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Impressions of Tasmania Part 1

impressions-tasmania-travel — Trying to get our breath back at the Wineglass Bay lookout, eastern Tasmania.

As promised, the new few weeks will recap our month-long sojourn from Warwick to Melbourne then Tasmania and the return trip. Enjoy the respite from the hostilities of the election campaign. This is a special edition (longer than usual – a 5-minute read).

Before the memory of our lovely trip fades, we thought it would be good to jot down some of the highlights.

Not that we’re superstitious or anything, but we left it until the day after the Ides of March to set off on our month-long trip to Tasmania and back.

The first night was spent at one of our more familiar camping spots – the Goondiwindi Showgrounds. It’s only about two hours from Warwick, but we didn’t want to do a long drive on the first day. In fact, most of our drives were less than 350km in a day, and even less than that in Tasmania, where the roads are often quite winding and hilly.

When caravanning, our preferred stop-overs are generally Showgrounds campsites, as they are less formal than standard Caravan Parks as well as being quite a bit cheaper (around $20-$25 for a powered site). The nights were often quite chilly, so it was good to be able to plug in our little fan heater. We do brave the occasional ‘free camp’, but they are usually fairly primitive, with toilets only and no showers. Next stop Narrabri and another Showgrounds campsite. We stopped off at the Visitors’ Information Centre, usually a ‘must do’ when travelling to a new place. There was a video running there showing some of the local Aboriginal people with interesting tales to tell. We also knew of a good ‘birding spot’, birding being one of our interests when on the road.

The townspeople had developed a large artificial lagoon and wetlands in the 90s and the area now attracts a variety of birds – the more common (to us, anyway) Wood Ducks and Corellas, but also large Spoonbills and Herons ‘fishing’ in the shallows.

We drove to Coonabarabran the next day but didn’t go out to the Warrumbungles National Park this time as we had a fairly long drive to do (long for us, anyway – over 360km). We normally drive no faster than 95kmph when towing and often somewhat slower, as many of the roads have been cut up by floodwaters. We keep an eye out for what is following us – this is made easy by having a camera on the back of the van which sends a signal to a screen in the car. If we start developing a ‘tail’, we pull over when it’s safe to do so. I’m a bit surprised that so few vehicles acknowledged this bit of grey nomad courtesy with a toot of the horn, but perhaps I’m just old-fashioned.

Sometimes we come across quite an impressive ‘free camp’ – the one at Wyalong being an example. There was plenty of room as well as some interesting displays such as a reproduction miners’ hut. We stopped there for a lunch break on our way to Narrandera. This area is in the ‘Bland’ shire (named after an early European settler, rather than a description of the surroundings). Someone there has a sense of humour, as they have combined with the town of ‘Dull’ (a village in Scotland) and ‘Boring’, which is in Oregon, to form the ‘League of Extraordinary Communities’) Their slogan was ‘Bland- far from Dull and Boring’.

The next day we drove through Ned Kelly’s old stamping ground – Jerilderie, where he committed a rather famous/infamous bank robbery. The bank in question is now a B&B with a rather impressive rose garden in front. We obtained a map of the town which pointed out many of the buildings/areas relevant to Ned’s exploits.

Then on to a rather unusual ‘free camp’, in that we parked the caravan in the yard of an old friend in the town of Kyabram – North West of Melbourne. Penny and Randall were very hospitable hosts who gave us dinner and then Randall treated us to Bach’s cello concerto, played on guitar by memory – a rather extraordinary feat, we thought.

Then on to Coburg, a suburb of Melbourne which has the closest Caravan Park to the Tasmanian Ferry Terminal. This is the only ‘full on’ caravan park we stayed at. It’s termed a ‘holiday park’, which means Kiddies’ playgrounds, swimming pool, etc. and vans parked rather close together. It did have a laundry, though, which we made good use of, after several days on the road.

