I have seen some strange vehicles in my time but I think that this bizarre bike/car, made from Ferrari parts , takes the prize as the strangest of them all.

One of the cutest things I have seen was two bicyclists, a man and a woman, riding two abreast on the side of one of Australia’s wide, log straight inland roads. The man was riding on the curb edge and he towed a small trailer behind his pushbike. Attached to the trailer was a large dog kennel and sitting inside the dog kennel, safely in a harness, and enjoying the view of the road behind was a little toddler boy.

 

The story of "The Daffodil Principle" originally appeared nearly ten years ago in Jaroldeen Edwards' book Celebration! It is now available for the first time as an illustrated gift book, with artwork by Anne Marie Oborn.

Every year, high in the San Bernardino mountain range of Southern California, five acres of beautiful daffodils burst into bloom. Amazingly, this special spot, known as "The Daffodil Garden," was planted by one person, Gene Bauer, one bulb at a time, beginning in 1958. 

The Willow Fire of 1999 destroyed the Bauer's A-frame home, its surrounding shady trees and garden. Miraculously, the daffodil bulbs beneath the ground survived.

 

The Daffodil Principle
Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, “Mother, you must come and see the daffodils before they are over.” I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead. Going and coming took most of a day - and I honestly did not have a free day until the following week.
“I will come next Tuesday,” I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call. Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove the length of Route 91, continued on I-215, and finally turned onto Route 18 and began to drive up the mountain highway. The tops of the mountains were sheathed in clouds, and I had gone only a few miles when the road was completely covered with a wet, gray blanket of fog. I slowed to a crawl, my heart pounding. The road becomes narrow and winding toward the top of the mountain.
As I executed the hazardous turns at a snail’s pace, I was praying to reach the turnoff at Blue Jay that would signify I had arrived. When I finally walked into Carolyn’s house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren I said, “Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these darling children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!”
My daughter smiled calmly, “We drive in this all the time, Mother.”
“Well, you won’t get me back on the road until it clears - and then I’m heading for home!” I assured her.
“I was hoping you’d take me over to the garage to pick up my car. The mechanic just called, and they’ve finished repairing the engine,” she answered.
“How far will we have to drive?” I asked cautiously.
“Just a few blocks,“Carolyn said cheerfully.
So we buckled up the children and went out to my car. “I’ll drive,” Carolyn offered. “I’m used to this.” We got into the car, and she began driving.
In a few minutes I was aware that we were back on the Rim-of-the-World Road heading over the top of the mountain. “Where are we going?” I exclaimed, distressed to be back on the mountain road in the fog. “This isn’t the way to the garage!”
“We’re going to my garage the long way,” Carolyn smiled, “by way of the daffodils.”
“Carolyn, I said sternly, trying to sound as if I was still the mother and in charge of the situation, “please turn around. There is nothing in the world that I want to see enough to drive on this road in this weather.”
“It’s all right, Mother,” She replied with a knowing grin. “I know what I’m doing. I promise, you will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience.”
And so my sweet, darling daughter who had never given me a minute of difficulty in her whole life was suddenly in charge - and she was kidnapping me! I couldn’t believe it. Like it or not, I was on the way to see some ridiculous daffodils - driving through the thick, gray silence of the mist-wrapped mountaintop at what I thought was risk to life and limb.
I muttered all the way. After about twenty minutes we turned onto a small gravel road that branched down into an oak-filled hollow on the side of the mountain. The fog had lifted a little, but the sky was lowering, gray and heavy with clouds.
We parked in a small parking lot adjoining a little stone church. From our vantage point at the top of the mountain we could see beyond us, in the mist, the crests of the San Bernardino range like the dark, humped backs of a herd of elephants. Far below us the fog-shrouded valleys, hills, and flatlands stretched away to the desert.
On the far side of the church I saw a pine-needle-covered path, with towering evergreens and manzanita bushes and an inconspicuous, lettered sign “Daffodil Garden.”
We each took a child’s hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path as it wound through the trees. The mountain sloped away from the side of the path in irregular dips, folds, and valleys, like a deeply creased skirt.
Live oaks, mountain laurel, shrubs, and bushes clustered in the folds, and in the gray, drizzling air, the green foliage looked dark and monochromatic. I shivered. Then we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight, unexpectedly and completely splendid. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes where it had run into every crevice and over every rise. Even in the mist-filled air, the mountainside was radiant, clothed in massive drifts and waterfalls of daffodils. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow.
Each different-colored variety (I learned later that there were more than thirty-five varieties of daffodils in the vast display) was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.
In the center of this incredible and dazzling display of gold, a great cascade of purple grape hyacinth flowed down like a waterfall of blossoms framed in its own rock-lined basin, weaving through the brilliant daffodils. A charming path wound throughout the garden. There were several resting stations, paved with stone and furnished with Victorian wooden benches and great tubs of coral and carmine tulips. As though this were not magnificent enough, Mother Nature had to add her own grace note - above the daffodils, a bevy of western bluebirds flitted and darted, flashing their brilliance. These charming little birds are the color of sapphires with breasts of magenta red. As they dance in the air, their colors are truly like jewels above the blowing, glowing daffodils. The effect was spectacular.
It did not matter that the sun was not shining. The brilliance of the daffodils was like the glow of the brightest sunlit day.    continued....

