Author: Columnist on Toowong News

This week’s Australia All Over covered the country in a wide sweep—from the watermelon paddocks of Queensland to the backyards of Port Macquarie, and even into the remote mountain villages of Papua New Guinea. Macca kept the pace easy but steady, making time for stories that gave depth, texture and humour to what was, in the end, a classic Sunday morning episode.

• One of the more vivid calls came from Chinchilla, where preparations are underway for the Melon Festival, held every second year. A local organiser explained the workings of melon skiing, a signature event in which participants slip their feet into hollowed-out watermelons and slide across a plastic tarp covered in fruit pulp. “It’s not exactly a clean sport,” she admitted, “but everyone ends up laughing.” The event has grown from a marketing idea for local melon growers into a full-scale community celebration, drawing more than 20,000 visitors. There’s pip-spitting, a melon-chopping speed contest, melon ironman races, and even a tug-of-war with teams pulling through sticky pulp. The caller said there’s a practical side too—off-spec melons that would otherwise go to waste are used for events, and the leftover slurry is sent off to local pig farms. It was a story of rural inventiveness wrapped up in a good dose of silliness.

• From Port Macquarie, a caller shared the quiet progress of a long-term backyard project: a hand-built wooden sloop, constructed using traditional tools and native timbers. The hull is fashioned from spotted gum, bent into shape using steam, and fixed with copper rivets he sourced from an old boatyard in Newcastle. He described the sound of his drawknife on the timber, and how he tests each piece for grain and pitch before fitting it to the frame. The boat will carry a single mast, rigged for the calm tides of the Clarence River, where he plans to launch it. The work is slow—“you can’t rush timber,” he said—but he finds it satisfying. Macca asked him how long he’d been at it. “Four years,” came the reply, “But I don’t measure it in time anymore. I measure it in fittings I’ve finished.” The conversation was a quiet study in patience, tradition and solitary focus.

An interesting video about the Indonesian wooden boat building industry:

• A traveller called in from Central Australia, where he had been camping beside a temporary desert waterhole created by recent rain. At sunrise, he found himself surrounded by what he estimated to be tens of thousands of budgerigars—a vivid, swirling flock that descended in coordinated waves to drink and bathe. He described the sound of the wings—“a high hum, like silk tearing”—and said the waterhole had drawn in kangaroos, emus and even a few wedge-tailed eagles. He noted that budgies are common enough in the desert, but their mass flocks only appear when conditions are just right, which in this case followed a large outback storm. “The ground was red last week,” he said. “Now it’s green and full of noise.” It was the kind of call that reminded listeners of how quickly the Australian landscape can transform itself.

Here’s a video along similar lines:

• Another notable segment came from a station manager in the Barkly Tableland, who called in during a cattle muster already underway by dawn. Riders were out on bikes, assisted by dogs and a chopper, rounding up cattle across wide scrubland. He described the landscape as “yellow-green” after scattered rains, and said the cattle had spread far over the property’s outer paddocks. “It takes a day just to find them,” he said. The caller talked about the balance between helicopters and motorbikes—how the chopper does the spotting and tight turns, while the bikes and dogs handle the push into the yards. He noted this season has brought enough growth to avoid an early sell-off, but he’s still cautious. “One good rain’s not a wet season,” he added. Still, there was a sense of relief in his voice, and he said the birds had returned: finches, galahs and kites circling above the moving cattle.

A video featuring the Barkly Tableland:

• From Grafton, a wildlife carer gave an update on a young eastern grey joey that had been rescued weeks earlier. Found in the pouch of its mother after a car strike, the joey was hand-fed and kept in a hanging pouch in a quiet room. The carer described the process of gradually reintroducing it to the bush—first with native grasses in its enclosure, then supervised foraging outdoors. “He’s got muscle now,” she said. “He hops, but still stays close.” She expects to release him fully by June. Macca mentioned how stories like this often bring follow-ups, and sure enough, another caller rang in to share a similar tale of a short-beaked echidna found injured near Kangaroo Valley. That one had taken to soft-boiled eggs and mealworms and was now back digging in a bush reserve.

• From Papua New Guinea, an expat working with coffee growers in the Eastern Highlands called in during his early morning. He described the mist lifting from the forest slopes and the chaos of the Mount Hagen markets, where coffee beans, sweet potatoes, pigs and mobile phone credit are all traded in one place. He’d recently attended a sing-sing in a village outside Goroka, where tribes had gathered in full regalia—shells, ochre, and birds of paradise feathers—to perform their clan dances. He said the cultural depth of PNG was something Australians often overlooked, even though the Highlands were just a few hours north by air. He was helping coordinate a co-op model for smallholder farmers, many of whom grow Arabica beans at over 1,600 metres elevation. “They don’t call it highland coffee for nothing,” he said.

• In the studio, Kieran Kelly dropped by with an update on his upcoming trek along the John Muir Trail in the U.S. He unpacked his rucksack in the studio, revealing a lightweight tent, a battered journal full of bush poems from his grandfather, and a carefully wrapped billy. He read out one verse: “The wattle blooms where rain has passed / and quiet tea is brewed at last.” He and Macca compared the American trail culture—shelters, switchbacks, food canisters—with the more solitary and unpredictable nature of Australian bushwalking.

A great doco about the John Muir Trail:

• There were more quick calls before the morning ended: a beekeeper in Stanthorpe mentioned late-flowering ironbark had delayed their honey harvest by a month; a teacher in Charleville told the story of the 1902 meteorite that landed near town and sat outside the post office for decades; and a carpenter in Bega shared how he’s begun carving tool handles from reclaimed jarrah offcuts.

Listen to the podcast episode here.

Disclaimer: Brisbane Suburbs Online News has no affiliation with Ian McNamara or the “Australia All Over Show.” This weekly review is an attempt to share the wonderful stories that Ian broadcasts each week and add value to what is a smorgasbord of great insights.