Our Ferry ride to Tasmania wasn’t until the next evening, so we had a whole day in Melbourne to do some sight-seeing. We were rather thrilled to have a celebrity tour guide. Margret RoadKnight took us first to the Van Gogh installation. This had been to Brisbane, but we didn’t see it there, so it was a treat to experience it in Melbourne. Several of his paintings were projected video style along the walls of the exhibition space, interspersed with information about his life. Van Gogh sold very few of his works during his lifetime, but he said he was sure that one day his paintings would be worth more than the cost of the canvas and the paints he put on them. Very prophetic of him.

Next stop was ‘The Vault’ where there is an exhibition of major Australian performers. Margret had donated her first guitar to the exhibition and I spotted a festival poster where she featured. (Ed: There’s also Missy Higgins’ first songbook from her days at Geelong High).Then on to the National Gallery where we saw an exhibition of bark and pole paintings from Arnhem Land. Of course, one could spend hours at the Gallery, but time was limited, so we continued to a spot that for some time has been my ambition to visit, but not for entertainment. Our Federal Government, to its everlasting shame, has been incarcerating several asylum seekers who were sent to Australia for medical treatment. Instead, they were locked up in a shoddy hotel for years, with no access to fresh air or outdoor exercise. We stood there for some time as a small gesture of solidarity. (Just prior to the announcement of the next Federal election, the remaining detainees were released – not out of compassion, but most likely because some ‘focus group’ has told the current regime that incarcerating innocent people was not popular).

We were using public transport, so Margret walked us through Carlton, where we caught the bus back to her place, after having the ritual coffee in an Italian cafe.

After a long delay boarding the Spirit of Tasmania, we set sail about 11pm. We had a cabin, so after a sentimental rum and coke for me (the drink to drink when sailing), we headed off to our cabin for the night. The passage was quite rough, but not too uncomfortable, as we were lying down and could look out the porthole if we wanted to.

Next morning saw us in Devonport. We took a slow drive to Stanley, stopping at Ulverstone for breakfast and at the little town of Penguin, where Bob posed for the obvious photo alongside the giant penguin statue. Stanley’s main feature is ‘The Nut’, a large flat-topped rock – remnant of some ancient volcanic activity. There is a walking track to the top, but we were satisfied with walking half-way up the very steep track, stopping several times for photographs (or to catch our breath – probably the latter). There is a chair lift to the top too, but it was not operating on the day because of the strong wind gusts. I suspect I may not have partaken of it at any rate.

From Stanley, we drove to the small West Tasmanian town of Waratah. Its claim to fame is a waterfall right in the middle of town. In the past, it had been harnessed to provide hydro-electric power for the nearby tin mine, but this was no longer operative. I happened to see a notice on the wall of the Post Office advertising a singing session on Thursdays. So that was serendipitous, as we arrived on the very day. The group was very welcoming and we enjoyed a two hour singing session with them.

The other useful thing about Waratah is that it is a relatively quick drive to our next destination – Cradle Mountain National Park. There is a caravan park just outside the National Park itself. The cost of staying there reflects its proximity to a world class National Park, rather than the quality of its amenities. There had been quite heavy rain for a couple of days before we arrived (fortunately to a lovely sunny day) and there was quite a bit of construction happening in the caravan park, so the access roads left something to be desired. The van site was very tight, but fortunately a helpful fellow guided us into the spot.

We were in Tasmania to do some walks, so walk we did – around the circumference of Dove Lake. This is classified as a grade 3 walk, so quite do-able for the average person, but I wouldn’t say it was a walk in the park (Ed: bahaha). Actually we were pretty fatigued by the time we got to the end and hopped or staggered back on to the bus to take us back to the campsite. Groans on getting aboard the bus were fairly common, so I didn’t feel too conspicuous.

