Tjilpi

Terry's 2nd 5th Commando

I have written before of the exploits of Masta Terry in a post entitled Double Black.  For some reason I am up early, for a Sunday, and found the article below in the online version of The Australian.  I have unashamedly lifted it, for the names of Buna, Gona and Salamaua are names I first heard from my father.

Geoffrey Luck | June 27, 2009

Article from:  The Australian

TWO generations afterwards, World WarII in New Guinea means simply Kokoda to most Australians. Perhaps also Milne Bay, where the Japanese were first defeated. But the memory tends to cloud at mention of Buna, Gona, the Markham Valley, Shaggy Ridge and Scarlet Beach, Finschhafen - all great Australian victories in impossible conditions - and Salamaua. Yet it was in Salamaua, in the early hours of June 29, 1942, that Australian commandos struck the first blow in the Pacific land war.

The raid has been acclaimed as a copybook action for its diligent scouting, meticulous planning and audacious, multi-pronged attack against an enemy force 10 times the attackers' strength. All without loss of life.

The Japanese, well fed and complacent, were surprised and humiliated by a puny Australian force that had struggled for days over the jungle ranges with weapons, ammunition and heavy packs, then camped and planned their raid under the noses of the enemy. The response, to reinforce the base, tied down thousands of troops that would otherwise have been thrown into the Kokoda and Milne Bay battles a few months later.

Today Salamaua is little more than a couple of native villages and some holiday shacks for expatriates and tourists. But in the 1930s it was the Australian administration's district headquarters and a thriving commercial centre. From its airstrip, the three-engined Junkers cargo planes flew huge gold dredges into the Bulolo valley, piece by piece. At the time, that was the biggest commercial airlift in the world. All ended with the Japanese landing on March 8, 1942, virtually unopposed, bringing the enemy one step closer in its plan to isolate and neutralise Australia.

When the Australians had to abandon Salamaua, a handful of pre-war residents - patrol officers, clerks, miners and traders - were hastily co-opted into the New Guinea Volunteer Rifles and went bush to keep an eye on the invaders. They became the scouts who lived in the hills overlooking the Salamaua isthmus, noting and recording the defences and habits of the enemy. They were so close they could hear the bell ringing to warn of an air raid. Damien Parer took his famous photograph of the isthmus from their observation post.

In mid-1942, the only fit, trained troops Australia had in the area were about 450 men of the 2/5th Independent (commando) Company. Too small a force to draw the Japanese into battle, their task was to harass the enemy at their bases of Lae and Salamaua.

The task of planning and leading the attack on Salamaua went to captain Norman Winning, a wiry red-headed Scot instantly nick-named "the Red Steer", a dynamic, inventive born leader. NGVR sergeant Jim McAdam, who I knew in his later life as director of forests in the PNG administration, led his scouts up to the houses where the Japanese were sleeping to assess the enemy strength. Then, as silently as they had slipped in, they returned to the Australian forward base, only 5km from Salamaua, to transfer their vital intelligence to a sand model of the Japanese base. With Winning, they planned the raid down to the last detail.

Starting at 2pm on June 28, seven sections moved out through thick bush, native gardens and pit swamp to get close to their targets: the airfield, wireless masts, a strategic bridge and troop billets. One team lugged a heavy 3-inch (7.6cm) mortar that would keep the Japanese on the isthmus pinned down. The rest were armed with Tommy guns, rifles and a few Bren guns. Every man had two grenades and a pistol and carried extra ammunition. But their most devastating weapon was their homemade "sticky bomb", an anti-tank grenade wrapped with packs of the explosive TNT.

The night was black. It rained heavily but at midnight the moon broke through. At 3.14am, one minute before zero hour, almost everyone was in position. A Japanese sentry walked out to relieve himself and found himself staring at a blackened-face commando. He screamed the alarm and was immediately cut down by a burst of machine-gun fire. The raid was on. Years later, the men of the 2/5th told their stories of that night in a series of laconic anecdotes for the unit's war history Commando Double Black.

Corporal Bernie Davis's account: "I raced up the steps of the building, tore it open and hurled my sticky bomb inside, yelling: 'Share that for breakfast, you bastards!' The bomb went off, blew the door off its hinges and sent me somersaulting into the garden. Some of the surviving Japanese were escaping through a trapdoor in the floor. Squatting on the ground was an enterprising Aussie. He was calmly killing the enemy one by one as they landed on the ground. He looked like he was stacking bags of wheat under the hut, until the supply of Japs ran out."

