On the Bottom Half

Broken Hill Round 2

Broken Hill was a three week camp last year but for time and budgetary reasons, it was shortened to two weeks this year. It turns out that almost the same amount of work was done, but with less time to faff about.

A different generation of student seems to have found its way to university. All the experienced lecturers tell me that there used to be a lot more drinking involved, but this year a surprising number of students were up past 0000 every night working on their maps and other assignments. Maps are largely supposed to be done while in the field, but there seemed to be a lot of erasing and re-drawing going on back at camp. Eeek. They teach mapping differently here in that they don't have the field/office map combination that I was taught. They use mylar on top of aerial photos and use the field map as the good copy. There is a lot of structural geology that the students have to assimilate and this is probably the hardest part of the course. Structural geology is a bit more art than science, really, and I'm a bit ambivalent towards it.

The highlight for me had to be the stars at night, which are uniquely bright in places like Eldee Station. We also stayed in Silverton, which is where they filmed a lot of Mad Max and Mad Max 2. There was 5.3 mm of rain on Monday, which is always an experience in the desert. It was so green this year. But, zen-like, one has to step back and observe from a distance to see the life brought by the rains. Walking over the land would belie its vibrancy, appearing as so much red sand and isolated patches of growth.

I love experiencing the authenticity that comes out of the demonstrators when in the field. Once the normal and bothersome city life social filters go down, you get to know some pretty interesting people. I shared my room with my office mate and a new guy from Melbourne University and everyone really turned out to be very saturated with good humour and stories. I've also found that good scotch (Johnnie Walker Green in this case) brings together the select group of scotch people and makes for warm coversational glow in the after hours. Corruption, yes bloody corruption.

Staying so far from major cities has another interesting effect. It seems to reset expectations and arriving back in the city, one sees clearly what has become the modern human condition as an independent observer. Couple that with the complaints from students about what they miss while away and a fairly complete picture is formed. My do we all live in glorious times.

Pictures: (top) the dust storm during the first week, (middle) Ben with vehicles on a frosty morning, (bottom) gnarly mulga in the desert hills.

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"Billy lids" are kids in general and Woodstock Bourbon and cola has the advertising phrase "Crack a big woody" on bumper stickers.

posted by Kyle @ 22:22