Words, wonderful as they are, simply cannot describe the incredible beauty of that flower-bedecked mountain top.
Five acres of flowers! (This too I discovered later when some of my questions were answered.) “But who has done this?” I asked Carolyn. I was overflowing with gratitude that she brought me - even against my will. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“Who?” I asked again, almost speechless with wonder, “And how, and why, and when?”
“It’s just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home.” Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory.
We walked up to the house, my mind buzzing with questions. On the patio we saw a poster. “Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking” was the headline. The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read. The second answer was, “One at a time, by one woman, two hands, two feet, and very little brain.” The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”
There it was. The Daffodil Principle.
For me that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than thirty-five years before, had begun - one bulb at a time - to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. One bulb at a time.
There was no other way to do it. One bulb at a time. No shortcuts - simply loving the slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded.
Loving an achievement that grew so slowly and that bloomed for only three weeks of each year. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world.
This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of ineffable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principle of celebration: learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time - often just one baby-step at a time - learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.
When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
“Carolyn,” I said that morning on the top of the mountain as we left the haven of daffodils, our minds and hearts still bathed and bemused by the splendors we had seen, “it’s as though that remarkable woman has needle-pointed the earth! Decorated it. Just think of it, she planted every single bulb for more than thirty years. One bulb at a time! And that’s the only way this garden could be created. Every individual bulb had to be planted. There was no way of short-circuiting that process. Five acres of blooms. That magnificent cascade of hyacinth! All, just one bulb at a time.”
The thought of it filled my mind. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the implications of what I had seen. “It makes me sad in a way,” I admitted to Carolyn. “What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five years ago and had worked away at it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!”
My wise daughter put the car into gear and summed up the message of the day in her direct way. “Start tomorrow,” she said with the same knowing smile she had worn for most of the morning. Oh, profound wisdom!
It is pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson a celebration instead of a cause for regret is to only ask, “How can I put this to use tomorrow?”
Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards

“I never finish anthi”

That was the status this morning of my good friend Tina from Mummified times five blog

It brought to mind a time Reg and I sometimes chuckle together about.

I have made a deadline of Wednesday afternoon to leave for our 6-month caravan tour of Eastern Australia and we will leave then regardless of the state of the house.

I do what I can do, pat myself on the back for what I achieve and I don’t beat myself up about what I could not get done in the time, nor give up on what I have planned ~ the holiday start deadline, in  this case.