From there, it was on quite a scenic route to Strahan, a fishing port on the West Coast of Tasmania. It is also a major tourist attraction, as it is from there that tourists can catch the boat trip up the Gordon River. It was another beautiful late summer/early autumn day with barely any wind and a very smooth sail on the large passenger boat. Definitely a ‘must do’ if you’re touring Tasmania. The cruise included a passage through the narrow ‘Hell’s Gates’ – named either for the difficulty of the passage in a sailboat and/or the feelings of the convicts transported to the notorious Sarah Island penal settlement. On the way to Sarah Island, we passed several Salmon and Trout ‘farms’ anchored in the harbour. The ecological wisdom of these has been disputed, particularly by famous author Richard Flanagan whose title for his work about the salmon farms is ‘Toxic’. Sarah island has some very good interpretive signs indicating the original buildings that are now in quite deteriorated condition. The cruise included a stroll through remnant rainforest – trees of such ancient lineage that their ancestors grew before birds were part of earth’s ecology. A silent forest.

The road from Strahan to Queenstown is rather challenging when towing a caravan as it has steep uphill sections and frequent blind corners. It’s a good advertisement for diesel all-wheel drive vehicles, though, as the Hyundai Santa Fe was very sure-footed on the road, which apart from the steepness and the blind corners, was somewhat slippery from recent showers.

Queenstown is no less dreary than it was last time I was there, some fifteen years ago. Closed shops and pubs everywhere, no doubt the result of a dearth of tourists over the past two years when Tasmania was cut off from the mainland owing to the unfortunately necessary Covid protocols. Hopefully things will look up now that tourists are again welcome. (Ed: not that this counts as election comment, but the first thing we saw in Queenstown was one of those union billboards depicting Scott Morrison: “Mate, it’s not my job’).

Once we got to Lake St Clair caravan park, we were rather dismayed to see the narrow site which had to be negotiated around a bend while avoiding several large trees. Watching people park their vans is usually good entertainment for those who are already set up. Our general method for the trickier sites is for Bob to drive while I stand outside the car and direct him left/right/ back/ forth, in my usual dulcet tones. (Ed: bahaha – haha)

The two hour walk at Lake St Clair was well worthwhile and not quite as challenging as the Dove Lake walk. Fewer tourists too, which made bird-watching more feasible. Birdlife was plentiful, but not co-operative with the amateur photographer, so no photographic proof. I did get a photo of the Tiger Snake which was lying curled up near the walking track. Tassie’s Tiger Snakes are black with pinkish bellies, similar to the mainland Red-Bellied Black Snakes, but the former are reputedly much more aggressive and toxic, so we were glad this one appeared to be pretty sleepy!

As we only had a month for this trip to Tassie and back, there were some time constraints, so we had planned most of the overnight stops in advance in order to minimise the amount of time searching for suitable places to stop. However, we also managed to be a bit flexible, so when we saw that there was a National Park (Mount Field) quite near Hobart, we decided to stay there overnight instead of the stop we had originally planned. I was a bit puzzled how I had overlooked an obvious National Park, but I came to the conclusion that it must have been in the crack of the map. This was one of the few overnight stops where we didn’t have a powered site. However, the van is equipped with a solar panel on the roof and an Andersen plug from the car to the van, so the ‘house battery’ in the van is usually fully charged by the time we stop for the night. We had replaced the old battery before we left as it wasn’t charging properly. The fridge and stove in the van run on gas. Lights, charging points, the fan, radio and the TV can all run on 12 volt and all are pretty efficient, so a few days without 240v is no real hardship, as long as we have plenty of blankets in the winter.

The volunteer caretakers at Mount Field looked rather familiar. Turns out I knew them from Maleny, where the husband volunteered at the Maleny Information Centre when I was there.

Of course the trip was not all beer and skittles, whatever that means (Ed: a life of indulgence). Although we had the car serviced and a warranty issue attended to before we left on the trip, what I refer to as the ‘bloody little orange light’ made its presence felt again on our way to Hobart. This light is a ‘Malfunction Indicator Light’ (MIL) which indicates something amiss with the oxygen sensor – part of the emission control system on the car. And now I’ll stop pretending I know what I’m talking about… We had this problem before, and it ended up being a faulty sensor itself, rather than a major issue with the vehicle. However, it doesn’t do to assume this is the case, so we contacted the Hobart Hyundai dealer, who, to his credit, agreed to look at the car the next day while we were off sight-seeing in Hobart. They concluded it was another of the oxygen sensors that was malfunctioning but sort of indicated that unless the car started acting strangely (e.g. losing power, using excessive fuel, smelling like rotten eggs), it was probably OK to drive. Not terribly comforting, as we had some 2000km still to go. But as Shakespeare said at some stage, ‘All’s well that ends well’ – no further issues with the MIL on the rest of the Tasmania leg or the drive home to Warwick.