Don Suter, NGVR: "Our mortar unit fired 36 bombs. One of them fell directly on the most important target, a strongpoint at the neck of the isthmus. Fifteen Japanese were in this post."

Sergeant Mal Bishop was wounded as he threw his bomb into one of the old Chinese trade stores: "The next thing I knew was a severe blow on the right shoulder, which put me down on my knees. I scrambled to my feet when my bomb went off."

The blast blew him across the road into the sea: "The next recollection I had was of being picked up out of the water by one of the native helpers. He was pushing my Thompson sub-machine gun into my hands and yelling: 'Masta! Kill'em Japan!"'

After three-quarters of an hour of destruction, killing 120 of the enemy, two red flares signalled the withdrawal. Ken "Andy" Knox was covering the pullout with his Bren gun. His mate Cliff Biggs, refilling the magazines, complained: "You're firing a bit low, aren't you? My face is covered in mud. I reckon you're hitting the ground about a foot in front of the bloody gun." "Stop your bloody grizzling, Cliff, and say a bloody prayer," replied Knox. "That mud is from the Japanese bullets coming towards us."

The great prize of the operation was a bag of documents a Japanese pilot was trying to fly out when he was killed. They contained the plans of the landings at Buna and Milne Bay. Pre-war skiing champion Bill Harris ran back 50km over the mountains in two days to deliver them to Kanga Force HQ. The warning enabled Australian divisions to be recalled from leave and rushed to reinforce Milne Bay.

The commanding officer of Kanga Force, Lieutenant Colonel Fleay, who never left Wau, was awarded the DSO for personal gallantry. Not one of the men on the Salamaua operation, the first and most successful commando raid of the war, received a decoration. The surviving men of the 2/5th are still asking why.

Geoffrey Luck was a reporter in Papua New Guinea for seven years.

Emu Creek

This is Emu Creek up on the Atherton Tableland behind Cairns in Far North Queensland.  Of course Emu Creek runs through a valley; but the nearby mountains are around 850 metres above sea level.

I'm not used to camping beside creeks - being a desert country man - but my brother and I decided to go camping for my birthday at one of his favourite spots, so I flew over to Cairns, where he lives. We spent 3 nights beside Emu Creek.  We were out of mobile phone range so, on the day of my birthday, I had to use my new Thuraya Satellite Phone to call my family so that they could wish me Happy Birthday!

By the way, the exact location of this particular spot is a well kept secret so I won't give you the GPS coordinates.

My brothers rig, a Toyota Landcruiser, is really well set up for camping.  He has a Dobsonian Mount solar panel on the roof of the rear canopy which captures energy to power the fridge/freezer which is in the back of the truck.  He is able to rotate the solar panel and adjust its angle quite easily in order to face the sun. My sister in law had packed the fridge with frozen food so all we had to do was defrost and then heat, and eat.  I'm not used to that kind of camping - being of aboriginal mind - I don't take anything which needs refrigeration when I go bush.  I asked bro how much the solar panel and fridge setup cost and then decided that I would stick with my old ways, now that I am semi-retired! 

We did two short day-trips while we were up on The Great Dividing Range. The first was to Irvinebank which had been a tin mining town in the past. We had lunch at the bar of the local pub where I bought myself a birthday present of an ingot of tin.  I've always had a bit of a geological and metallurgical interest in things and now I've got an ingot of tin to add to my collection.  If the tin were gold it would be worth about $3000.  You'll be able to tell how big the ingot is by comparing its size to the leg of the camera tripod seen at bottom right.  That tripod leg is 16mm in diameter, so you can see that you don't get much 99.9% pure tin for $15 - especially when it is sold as a souvenir.  Anyway, I'm happy.  

 

On our second day-trip we went to Almaden - a town of about three houses, one pub and a railway station. Lunch at the Almaden Pub was a mushroom pie, held in the hand, and a glass of white.  That's called sophisticed dining!

Almadens' main claim to fame is that it is a stop on the route of the tourist railmotor - The Savannahlander.  I got close to the track with my camera on its tripod as the railmotor pulled into the station.  The driver was about to signal me to move away from the track but she changed her mind and let me get the 'moving' shot below. She was a trainee driver and may well have been fooled into thinking I was taking a promotional photo.  Well, I guess I did, for here it is!!

Early in the morning of our last full day at Emu Creek a battered ute pulled up near our campsite.

