give the MBRP PowerPoint talk about Mongolia’s Buddhist revival, “The Buddha Was Only Sleeping.” Attendance was modest (both were held in small towns) but enthusiastic and supportive, and I’m grateful for the trouble they went to.

During the week I worked on a project that had slid to the margins what with sort of moving, pneumonia, and transcontinental travel. A couple of months ago, Vesna Wallace recommended me for a gig writing an introductory essay on Mongolian Buddhism for a section of a soon-to-be-published book by photographer Elaine Ling. Writing for me is funny. I really need sustained quiet and solitude to do it properly, and I finally found it in Maleny.

Except when the deadly poisonous snake popped up in the tiny back yard.

Our first clue was that both cats’ faces were suddenly pressed up against the back screen door, tails bottlebrushed. Dechen investigated and whooped, “Ooh! A big black snake!” And what did the rest of us do? That’s right. We all scampered outside in our bare feet to get a closer look. This is not quite as brave/foolhardy as it appears, since said snake was slithering away. But we did have enough of a squiz at it (one of my favorite Aussie slang phrases of the moment) to determine it was a Red-bellied Black Snake. While this bad boy does not make the “potentially most lethal” list, it is one of eight snake species around Brisbane whose “full bite...could be fatal if appropriate medical aid were not administered rapidly” and whose venom is “strongly haemotoxic [increasing blood clotting or bleeding] and cytotoxic [um, nasty in ways that perhaps my mother shouldn’t read].” In typically breezy Australian style, though, I was assured that “that black snake’s not aggressive at all; you hardly hear of anyone getting bitten by that bloke. The Tiger Snake, though, well...that’s different. He’ll chase you half way down the block just to get a nip at you.”

So what did I do? Right again. A couple days later I blithely tramped off with a local birder named Ross into a patch of the Tiger Snake’s favored habitat – elevated rainforest – specifically a lovely park known as the Mary Cairncross Reserve (very cool website). This time I wore boots and jeans and overcame my hesitation with thoughts of seeing birds such as Noisy Pitta, Regent Bowerbird, Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo, Paradise Riflebird, and Rose-crowned Fruit-dove.

Of course, I dipped on all of those but it hardly mattered. I’ve never been in a rainforest, tropical, temperate or otherwise. It was an awe-inspiring revelation, looking and sounding just like you’d imagine. Crazy-complicated trees and vines tower overhead. This here’s a Strangler Fig, which has developed a ruthlessly efficient means of surviving the bitter contests for sunlight among rainforest flora. See, a bird eats some fig from a mature tree, then excretes the seeds in an exposed cranny way up some other tree. Seed germinates and snakes its roots down to the ground while heaving its trunk upward, already halfway to sunlight from the very beginning. Like this:

Parasitism is a smart tactic in this environment, employed by massive vines that could easily support a swinging Tarzan (in fact, one of the most common sounds in the Tarzan movies was the insane cackle of the Laughing Kookaburra, a bird not found in Africa at all, only Australia)...

...and trunk-hugging plants like Staghorn Fern:

Most trees do grow the old-fashioned away, but they’re often supported by these fantastic flying buttress root systems:

Add in the surprising lack of biting insects (though there were leeches, which were really quite icky and persistent) and spectacular birds and I was in heaven. With Ross’ help, I managed to spy 15 lifers that day. This bit of rainforest produced such gorgeosities as the Wompoo Fruit-dove, Logrunner, Green Catbird and Golden Whistler. Elsewhere, we picked up Scarlet Honeyeater, Variegated Fairy-wren (wow), Comb-crested Jacana, and Cotton Pygmy-goose (happy, Leamur?).

Oh! Speaking of Leamurs and such, how could I forget one of the coolest rainforest denizens, a mini-kangaroo with the great big name of Red-legged Pademelon? I mean, just hippity-hop, right there on the paths!

I was so enamored of this place I went the next morning, only rewarded bird-wise with White-headed Pigeon, but amply compensated otherwise by the unending wonder that is our natural world. This coming Monday is a national holiday, Australia Day, though much like our Columbus Day, people seem more and more reluctant to celebrate the original transfer of shiploads of British convicts. Nonetheless, no one has to go to work, and KPC Brisbane sangha member Deb and I have a plan to traipse off to the Tamborine National Park and get a gander at whatever birdlife is on display there. Reports to follow!

Comments

[minnie]

dude. ask him. speaking as the child of someone with a handicap, they don't mind if you ask, rather than stare, or NOT stare. (my mom is deaf, so the staring doesn't start until she speaks with her voice, or starts signing to me, but i know).

and the birds? wow! i'm not a birder, but those are cool!

[Rinchen Gyatso]

Sounds like you're having quite the adventure. I'm so busy now I don't get to reat DODR much these days, but I love catching up. Good on ya, mate!

[Leamur]

Yes, K, I'm happy now. What a glorious abundance of beautiful birds! I will dream of feeding station full of happy scarlet parrots! And I didn't even know there was such a thing as a rainforest Kangaroo! (I wonder if it could make friends with a cat...)


Thank you! Enjoy the birding expedition.

[Robert]

Hi Konchog,

Did you know tha Gyatso, the FPMT monk who worked for many years in UB is on retreat on Kangraroo Island in Australia? I suppose you can't visit him while he is on retreat. If you are in Victoria (of which Melbourne is the capital), and have time to kill, please consider visiting the temple near Bendigo, just a couple hours north/northwest of Melbourne.

[Chris]

I am so happy not only that you have the karma to visit these amazing places, but that you have the skills to help us experience it vicariously! Awesome photos! And G'day mates!

[KT]

Re: the "classic Allan Sherman song." I just did a double take. I happen to know when you were born, and that song is two years older than you! KT