To be continued…(all photos by Laurel or Bob)

Postscript from Bob

Thanks to those who commented on my Facebook post about my Whitlam song receiving the Alistair Hulett Songs for Social Justice award.

Who the Hell Approved That?

“I used to like the city better, thirty forty years ago’ South Brisbane circa 1973, before the Cultural Centre, Expo 88 and proliferating apartments.

The Cheeseparer family from Victoria, fed up with the overpopulated rat race, spent the school holidays cruising the south east Queensland coast, looking for a more ambient place to live than the far-flung commuter suburbs of greater Melbourne.

Margolia and Basil Jnr are sick of Melbourne’s unpredictable weather, the traffic, the pollution, the high cost of living and the four-hour daily commutes (including dropping the kids off at school and picking them up from daycare). They also want to be closer to the Cheeseparer oldies, Basil and Sybil (previously cited in this forum), who have retired to a 77^th floor apartment on the Gold Coast (which has a spacious guest room with four bunks and a sofa bed in the lounge).

So they set off on a road trip, boring the four Cheeseparer kids witless with their obsessive pursuit of a green change.

Somewhere between the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane, Dylan, 11, and a bit of a smartarse, looked out the window at a new estate. He provided the family with a pithy description: “a sea of roofs with nary a tree to be seen, tucked not so discreetly behind an acoustic fence running along the motorway”.

“Who the hell approved that?” he added.

“You can’t say hell – it’s a bad word,” said April, 6.

Margolia said: “Lots of religious people believe there is a place called Hell, so it is a place name, not a curse.

“But I was using it as a curse,” said Dylan.

“I know, let’s play a game”, Dylan continued. “First one to say something clever and cynical about any new housing estates we see gets a point. Winner gets more Face Time”.

“This is dumb,” came the voice of Max Cheeseparer, 15, banished to the Prado’s luggage compartment with Edie the Golden Retriever for saying negative things like “this is dumb”.

“Good tsunami will see that lot out,” muttered Eric, 13, not only bored but observant, as the Cheeseparer’s Prado cruised past a new coastal estate separated from the highway by a levy.

“Paper bag”, Dylan retorted.

“Yep, looks like someone drained a Teatree swamp,” said Basil Jnr.

“Not fair,” said April. “Adults cannot play.”

Well actually, adults should be playing this game when house hunting in the sprawling conurbation between Noosa and Coolangatta which makes up the greater metropolis of Bris Vegas. In the proliferating new estates, so often set next to freeways, generic housing design prevails, each home dominated by a two car garage and sited on allotments as small as 400sqm , depending which local government is setting the rules. The theory behind smaller lots is that it makes housing more affordable.

Who the Hell Approved That allocates points for the inventiveness of commentary, e.g. “Nice green buffer, mate” when clearly the trees have gone to Japan to make paper. A bonus point is awarded to the first to invoke The Castle’s famous quote: “Tell them they’re dreaming”. The latter usually applies upon seeing billboards announcing “house and land packages from $659,000”.

Be assured this is a game you can play anywhere in Australia and not just in the big cities of Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. One of the things you notice when following the grey nomad trail is just how few country towns have been left untouched by the cookie cutter form of new housing development built on the outskirts Many of these houses are sold off the plan with rental guarantees; bought by out-of-town investors. In the mania of the moment, no-one looks ahead 24 months and wonders “now what?”

There is a vast difference in vision between those steeped in the concept of sustainability and protecting the environment and the State government’s mantra ‘Jobs and Growth’.