Blue, who was driving, was accompanied by his yappy little dog Priscilla. Blue explained that his previous dog was a male named Elvis; so seeing he now had a female she had to be called Priscilla.

Blue set up camp nearby and we exchanged yarns throughout the day. He was a local, and often came to Emu Creek to set Yabbie Pots for the local "Redclaws". Turkey necks chopped into small lengths were his favourite bait - and I would have to agree with him given the success he had after leaving the traps in Emu Creek overnight. You can see one of the mesh traps in Blues' right hand as he climbed out on a branch of a melaleuca to set the pot in the water. He had about four or five others which he set in different locations.

You can see the results in the bottom of the blue bucket.  Unfortunately we were leaving that morning and didn't get a chance to hang around for a tasty morsel; but I guess you can't have every thing. 

All three of us agreed that making camp was always easier than breaking camp, as bro and I set to work packing stuff into the Cruiser.  Well he did most of the work as he was not sure where everything went as his wife normally packed the kitchen side of things back into the truck.  Everything eventually fitted and we set off down the mountain range to Cairns.

One day I think I would like to return to Emu Creek armed with a half dozen yabbie pots of my own.

 

2009: A Space Odyssey

When I was a kid there was a program on ABC radio called "Jason and the Argonauts".

It came on each weekday afternoon, after school had finished around 3pm. It was somewhat "intellectual" and was meant to be educative. There were prizes for the best Poem submitted to the program - that is for those whose poems were read out and heard Australia wide.  Other than that there was a kind of "Mentioned in Despatches" prize if ones name was announced as having submitted something "worthwhile". 

Jason and the Argonauts was something like a secret society in that ones actual name was not read out  - only ones code name.  You see, you joined Jason and his Argonauts by writing to the ABC and they allocated a code name.  I was given Argus 49.

Argus 49 was mentioned once for having written a poem about a cat.  I did not have a cat - but poetic licence allowed me to have one and write a poem sufficiently well to get a mention!  I think I was 8 or 9 years of age at the time.

For some reason I have long held the belief that Jason was tied up with Ulysses of Homer's Odyssey; but I will have to move on from that as I only recently discovered that the only connection between Jason and Ulysses was that they both had to pass by the temptations of the Sirens.

Oh well, I guess you get that, when you don't have a good classical education.

Anyway, the real point of this yarn is that I have applied to purchase my own piece of the Space Odyssey.  And it is for this reason:

The last time I was by myself crossing the badlands west of Boulia in Queensland, toward Alice Springs via the Plenty Highway, I found that I could not make contact with anyone on my High Frequency Barrett 550 radio which is installed in the Land Rover.  The radio is modified so that I can operate it on the Ham Bands as well as the VKS737 system; but all was quiet.

I thought to myself, what happens if I have a heart attack way out here?

That's the kind of thing that crosses the mind of a 61 year old lone traveller 500 kilometres from anywhere!

Recently I received some advertising for the Thuraya Sat Phone pictured above.  It is pocket sized and about the same size as my mobile phone.  The price seemed right. Thuraya in Arabic means the Seven Sisters, or Pleiades.  The phones come from a UAE outfit, and are regarded as the "terrorists Sat phone of choice".  They were used in the Mumbai attack. 

 

However, they can't be all that bad as my phone will use a Boeing Satellite which sits in a geostationary position 35,786 km above Singapore - and it gets there via a Russian Zenit three stage rocket, fired from a SeaLaunch pad.  SeaLaunch uses a setup like an unmanned Oil Rig platform to launch the rockets which carry the satellites, while the Command Ship stands off at a safe distance of 5 miles or so. There have been explosions; but most launches have been successful. The launches take place in international waters in the Pacific Ocean with Kiribati being the nearest country. 

 

I found all this information fascinating and while Googling around found a reference to an article written by Arthur C Clarke in 1945 in which he predicted that a "geostationary satellite" positioned above the equator would be a good bet for wide coverage relay stations - although his calculated altitude does seem to be out by about 6,000 km.

 

His 1945 article is at the link below. Be warned, it is about 3.3 megabytes in size but, for the technically minded, it is well worth reading, and better than the movie!!

 

Arthur C Clarke "Wireless World" Article1945

Double Black

I learned this morning that Terry died overnight. 