Once when we had a young family and had scrambled to put together a working holiday of painting commission and art exhibiting plus family beachside cottage holiday in Fairhaven on the Great Ocean Road of Victoria, we achieved all those priorities, but left the house a mess.
 
In my passion, to always, cram, as much as I can into an opportunity, I even packed the sewing machine and all the accumulated, family clothing requiring mending. Yes, I completed my oil painting commissions, some free lance watercolours, the exhibition and all the mending and we had the most wonderful, relaxing family holiday in a cottage, opposite the beach. The holiday cottage was an exchange for the commissioned artwork I painted of the cottage, something I frequently did to provide some wonderful holiday’s for the family and myself.

We returned. to find we had been burgled while away. That actually created several  funny reaction in us, that both Reg and I still chuckle about.

With a shock, I discovered my priority in life was a $5. value item.

The first was my reaction to seeing we had been, burgled. I immediately checked to see if we still owned three things.

I laugh about this, as it has to show what my priorities were at that stage of my life.

The first thing I wanted to make sure was safe, was the chook. We had bought ‘Henny Penny’, for $5. There was a frantic urgent cry from me, for everyone to; “‘look for Henny Penny”.   We found Henny Penny, she was safe, she had let herself inside the house, the same way the burglars had entered, through the jemmied back door and she was happily roosting in the opened top, piano.  There was a great sigh of relief from the entire family that the family chook, with retail value of lol, $5. Was safe and no one seemed to mind the piano worth a few thousand dollars had chook poo and hens claw, scratches on it.

Priority no 2. I then looked straight for the wall, the spot where my favourite oil painting that I had painted myself, (huge. Intense sigh of relief), it was there.  I felt like, ‘nothing else mattered’. Then I remembered my last spendaholic, explosion and purchase that I could hardly have afforded to make, the two crystal sherry decanters I bought Reg for Christmas. They were still there. Lol, finally materialism had surfaced. Lol, I am human.   The items, stolen, were electrical entertainment appliances, nothing that I was sentimental about, none of that upset us. We did lose the coin collection I had inherited from my mother and discovered it was not, covered by our home contents insurance so there was a little regret there.

'OH they ransacked the house'.

 

When the police arrived to investigate the crime scene, lol, they looked at the mess the home was in.   
I had packed up a family, an exhibition, the art studio and the mending chores to go on holidays. I had not then done a superwoman and run around, picked up, tidying, cleaning and making the beds, before leaving. I did not feel like saying to the police, “No that is what life in a creative happy family home, looks like.”

Reg and I struggled to keep a straight face.  Neither of us wanted to confess, we often left for holidays with the house looking like that and we were not going to reproach ourselves for having the priorities we choose to have.

We found we were ‘different’, to many other people in many ways, because of this burglary. The police talked about how we must be feeling traumatised. No, we were not even upset, the hen and painting were OK, what was there to feel upset about?   
Other people spoke of how we must feel violated.  No, just a fact of life, happens to most people at some stage, we just bought a good burgular alarm and organized a few ideas to make doors and windows harder to jemmy and we don’t keep uninsured valuables in the house and spend all our money on travel, not valuables anyhow.

Burglars can steal your things but they cannot steal your memories’

Reg has always said, “Burglars can steal your things but they cannot steal your memories". With this in mind, we have simply travelled more, until travel and the sometimes ransacked looking, home with few valuables in it, that we leave behind, has become our happy lifestyle.

Aim for excellence, not perfection.

Yes, of course I would love to walk out the door, on this six month Australian caravan tour, knowing I leave behind a spotless tidy home.  I will however, be aiming for excellence, not perfection'. There is a huge difference. 

 

Birdsville Track   Australia The Birdsville Track is one of the oldest, most famous, of the desert tracks that start in the northeast end of South Australia.

It runs from Marree at the top western end of the Flinders ranges in South Australia, same as the Oodnadatta Track, leading to Birdsville in Queensland. It is an over 500 km long sandy stretch and without fuel for over 300 kilometres. The track is usually open in the winter months, though it is important to check with the local police and let people know you are making the journey, before you do this trip. The best time to travel (as with all Australian, Desert Trips), is from April to October.