The 2017 SEQ Plan forecasts an additional two million people by 2025 (bringing the region’s population to 5.5 million). Queensland’s target annual population growth (fertility+interstate migration), hoped for 3% per annum.

The State still boasts an average 2.2% over 10 years, although in recent years the population growth numbers have fallen below 2%. Perhaps the interstate migrants, in their desire to flee the rate race, have realised it is just as ratty across the border.

Residential real estate analyst Michael Matusik commented on figures released by the government which estimate that the Gold Coast, Ipswich and Logan are expected to accommodate 73% of the new housing development across south east Queensland. The Sunshine Coast and Brisbane City Council areas are forecast to hold an additional 10% each. The three municipalities are expected to generate an additional 298,000 dwellings.

Matusik noted that 82% of the new housing on the Gold Coast and 57% in Ipswich will be higher density (apartments), which is ‘‘much higher than current market demand’’.

The growth mantra has spoiled the character and amenity of countless suburbs in Brisbane. I lived there for 17 years, leaving for a smaller town in 2005 with no desire to return. I certainly have no capacity to buy there again, with a median price of $680,000.

The rot started with local governments deciding to relax planning rules so people with a house on a quarter acre allotment (once common), could sub-divide the block and put a second house on it (with an easement for access). This approach has degenerated into what is generically called ‘infill’, which in some inner city Brisbane suburbs mean allotments as small as 300sqm. These tiny house allotments are sought after, given that they represent a foothold in an otherwise unaffordable location (anywhere you have ‘city glimpses’).

In the 2017 report, Shaping SEQ, Deputy Premier Jackie Trad enshrines the vision that requires a population growth target.

“It is not difficult to see why the population of South East Queensland is expected to grow by almost 2 million people over the next 25 years. We have an enviable lifestyle, great schools and universities, and a strong, diverse economy expected to create almost one million jobs over the next 25 years. Our future is bright”.

This is not the only reason we moved to a country town two hours’ drive from Brisbane, but it was one of the motivators.

A reader who had been following our downsizing exercise with great interest wrote to relate her own experience in growth-mad Brisbane. Her aim was to sell the big family home in an outlying suburb and move closer to the city. But now she is spooked by falling sales volumes.

My friend also observes that prices are ‘predatory’ for inner Brisbane, with buyers made to feel ashamed if they are not up for the $750k starting point. So this empty nester, realising how little housing is designed for the over-50s downsizer market, has withdrawn from what she suspects is a static market, waiting for something to happen.

Meanwhile, the tree-changers are continuing the elusive search for a small town that has the infrastructure, ambience, affordability and the potential to commute to jobs in the city as needed. In theory, the brave new world of tele-commuting should make this lifestyle viable for people whose work revolves around consulting, writing, giving people advice and preparing documents.

A housing policy designed to facilitate and enhance this increasing desire to escape the rat race could in turn re-populate and rejuvenate small towns which might otherwise die. How about it, Anna?

Housing affordability and the empty homes scandal

housing-affordability-empty-houses — Housing affordability in world capitals. Photo of Melbourne’s Southbank by Ashley Rambukwella flickr CC https://flic.kr/p/KfdUMR

The inspiration to start writing (again) about housing affordability came from left field. I was sitting back enjoying an American roots band, The Brothers Comatose, at the Blue Mountains Music Festival in Katoomba. Lead singer and front man Ben Morrison introduced the band, saying they were from San Francisco but maybe not for long. “The price of houses is crazy there (man) and most of the musicians I know are moving out because they can’t afford to live in the area.”

“Maybe we could move here,” he suggested, and the audience groaned, knowing that housing affordability is just as big a problem in Sydney and surrounds as in San Francisco, Vancouver, New York or Paris.

“Can we sleep on your couch?’’ he jested, before doing what musicians do to avoid thinking about the cost of living. Great band, by the way (check out this bluegrass old-style tune around one microphone).

Morrison’s complaint rang true – I did a modicum of housing affordability research which quickly showed that the median price of a house in San Francisco’s Bay area clipped $US1.5 million in the fourth quarter of 2017. The California Association of Realtors Housing Affordability Index shows that it would cost $US7, 580 a month to service the mortgage. The average monthly rent for a two-bedroom apartment is $US3, 441.