As he got older he seemed to think that my father had been involved in arranging his medical evacuation from the nightmarish conditions he and the rest of the 2/5th Independent Commando Company had ended up in.  They had put up a good fight.  The 2/5th was the first of the Allied forces to make a land attack on the Japanese.  Terry told me that he had been involved in an attack on a well dug in Japanese position and while charging forward, his commander was suddenly blown into the air.  I have read that one trick the Japanese defenders used was to mount naval guns with their barrels parrallel to the ground.  They would remove the projectile from the ammunition and simply fire a huge blast of air at attacking troops; knocking  out more than a single projectile landing miles away would do. 

For those who are interested in such things Wikipedia has an entry on the 2/5th here .

In December 2006 I wrote a blog article on Terry; and luckily I saved it and have reproduced it below. 

Many of my previous blog posts do not exist, even in cyberspace, but the following post survived.

At the time I titled it "Independent Company Commando".

The bloke in this picture is 86.  He is/was a bit younger than my Dad who would have been 88 had his heart not given out.

You can see Dad's heart on the Xray Viewing Box.  I brought that Xray from Maryborough after Dad died.  I use it as a teaching aid when I am explaining things about hearts/lungs/ribs/etc  to my patients. 

By careful questioning I have worked out that Dad and Terry walked on the same ground, although at different times.

Terry was a Commando in the 2nd/5th Independent Company deployed on the north coast of Papua New Guinea in WWII.  Operating behind enemy lines he caused havoc before having to be extracted, suffering from malnutrition and with an enemy price on his head. 

A bag of rice or a pig were the rewards offered to the locals should anyone tell the whereabouts of "Masta Terry". 

Terry tells tales of eating frogs in order to survive, and grins when he talks of stealthily killing enemy soldiers with a shortened but very sharp .303 bayonet. He says that at that time he was doing a job which had to be done but, to this day, he feels sorry for the frogs.

Terry dotes on his carer who tried to escape the camera and leaned away when I took this shot.

I'm not sure why I have such a keen interest in things concerning the Australian Military; but I know my interest is not unique.  Being born just after WWII has to have had its effect, and working out how, or if, to dodge the draft for Vietnam was another influence.

Last week an Australian Viet Nam Vet came to see me.  He is on a TPI Pension for PTSD. [Totally and Permanently Incapacitated for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder]. 

I talked to him about Terry.  He talked to me about his father and he also talked about his father's mate who was also in Papua New Guinea during WWII.

His father's mate was at Milne Bay when the Japanese invaded.  It was at Milne Bay that the Japanese Army was defeated for the first time on land.  The victory was won by Australian soldiers. 

Aussie diggers often say:    It wasn't the Yanks. We did it.

What I had not known, before the Viet Nam Vet told me, was that our blokes poured enough petrol from 44 gallon drums onto the beach to soak it and then let the run-off cover the sea.

When the Japanese alighted from their landing craft, our blokes opend up with Bren Guns loaded with tracer bullets to set the petrol alight. 

Someone with an independent mind must have thought up that trick.

Secret [Mens] Family Business

We tjilpis have to stick together. 

One of my cousin brothers, he is a Jambijimba, wants me to help promote his new Real Estate business in the Cook Islands.

Currently Cuz Jambijimba runs a Cafe serving up fresh sea food.

I'm hoping to have him add fermented squid gut to the menu. 

That was one of the delights I enjoyed during my visits to Japan.  Fermented squid gut is wonderful when taken with a warm drink or two of the honorouble, Oh-Sake.

I noticed that poor Hilary Clinton was simply drinking Sake on her recent visit to Japan.  The higher order of Sake is called Oh-Sake. It is a religious difference; but I digress.

Anyway, Cuz on the Cooks was wondering how to promote his business.  I pointed out that if anyone in the world Googled "tjilpi" they would find my blog is at the top of the Google search page.

That has to mean that Tjilpi tops the list world wide.

I've suggested to cousin brother that he could change the name of his Cafe to "Tjilpis' Seafood and Kangaroo Tail Soup Bar" . I also thought a sign outside saying, Fermented Squid Gut a Speciality of the House, would be a nice touch. We could also make mention of his new Real Estate Business.

So far I have had no reply.  What is wrong with that Jambijimba? Is my cousin brus into business or not????  I want to get on with this project.  Maybe the Internet connection to the Cook Islands is down?

Anyway, who knows? My idea might work.

And even if it doesn't work, people will still get to look at the promotional photo, from the Cook Islands Travel Bureau, which I have placed above.

It's Official

It's Official. 