The Birdsville Track is not a very hard trip as desert tracks go; it has become very popular amongst 4wdrivers.  It is  an absolute requirement that  your vehicle be in tip top condition and that you make ample provision of fuel, water and supplies and be in good health yourself before making such a trip.  This is not only for your protection, but also out of respect for others. Tourists entering these areas unprepared place an unnecessary burden on the locals and the Royal Flying Doctor service. 

If you do chose to travel in the outback, please dig deep into your pocket every time you are asked to take a donation to the  RFDS and $10. Is not an unreasonable amount to hand over to locals before you head off on a stretch of desert track that they help maintain or provide an emergency rescue service on.  
The desert can be a very in-hospitable place when you are in trouble.

Edward Eyre, explored this area in 1840 reaching Lake Eyre.  Burke and Wills, died at  Cooper Creek, in the early 1860's. Around 1880’s  cattlemen followed the route, to move stock from Queensland to Adelaide for sale.

 Afghan Traders used the route as travelling sales people, sericing remote settlements in the area and the first vehicles travelled the Birdsville track in 1930's.  Tom Kruse a mail carrier, became a legend getting mail in and out of these remote regions.  Kruse used corrugated iron sheets to help him get his truck through the very soft sand dunes. At times, it took a day or more to travel just 10 to 15 kilometres. 

In 1950, my mum took me to see a series of three short Australian films. One in black and white, at the time, made an enormous impact on me. It was the story of three girls on a remote outback property, whose mother had collapsed and they had set out on foot, down the track, to find their father. They became lost while walking along what they thought was the Birdsville track.  They realized they were lost, when they came upon their own footprints and knew they had walked around in a circle. The story was to show the danger of the inland and how quickly you could die  if lost in this, the most arid region in the world.
The impact that film had on me was dramatic. I never forgot it.

Back in the 50’s and 60’s these tragic loss of life from becoming ‘lost in the bush’ or on a desert track, was far more common than it is today.  Many lost their lives along the Birdsville track and in the surrounding region, before modern technology improved communications and vehicles.

Reg and I arrived at Coopers Creek with a busload of outback tourists and made our camp. After a shared group meal, in the late afternoon everyone  except for Reg and I,  headed to the Birdsville Pub for a drink and Reg and I went down to the water’s edge and enjoyed the birdlife and a quiet chat away from the crowds.  We then went for a short walk up the hill to look at the pub, decided we did not want to be part of the boozing, smoky, atmosphere there and we turned to walk back to our camp near the river.  It got dark suddenly, there was no moon and while we did take a torch with us, it was not a lot of help and it was hard to tell the track from the open space around it in parts. 

We did not panic, but the truth was, we did not have a clue if we were on the track or not and we knew we must not walk far.  If we did not find a familiar landmark soon we would have to stay right there on the spot until we were found. We were not in any danger at that stage, it would be mild conditions overnight. If indeed we were lost, we had to find our way quickly or be sensible, stop wandering and wait and be found, in the morning. We were feeling more than just a little foolish at that thought.

Just as we were starting to feel we had done the craziest thing you could do in Australia, to become ‘lost on the Birdsville track’, Reg saw a signpost ahead, pointing to Birdsville.  We followed the sign, made it back to the Birdsville pub, then walked again in the dark, towards where we thought the river would be, detected the faint glow of a campfire, followed that and made it back to camp.  VERY GRATEFUL that no one would know (lol, J, until I started blogging ) our foolish secret. .

Reg and I wake up, around 2am to the sound of drunken revellers staggering home in total darkness, no campfire to guide them in now. To this day, it amuses me that Reg and I, with a torch and 'cold sober, got lost on the Birdsville track with only a few hundred meters to walk, yet thirty blind drunks could make the same trip without a single torch between them, with total accuracy.