Housing affordability is a myth in Vancouver, Canada’s biggest West coast city. The 14^th annual Demographia affordability study ranked Vancouver the least affordable among 50 American and Canadian cities. Internationally, it is ranked the third least affordable city among 293 locations around the world (Sydney was 2^nd). The British Columbia Provincial Government has made several attempts to rein in the city’s galloping real estate prices, including a 15% tax on foreign nationals purchasing metropolitan real estate. Another new measure attempts to tackle a problem that plagues Sydney and Melbourne, Australia’s housing affordability problem cities.

The BC government conducted a survey which found that 8,481 houses in Vancouver were unoccupied during a six-month period. That’s 4.6% of the housing stock. Now the government is going to levy a tax on people who own houses and don’t occupy or rent them. The tax will be calculated at 1% of the assessed value. So the owner of a two-bedroom condo in Vancouver valued at $900,000 and deemed to be unoccupied will pay the BC government $9,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the housing boom in Vancouver is on the downturn, according to the Vancouver Courier, and they should know. Still, with a median house price around $3 million (Dec 2017) and condos going at $1 million apiece, it’s maybe time for that bubble to lose some air.

Meanwhile Down Under, house prices keep rising

Melbourne and Sydney made into Demographia’s top 10 list of the least affordable cities in the world. Sydney’s median house price of $1.11 million assured it of that invidious claim. Demographia ranks middle income affordability using a price-to-income ratio. Anything over 3 is rated unaffordable. On this basis, some of the world’s most affordable towns included Youngston, Ohio (1.9), Moncton, New Brunswick (2.1) and Limerick, Ireland (2.2). There are no affordable Australian cities on Demographia’s watch.

The least affordable city is Hong Kong (19.4) then a gap to Sydney (12.9) and Vancouver (12.6). Melbourne (9.9) is slightly more unaffordable than the aforementioned San Francisco (9.1).

Studies have shown that Melbourne is one of the big culprits in hiding empty houses among its residential property stock.

Australia’s 2016 Census showed that 11.2% of Australia’s housing stock was described as unoccupied on Census night. Empty property numbers were up 19% in Melbourne and 15% in Sydney compared with the 2011 Census. This growing anomaly is a global trend in the world’s biggest cities which have allowed rapid apartment developments.

Just why 1.089 million houses and units were unoccupied on Census night is hard to explain. But it probably suggests the owner/s were not in need of rental income and would rather keep the place in mothballs for use when the wealthy owners or friends and relatives visit (for the Australian Open, Melbourne Cup or the Grand Prix) or are relying on capital gain without the need to bother with tenants.

Hal Pawson of the University of NSW wrote in The Conversation that the spectre of unlit apartments in Melbourne’s night sky prompted the Victorian government to introduce an empty homes tax. Like Vancouver, this is levied at 1% of the property’s value. Similar taxes have been introduced in Paris and Ontario. Mr Pawson, Associate Director – City Futures – Urban Policy and Strategy, City Futures Research Centre, Housing Policy and Practice, UNSW, (try getting an acronym out of that. Ed.) says the Melbourne tax only applies to inner city and middle suburbs and, there are ‘curious’ exemptions for foreign nationals with under-used second homes.

The flaw in the scheme is that it relies on self-reporting. Pawson says the lack of reliable data on empty homes is a major problem in Australia.

Census figures substantially overstate the true number of long-term vacant habitable properties because they include temporarily empty dwellings (including second homes).

Prosper Australia uses Victorian water records to estimate that about half of Melbourne’s census-recorded vacant properties are long-term “speculative vacancies”. That’s 82,000 homes. A similar “conversion factor” to Sydney’s census numbers would indicate around 68,000 speculative vacancies.

Labor Opposition shadow Treasurer Chris Bowen has proposed a national tax on homes left empty for six months or more.