I've been to see the movie AUSTRALIA in Cinema 3 at the Alice Springs Cinema Centre.

But what is MORE official is that I am a Senior Citizen!

Have a look at the 4th line and see what it says: SENIOR CITIZEN

Apart from getting the Senior Citizen discount because I am now a Senior; I think I deserved it anyway.  I first came to the Northern Territory in 1967 and have known about the bombing of Darwin since that time. Baz Luhrmann didn't need to educate me about that.

I also have a friend who had an Uncle who was a missionary on one of the islands north of Darwin. The Japanese decapitated him. Baz didn't show that in the movie.  But, hey, what can you expect for $8.50?

Maybe that's is why they give Seniors a discount.  We might just know a thing or two that the youngsters have yet to learn.

I found the movie to be a bit of a tear-jerker; but that is probably only me wanting to turn the clock back to when I was 19 and was brave [or foolish] enough to hitch-hike to Darwin.  I got a lift in a car which had already picked up another hitch-hiker.  He was older than me but was in tears, asking the driver to slow down.  It was the wet season and visibility in the tropical downpour, which dropped on us like a Zero out of the sun, was about 2 metres in front of the vehicle.

We made it through the rain but got into Darwin after night fall. The driver dropped me off and pointed to a vacant lot of land.  He said, You'll be right sleeping in there. 

I spread out my sleeping bag and happily dozed off.

The next morning I woke to find that I had been dossing next door to the home of the Commissioner of Police.  I guess that is why the bloke who picked me up thought I would be safe enough in that vacant lot. I'd either end up with a good talking to, or maybe I'd end up in the watch house, but either way I would be safe.

Happy 21st Birthday Julia, with lots of love, from Dad

Julia is 21 today; and I don't know where she is. 

Her last email, sent from India, said that she and AJ were heading for Nepal where they planned to go trekking.

I guess they are no where near an Internet Cafe.

On being prodded...

I read somewhere that people blog for about two years and then give up.  When I first started blogging it took over my life. I had a case of obsessive compulsive disorder.  Being able to publish something which could instantly be read world wide was a very attractive idea - you know how everybody wants to write a Novel and/or run a Restaurant. Blogging seemed to be an opportunity to begin to learn how to write that Novel.

 Oddly, most of my readers were in the USA so I began to tailor my writing and spelling and grammar toward American English. 

That's an odd thing for a Central Australian aborigine to have done - isn't it? 

Today I received an email from an older blogger who has also stopped writing - she can be found here .

She encouraged me to get back into blogging by sending the following:

Good to see you make a comeback, but I have been having trouble for some reason, posting a comment.  Just wanted to say: "Is this the same Tjilpi who was here before?  He seems much quieter and more introspective.  His day-to-day doings always made interesting reading.  Come on, keep at it!"

 

SO...  what have you been doing?  Getting lots of use out of the pool?  Still gliding?

 

How is young Hugh doing?  And Marg? 

 

Do keep blogging - it's great therapy - for us and you.

 

I replied with -

Thanks for the cattle prod!

 

I posted something I've had in draft form for quite some time and hadn't quite finished it off; but it's done now.

 

I'm taking 3 months off work to try to get my head and life together.  I've stopped gliding. I lost the will to die.

 

Marg is with me until 1 March when she leaves for Carnarvon, in Western Australia, where her daughter Vashti has had a baby, Soroya.  Then Marg is going travelling again - I doubt I'll see her before the end of the year!! 

 

She'll be going back to Europe - she and her brother are chasing family history - and she also wants to visit her daughter Berti, who is hooked up with Fabio, an Italian who is a ships engineer. He works on the same cruise ship as Berti and when they are not at sea they live in a lovely spot in the north of Italy.

 

Hugh finished 12th grade and phoned yesterday to proudly tell me he has a job as an ISA - an Individual Student Assistant - at his old High School. ISAs are allocated to slow learners or disruptive kids.  He'll be looking after 7th graders.  At around 6'5" tall I doubt he'll have much trouble!!  He said he visited the class the other day and some of the kids remembered him from when he was a student.

 

Hugh and his puppy dingo did come to live with me for a while but my small house wasn't big enough for the two of us - so he is back at his mothers.

 

Julia is currently in India - travelling - in fact it is her 21st today - and I don't know where she are! 

 

Trekking in Nepal according to the last itinerary; and no doubt a long way from an Internet Cafe.

