DON'T COME THE LAUNDRY BROWN SNAKE
On 7th August, I was delighted to attend the Reception held by the Alumni Relations & Philanthropy Unit of the Australian National University, at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, to link up with Wellington-domiciled graduates and former staff members.
The attendees were a fun lot and Professor Marnie Hughes-Warrington, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) gave us an interesting review of where the Uni is heading nowadays.
I was able to tell the gathering about regularly being issued with a Land Rover from a workshop under the Coombs Building and driving off into the wild yonder for months at a time incommunicado, as I mosied around the cattle stations of the Northern Territory conducting a survey of the impact on productivity of the switch from droving cattle overland to transporting them using road trains.
Marnie seemed somewhat aghast when I recounted my tale of having arrived at Montejinni Station in 1969, only to be asked to kill a snake that was plaguing the laundry room where an aboriginal girl was working.
It seems that contemporary Occupational Safety and Health and University Research Protocols frown on letting PhD students disappear for months on end with a Bundaberg Rum ‘Gifts for Informants’ budget and a license to dispose of stray reptiles!
And the Aussie magpies that haunt the trees around the IAS were another topic of conversation - so I was able to link them to my poem on the subject:
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