Pawson says these “cruel and immoral revelations” come at a time when 400 people sleep rough in Sydney every night and hundreds of thousands more face overcrowded homes or unaffordable rents.

He says Australia has a bigger problem in terms of under-utilised occupied housing. Australian Bureau of Statistics survey data shows that, across Australia, more than a million homes (mainly owner-occupied) have three or more spare (read unused) bedrooms. A comparison of the latest statistics (for 2013-14) with those for 2007-2008 suggests this body of “grossly under-utilised” properties grew by more than 250,000 in the last six years.

While authorities are grappling with the issue and how to perhaps tighten foreign ownership laws, the ANZ Bank did its own survey. Foreign buyers were playing an increasing role in spurring demand for new houses and apartments, it found. The ANZ analysed Reserve Bank data to conclude that in 2015-2016, foreign investors bought between 30,000 and 60,000 dwellings in Australia. This equates to 15% to 25% of all new dwellings, 80% of which were apartments, which can be bought ‘off-the-plan’.

There is good reason to suspect that the new apartment markets in Hong Kong, Vancouver, London, Paris and other desirable world capitals are underwritten to some extent by foreign nationals (including Australians).

The problem which could arise, say in the case of a global recession, is what happens in cities like Melbourne and Brisbane where foreign investors have bought up to 35% of new stock, if these owners are forced to sell.

Not to worry, most big box discount stores will give you a large cardboard box in which to live. The dumpster bins behind shopping centres have perfectly good food that’s just been chucked out because it has passed the use-by date.

Trust me.

FOMM back pages

Travel safe this weekend, people

What rhymes with rhinitis

Taken with a Nikon D3s and 14-24 lens. 7 shot HDR at f/5.6. www.elviskennedy.com — Photo Elvis Kennedy https://flic.kr/p/a3EtMY www.elviskennedy.com

The proper term for what ails 4.6 million Australians is ‘seasonal allergic rhinitis,’ more commonly known as hay fever. The latter name has stuck, even though scientists have known that grass pollen was the key culprit since the late 1800s.

I surely don’t have to tell you this is one of the worst springs on record for seasonal allergies. But I will.

If you live in Melbourne and suffer from asthma and seasonal allergies, this has been and still may be a life-threatening year.

American and UK media outlets pounced on Melbourne’s “thunderstorm asthma’’ story – six dead and five more on life support, brayed NBC, portraying it as a ‘freak’ event, though Melbourne has previously had four storm-induced asthma outbreaks. The city’s emergency services were swamped, with 8,500 receiving hospital treatment.

NBC (and other media outlets) explained that the storm caused saturated ryegrass pollen grains to ‘explode and disperse’ over the city. About a third of patients reported never having had asthma before. Inter alia, about half of asthmatics have allergic rhinitis or vice versa.

The Telegraph in the UK tracked down the Melbourne scientist who discovered and named the phenomenon in 1992 (when two people died after two consecutive storms). Cenk Suphioglu, from Deakin University, said authorities should be ready to issue public alerts during such events as Melbourne is a well-known allergy hotspot. Previous epidemics occurred in 1987, 1989 and 2010.

So I thought it was (again) time to start taking seasonal hay fever seriously. Like so many of Australia’s rhinitis sufferers, I reach for the antihistamines too late – the pollen has already got to me, hence tissue boxes placed strategically around the house. If we could all be bothered, the early warning systems are in place to take prophylactic action.

Melbourne University botanist Associate Professor Ed Newbigin said in August that hay fever sufferers were set for a worse-than-usual season. He told ABC Rural a wet winter had contributed to spring growth in grasslands across western Victoria.

These grasslands released “huge amounts of pollen” when flowering and this is then carried to the city by northerly and north-westerly winds.

website, a free service provided by the University of Melbourne and the Asthma Foundation Victoria. This useful website now also includes pollen count forecasts for Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney. Pollen is measured as grains of pollen per cubic metre of air.

Dr Newbigin told FOMM yesterday pollen counts range so widely there’s nothing he can call a ‘norm’. Pollen count ranges are 0-19 (low), 20-49 (moderate), 50+ (high) and 100+ extreme.