This true story is Copyright to Kathy Shell.
Kathy and Reg Shell, travelled to Birdsville in 1985.

Additional travel stories:-
A Desert Pee
Signs of life in the Dead Centre.
The great unknown.
Outback in the family sedan

Useful Contact Information
Automobile Associations  RAA Copley (08) 8675 2618 RACQ Birdsville  (07) 4656 3226

National Parks Far North Region (08) 8648 4244

Police  Birdsville  (07) 4656 3220 Marree  (08) 8675 8346
Road Conditions  SA   1300 361 033 QLD 1300 130 595  

Birdsville Hotel  (07) 4656 3244
Mungerannie Hotel  (08) 8675 8317

Birdsville Caravan Park  Phone (07) 4656 3214 
Fax (07) 4656 3205 birdsvillecvanpk@growzone.com.au

Wirrarri Information Centre  Phone (07) 4656 3300
Fax (07) 4656 3302
wirrarri@hotmail.com
 

Reg and I have always had 'itchy feet', and loved to travel, sometimes into places where our car could not reach.  This is a story of a time, in our young mid life, when we connected up with others for the safety reasons of travelling through the outback in a group with a well equipped vehicle, and radio contact, while we followed the Burke and Wills explorers trail, up into Cameron Corner, the intersection of three states of Australia, Back of Burke, Innaminka, Birdsville, Boulia and , through the Gemtree country of the Harts Range.  We travelled with a group of 32 other mid life, inland travel enthusiasts in a Rolls Royce engine bus, with an experienced (we thought), tour guide/driver and a camp cook.   It was a 16 day appallingly run excursion which left Reg and I with our love of each other and the landscape intact but very wary of hitching ourselves into any organized by others, tour.  I am aware, that most tours are brilliantly run, no reflection on the generally high standard of the tour industry.

In telling this story of the desert pee, I should start by saying that yes to bus did have a toilet.  

The bus driver did have a temper.

It was the driver’s job to maintain the bus, that included emptying the toilet.   I wish that in my thirties I had the courage of my 60's and could have told the bus driver then that if the brochure said the bus had a toilet, then we, the passengers, were allowed to use the toilet.  

Back then, intimidation was used by the driver to minimize his work.  

The driver would pull up in the bush and say. 'ladies on the left, men on the right'.  

Now that system worked fine for a few days, but by ten days into the trip, couples got rather tired of being segregated in their brief wanderings when granted a leg stretch and so they went in whatever direction they wanted to, and the bus driver sat in the bus, guarding the toilet door, making sure no one used it, so he would not have to dig a hole in a sand dune and empty it.

Parts of the trip were, despite some conditions I'll not go into here, sheer magic.  The Coopers Creek near Innaminka and the Birdsville track was pure heaven and I loved and painted the old royal Hotel at Birdsville.

One particulate day we were travelling through Sturts Stony desert and there was nothing to squat behind, and never a moment when there were not men around and in my 30's I was too shy to tell the men to get around to the other side of the bus and give us ladies a fair go, we had to 'go', and too modest to 'just go' LOL, :-), and too scared of the intimidating driver to barge my way past him into the toilet in the bus.   My plan was that I would, 'hold on', till it was dark, then 'go'.   

LOL  Now that (holding on), is something at 62, LOL, I can hardly imagine, :-).

So after dinner, after dark, I took a torch and walked out into the desert alone.  Turned the torch off and relieved myself. Sigh :-)~~ ~~~~ more comfortable and with my clothes readjusted I reached out, picked up the torch and turned it on, and there, on the ground, between me and where the torch had been, was a desert taipan, the deadliest snake in the world.

Common sense is not always all that common and I've been guilty of a lot of very foolish blunders in my learning to live close to this beautiful country. 

One thing I have learned is the night time is when this country abounds in wild life with most of our wild creatures being nocturnal .

This true story is Copyright to Kathy Shell.