Must be Something in the Water

The nexus between frogs and Coca Cola Amatil is not new, (check the Frog’s Head in in Diet Coke story) It highlights a fundamental conflict between the profit imperatives of a global corporation and local realities; social and ecological. This was most clearly seen in the well-publicised catastrophe in India.


For Gosford residents, the issue is given greater sharpness with the generous arrangements offered to Coca Cola Amatil to take water from the Mangrove Mountain aquifer at this time of water shortage and global warming.
With growing obesity, dental decay in children, etc., perhaps we need to take an inside look at the consequences of consuming beverages of this kind.
Today the Howard government refused the advice from health organizations to restrict TV junk food advertising screened in children’s viewing time. Why do they think these companies advertise if not to increase sales of junk food?
Of course at this time when water trading is being touted as a solution to government over-allocation of water licenses and over-consumption by Gosford and Wyong Councils, the fundamental question of how water became “privatised” is overlooked.

Return of the Frogs

Sharyn Walker, no doubt inspired by her participation in …the Space Between…, and her voice-over work on the resulting DVD, has sent us the following:

Dear frogs of Gosford:

O no, no. I am not the frog
that goes kurakapony-koo
Nor the one that goes brip-pup,brib-pup,brip-bub.
And I am not the pesky night-time frog
Out side my bedroom window that declares:
drip, drip, drip,
drip, drip, drip,
drip, drip, drip,
drip, drip, drip,
drip, drip, drip...
and forces unwanted attention on the
bathroom faucet -
then stops.
Neither am I the one that makes myself
unavailable, by dangerously hopping
from tree into whiskered jaw
Nor the detestable alien-cousin, marching
Pacific-ly south, laughing
“It’s only my way, you know” and
“O bliss! O poop-poop! O my! O my!”
Never associated with the one who walks along
with Miss M.
Scandelous!
u-hum-u-hum-u-hum
O no! I am the wither-wasted frog, lying
on the Somer table, by the spring.
Sipping the last of my coke addiction before I
Croak.

Image from the Common Well Archive - Gosford Times.

Burns Place Fountain Scoop

Scoop - From Sharyn Walker.

"I grew up in the Gosford Shire/City. My home, schooling and social life all revolved around Gosford – mainly the ‘Peninsula’ in my primary school-aged life. As an adult and since turning an age where reminiscence and memory rears, I am observing change to places where I spent many childhood hours.

My childhood home is now a car park to a nursing home. This change occurred about three or four years ago. That’s okay, maybe that is where I will spend my twilight years.

The buildings where I attended primary school, St. John the Baptist, Woy Woy, were abandoned and classes moved, in 1979, to more salubrious grounds. This too was okay, as I had also abandoned primary classes to attend high school. Subsequently, the buildings were utilised for community college classes.

About two years ago, I was anguished to observe the felling of two of the school ground’s favoured trees. And later the demolition of the whole school – those classic, old buildings.

Photo taken by “Spike”, editor of http://thisisntsydney.blogspot.com/ a very
interesting read.

As for “Gosford”, I have one Gosford, which exists in my 2007 reality, and another Gosford, which exists, in my nostalgic, indulgent memory.

Which brings me to the Rotary Fountain where the two Gosfords intersect.

Copyright Gosford & District in Pictures

From 1979 to 1982 the Rotary Fountain, Gosford, featured in my life, as a daily meeting place and hangout, just briefly, while awaiting the bus/train to take me to school or home. Teen-hood observation is not much externalised, and if anything, I thought the fountain to be mossy and ugly. It is only in recent years, maybe since the loss of fountain water, and maybe since the removal of the scoop, that I have come to appreciate the artistic value and history of the fountain.

In November, 2006, I asked Gosford Council’s Officer for Parks and Waterways what had become of what I have dubbed "the scoop". Bryce Cameron responded:

'At present Council is consulting with the sculptor & foundries to reproduce the scoop. Initially for approval to go ahead and also for prices. We will then have to apply for funds to undertake the works.'

This job has been delegated to Charlie Trivers, Collection and Exhibitions Officer, Gosford Regional Gallery.

A brief history: In the early 1960s Gosford Rotary commissioned the fountain as a memorial to all who had fought for peace. Sculptor Gerald Lewers was invited to create and install the fountain and his wife, painter Margo Lewers, was invited to design the pool and wall mosaic. Before work on the fountain commenced, Gerald died following a fall from his horse. Margo and their daughter, jeweller and silversmith, Darani, carried on the project to its completion.

When asked what inspired the unusual design Ms Darani Lewers states:

'Gerald made a series of public fountains in the 1950s. A feature of his work was an interest in using water to complete the fountains as sculpture in motion.

The mosaics are an extension of Margo Lewers's painting. Initially she created a series of wall and floor mosaics for the family home. They formed the basis for the commissioned work such as the Rotary Fountain.

Several of Gerald Lewers’s small fountains can be seen
at the Penrith Regional Gallery and Lewers Bequest,
originally the artists’ home, at Emu Plains.

Ms Lewers remembers well the Rotary Fountain and was keenly disappointed to hear of the recent vandalism. Charlie Trivers has contacted Ms Lewers to seek advice on the restoration of the 'scoop'.

She fears that much of society today does not sufficiently value public art and that we are losing our cultural past. 'This fountain is a part of our heritage and we need to draw on the collective memory while it still exists'.