A pollen count of 19 to 25 grains can make a sensitive person feel rather unwell. So Melbourne’s extreme count of 154 on Sunday November 6 explains a lot about the pressure on hospital emergency departments.

It starts with itchy eyes and sneezing

Allergic rhinitis symptoms are caused by the body’s immune system mistaking inhaled pollen for a virus, hence chronic inflammation of the eyes and nasal passages.

Symptoms include sneezing, runny, itchy, stuffy nose, itchy, watery and red eyes, itchy ears, throat and palate, headache and a “woolly headed feeling.” Allergic rhinitis predisposes people to sinus infections and poor quality sleep, leading to day-time fatigue.

Writer Suzanne Moore, a new convert to the World of Snot described her world of misery well in The Guardian.

“Wearing my sunglasses indoors, struggling to tear into some new drugs, my daughter looks alarmed.”Mum, what are you doing? You look like a crackhead.”

“I know I look stupid; I feel even more stupid. Hay fever does that.

“Apart from turning your body into a snot factory, you feel perpetually fogged up; not really there at all. It’s a miserable thing.”

So do you find it just a tad worrying that medical science still does not have a cure for seasonal allergic rhinitis? We sufferers form an orderly queue at our local chemist shop, ready to try anything new.

The best known relief remedies are, in no particular order, antihistamines, nasal sprays, steroid sprays, and, for the determined, few, a series of injections designed to desensitise the sufferer.

The newly afflicted Suzanne Moore says 20% of people in the UK are affected by allergic rhinitis. Allergy UK says Brits spend close to a billion pounds on treatments.

The one in five Australians affected spend a total of $120 million a year in over-the-counter remedies, so one could be forgiven for thinking there is no real incentive to find a cure.

The preferred treatment for someone who suffers acute attacks of allergic rhinitis is to start the patient on a preventative (corticosteroid) nasal spray before the onset of the hay fever season (in Australia September-December).

Some will go further to lead a normal life. As a lad, West Tigers prop Tim Grant took on serious treatment. The Sydney Morning Herald revealed that after he was diagnosed as a 12-year-old with a grass allergy, the NRL star endured three years of injections to build up his immunity so he could train and play.

Rhinitis rare in the 19th century

In the 19^th century hay fever was regarded as something that afflicted the aristocracy, possibly because the landed gentry could afford to consult the best physicians. Without exception, they prescribed rest and recreation by the seaside or at an alpine lodge in Europe. John Bostock, a British physician, spent most of his life studying an ailment which befell him in June every year from the age of eight. An article in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine says a speech by Bostock in March 1819 about summer catarrh is the first description of hay fever as we know it. The condition was so rare in pre-industrial revolution Britain it took Bostock nine years to find 20 other people to put under the microscope. Bostock experimented on himself with remedies and tonics including bleeding, vomiting, opium, mercury, cold bathing and digitalis, all to no avail.

It may come as no surprise to find that Canberra is the hay fever capital of the country, given the woolly-headed thinking emanating from Parliament House. Scientists attribute this status to the diversity of plants in the Australian Capital Territory which produce allergen-laden pollen.

One in 5 people living in the ACT reported suffering from long-term allergic rhinitis, followed closely by Western Australia, Victoria and South Australia. The lowest rates occur in Queensland and New South Wales (half that of the ACT). Dr Newbigin has previously said that as the planet warms and the population grows, it will be important for allergic rhinitis sufferers, health experts and city landscape planners to be aware of what environmental change may mean for population health in allergy hotspots like Canberra.

A map (below) usefully identifies where in Australia you are more likely to be afflicted. That’s not to suggest you should move to a low-allergy location. Some 95% of sufferers are allergic to grass, so their symptoms are destined to return, wherever they live.

But as John Updike once said, “I moved to New England partly because it has a real literary past. The ghosts of Hawthorne and Melville still sit on those green hills. The worship of Mammon is also somewhat lessened there by the spirit of irony. I don’t get hay fever in New England either.”