 

She got an HD in Anthropology last year at ANU.  She says that was because she was the only kid in the class who had seen a real aborigine!

 

She is coming back to a full time job as Editor of a freebie newspaper which advertizes the latest music gigs, and has article about the different bands in Canberra.

 

Unfortunately, the pool is once again green!  The early morning temp here was 12C!  It hasn't been hot enough to swim. I've hired a young man to tidy the garden and do some handyman jobs which I never get around to - I haven't mentioned the pool to him yet - but I'm going to.  There was a huge wind storm here which dumped lots of bark from my neighbours trees into my pool.  That stopped the Kreepy Krawley working.  Actually the water is quite clear - it is only green around the bits of bark on the bottom.  I'm hoping to get young Gary to fish out the bits of bark and get the Klever Kleener - or whatever it is called - going again.

 

Maybe I'll turn this email into a blog post!

And like the Little Red Hen - I did.

 

The Strandquist Bridge

  I have written before about my Swedish heritage,which came to me through my mothers side of the family.  On the left is a photo of my mother and her parents. Mums mother, Ethel, was the daughter of Hilda Strandquist, who was born in Sweden, and Francois Peres who was from Alsace-Lorraine.

In July 2008, I took my LandRover for a run to Queensland.  In central Queensland west of Rockhampton I passed through small towns with names such as Jericho, Anakie - I like that name - Emerald and Springsure.

At Springsure the Landy was thirsty for diesel. 

Dusk was approaching and I asked the lady who came out to fill up the Landy what there was at Rolleston which was 70km south east. I figured I could make Rolleston before dark and would spend the night there.

"You won't find much at Rolleston", she said, "you'd be better off finding a motel here."

True to form - I set off for Rolleston. 

As I drove into the small country town I crossed the Mackenzie River via the Tom Strandquist Bridge!

It was a Friday night and the local pub was full of jackaroos and jillaroos from the surrounding cattle properties, so there was quite a bit of noise in the bar.  I found out that the pub had a vacant room in its attached motel so I settled in for a few glasses of house white, and something to eat.

After a while I asked somebody if they knew anything about the Tom Strandquist Bridge.

"Oh, that's named after old Tom.  He lives just around the corner - must be in his nineties by now."

"How do I get there?"

"Just go out the front door, turn right, first turn left and it's the first house on your right."

I waited till next morning and found Toms' weatherboard house.  I cautiously knocked on the door.  A young woman appeared and I explained who I was.  She explained that she was Toms' grandsons wife and went off to find Tom.

Soon a sprightly old man appeared and invited me in for a cup of tea and some banana cake.  He produced photos of the Strandquist family.  I recognized some of the faces as he explained that he was the son of of the youngest son of my great great grandfather.   I was able to confirm my bona fides by recalling family names that had not yet been mentioned by Tom.

We chatted for some time before I felt it was time to hit the road.  Tom told me to call in on Julie Strandquist at the Winton Hospital on my way back. I had already passed through Winton on my way to Rolleston. On my return journey to Alice Springs I did drop into the Winton Hospital only to find that Julie was in the top end of the Northern Territory on holiday!

Next time I pass through Winton I'll call in again; and I'll also call into Springsure and tell the lady at the Petrol Station that I did find something in Rolleston!

Meteorology - Tjilpi Style

It was April and the Aboriginals in a remote part of Northern Australia asked their new elder if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.
 
Since he was an elder in a modern community he had never been taught the old secrets. When he looked at the sky he couldn't tell what the winter was going to be like.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the tribe should collect firewood to be prepared.
 
But being a practical leader, after several days he had an idea.
 
He walked out to the telephone booth on the highway, called the Bureau of Meteorology and asked, 'Is the coming winter in this area going to be cold?'
 
The meteorologist responded, 'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold.'
 
So the elder went back to his people and told them to collect even more wood in order to be prepared.
 
A week later he called the Bureau of Meteorology again. 'Does it still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?'
 
The meteorologist again replied, 'Yes, it's going to be a very cold winter.'
 
The elder again went back to his community and ordered them to collect every scrap of firewood they could find.
 
Two weeks later the elder called the Bureau again. 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?' he asked.
 
'Absolutely,' the man replied. 'It's looking more and more like it is going to be one of the coldest winters ever.'
 
'How can you be so sure?' the elder asked.
 
The weatherman replied, 'Our satellites have reported that the Aboriginals in the north are collecting firewood like crazy, and that's always a sure sign.'