It is promising that Council is taking the restoration of the fountain 'scoop' seriously and that work is under way to seek quotes from a “reputable conservator”. Charlie Trivers wrote in February 2007:

"We have received a quote from a reputable conservator for the fountains repair to the copperwork of the fountain. We also have to consider making the work more vandal proof without detracting from the integrity of the work."

Ms Darani Lewers hopes the work will be undertaken by the original craftpersons, the coppersmiths Wardrobe & Carroll of Alexandria, Sydney.

A more recent email from Mr Trivers states:

“Due to the recent water shortages the council has turned off all fountains in the Gosford area.
With appropriate water use being a huge issue at the moment the fountains priority is not as great as it has been.”

He does assure me, however, that his manager will allocate the funds in the next financial year for the restoration (2007/08).

Although the flow of water does complete the overall sculptural form of the fountain, should the absence of water lessen the priority of the restoration process?

While Gosford Vision 2025 Strategic Plan promotes the future enhancement of performative and visual art in the area, let’s hope that it is not at the expense of our historically important art icons."

Sharyn Walker.

Frogs spotted.

Arun’s alumni observed in Kibble Park.


These photos sent to the Gosford Times, were taken recently in Kibble Park in the garden bed covering the old Town Wells.
Why the frogs seemed interested in the Coke bottle, and were apparently trying to move it, is unknown. Could there be a relationship to the reference to in-vitro (Coca Cola) reproductive technology or was it simply an example of waste water harvesting? The drying conditions must be placing great stress on the frog population to establish emergency supplies in the face of forecast climate changes.



“In some areas (Mangrove Mountain/Kulnura) the consequences are far from trivial – falling water tables, reduction of groundwater flow to sustain wetlands springs and rivers, irrevocably salinised or polluted groundwater and land subsidence,” (Tom Hatton, CSIRO as reported in Express Advocate 7/2/07)


A quick check in A Field Guide to Frogs, Martyn Robinson, found no Australian species with the colours or markings of the frogs in the photos. A possible explanation is that unnatural reproductive techniques produced mutations that resulted in “Coca Cola“ colouring. The juvenile frogs observed may simply have been regarding the bottle as one of their family, or a possible mate. [in this context see Cornelia Hesse-Honegger's work After Chernobyl re. environmental stress and mutation]

Ghost Frogs

While researching the Ex-stream frog education programme for Gosford, I was told of rumours that on some evenings frogs could be heard calling in the vicinity of the old Town Wells in Kibble Park. Despite thorough searching, no animals have been found.

Town Well excavated in 1980

The following is from City Council information about the wells:

“Before reticulated water was installed in Gosford in 1938, two wells existed on the William Street footpath alignment, each approximately 1.5 metres square, located side by side and lined internally with hardwood planking.

These wells filled naturally from subterranean water.

In 1980 during the conversion of the Kibble Estate into Parkland, the town wells were rediscovered, then left in place and covered over with a concrete slab and bitumen paving.

Cosford City Council erected a plaque on a drinking fountain in William Street near to the old wells, and that plaque read as follows:

This drinking fountain was constructed to indicate the location
(under the footpath) of two wells side by side. They were used by
generations of local residents as a public watering place
and covered in the nineteen thirties

……………….
Here, on benches placed under a huge Camphor Laurel tree, the
wives and families would gather at the end of a days shopping in
the township, while the men brought back the buggies and gave
their horses a good drink before returning home, thus conserving
their valuable home water supply.

Again, in 2005, the wells were uncovered and then left in position, covered by a new concrete slab to replace the one that had been damaged."

Approximate area where frog sounds have been heard.

There is a theory that some frogs previously confined to designated reservations, have hitchhiked their way into the centre of Gosford and set up a “squat” in the old wells. It has been suggested that these frogs used knowledge acquired in the Ex-stream programme to access Council information in order to locate the wells and gain access.

It seems a shame that these symbols of shared community and the water/life cycle are buried under concrete. Perhaps we need a new “water fountain” sculpture as an icon for the New Gosford.

Frogs Targeted

Frogs targeted in ex-stream education programme for Gosford

An ambitious plan has been announced to drought-proof water-dependent species threatened by the drying climate predicted in recent scientific studies.

The education program, led by graduates from the Aron School for Frogs in Sweden, will seek to teach survival skills and strategies to frogs in Gosford.

As human population in Gosford and the region expands to fuel economic growth, inevitably there will be increased water consumption.

It is anticipated that there will be a drying out of surface water, not only from temperature increases and lower rainfall, but also from the harvesting of run-off and depletion of groundwater by public and private interests. Surface water from rainfall and aquifers provides the water needed for the breeding of amphibians such as frogs. It is predicted that there will an increase in bushfire intensity as the vegetation dries, posing a further threat to juvenile and adult frogs.

The School for Frogs, founded by Swedish artist Aron Fleming Falk “aims to provide the animals with life-saving knowledge. The education offered to them is focused on different ways to build dams, move water and water purification, as well as how to build tunnels to get under roads that cross their path. The frogs get also courses in human behaviour, human economics, how to build windmills and waterwheels to produce power, art, music and philosophy.”

In Gosford the programme will be adapted to include dry-land farming methods, emergency fire planning, dry skin prevention and in-Coca Cola reproductive technology.

The Swedish instructors will be joined by local staff who worked on the program conducted by Synapse Art Initiatives at Mangrove Mountain teaching aesthetics, cultural theory and deportment to domestic ducks.