Darwin Powerpoint Presentations

[Walter John]

Hello members of Palm and Cycad societies. In late May this year my wife and I travelled to Darwin for a week's holiday and took plenty of photos of Darwin and surrounding areas, palms of course featuring prominently.

I designed/created 3 Microsoft Powerpoint presentations from many of the photos and showed these at our Brisbane Palm society meeting last night.

The slide show went well, well received and now I have a feeling of anticlimax as it is all over and I spent a great deal of time creating these shows. Timing the music with the start and end, selecting the right photo, etc.

So, if anybody connected with a palm society is interested, I would gladly and at no expense to the receiver/society, send a cdee with the powerpoint shows to you.

To replace my commentary, I will gladly complete some notes for each slide.

Darwin and the Northern Territoy is an amazing place on this planet of ours, your next palm meeting could enjoy something different by showing these palm induced presentations. I'm simply about sharing information on our beloved subject, "Palms" (and cycads). Heaps to discover here.

They are created on Microsoft Powerpoint XP. The titles are:

Darwin City and Beyond

Land of Timeless Sunsets

Walk on Water

They each come with MP3 sound files which must be placed in the same folders as the presentation files for proper viewing.

Any questions/Anyone interested ? Send me a PM.

[Daryl]

Hi Wal,

I watched the presentations last night, with sound...

well done!

Daryl

[Walter John]

Bump !

This offer will not last. Anybody interested at all ? Forget about society membership for a moment.

[elHoagie]

Wal,

Thanks for the offer, it sounds like a great show.  Unfortunately all the Palm Society of Southern California meetings are held outdoors, and I've never seen a computer or a projector at one...

Jack

[Zac in NC]

Wal- There might be interest in the Southeast Group, or maybe the NC Palm Society. I know we sometimes start out the meetings indoors.  Plus, I'd be interested in seeing it too.  

Zac

[Robert Lee Riffle]

Wal--

I'd VERY much like to have them for a meeting of the Central Florida Chapter of the IPS.

I will PM you with name/address of the person to sen them to if you are still inclined.

The CFPACS often publishes in their journal accounts/photos of Aussie palms/locations.

Thanks much ....

--bob

[Walter John]

(Zac in NC @ Jul. 26 2006,19:31)

QUOTE

Wal- There might be interest in the Southeast Group, or maybe the NC Palm Society. I know we sometimes start out the meetings indoors.  Plus, I'd be interested in seeing it too.  

Zac

Hi Zac

Why not PM me with your address and then it's your call to take it to meetings etc. No worries.

[Zac in NC]

Ok I will do that

Zac

[Walter John]

To those (they know who they are), who have requested these presentations, I just wanted to let you know:

They have been posted, probably arrive in 5 to 6 working days.

When you insert the cdee, your pc will likely open up an audio program because of the MP3 files on the cdee. Just close the audio program if this happens and copy the files and folders to your hard drive. Remember there is a document file included with slide notes and other tips/info.

Thanks for your interest, it gives me a thrill to be involved in sharing something like this.

[Walter John]

Dear Darwin presentation show receivers, I made a mistake in the Slide Notes

3. Walk on Water

a. Photos of various Hobart and surrounding area water scenes, Litchfield National Park and Hobart beaches etc.

should read

3. Walk on Water

a. Photos of various Darwin and surrounding area water scenes, Litchfield National Park and Darwin beaches etc.

[Zac in NC]

Just got it in the mail and I am about to look at it. Thanks Wal.

Zac

[Walter John]

Don't forget to turn up the volume or best to put headphones on really.

What did you think ?

[Walter John]

Please Zac and everyone else who received the cdee put me out of my misery and PM me on the slide show.

[Zac in NC]

Hey Wal. I have to get to a machine with PPT on it before I can let you know. Perhaps I'll go to the library Monday and watch them, so I can let you know and put you out of your misery. I can hear the music though. Also, Happy Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zac

[Walter John]

Hello folks,

Well I sent 4 cdess around the globe and only two arrived at their destination. I now have a much better plan for distributing these slide shows, thanks to help from those in the palapa.

I have now uploaded the files to a location thanks to the hosting program "Rapidshare". All you have to do now is download them from the following locations:

Land of timeless sunsets

Darwin City and Beyond

Walk on Water

They are zipped here so just unzip them into the one directory/folder on your hard drive and click on the PPS file. They have sound so turn up the volume and watch the show.

Let me know how you get on.

Here's the accompanying info I sent with the cdees.

Hello folks

I am thrilled to be able to share these presentation slide shows with you. The importance of information sharing can never be underestimated.

I included a musical soundtrack to enhance and highlight the wonder of Darwin and the surrounding areas, like Litchfield National Park, what an experience. I hope some of you can live it like I did.

It was a funny experience sneaking that Livistona humilis back to Brisbane. I was afraid the airport xray machine would pick up the pot soil and thus prevent me from taking it on the plane. Had it bent over backwards and it survived just fine, tough palms are Livistona no doubt, some of the toughest.

If you have any problems, which you shouldn’t as long as you have a recent version of Microsoft Powerpoint, or any questions, just PM me on the IPS message board.

I aim to do more of these slide shows, I just need to get back to Cairns first.

Slide Shows:

1. Darwin City and Beyond

2. Land of Timeless Sunsets

3. Walk on Water

a. Photos of various Darwin and surrounding area water scenes, Litchfield National Park and Darwin beaches etc.

Instructions:

 It would be preferable to copy the folders from the CD to your computer’s hard drive be it a laptop or stand alone. This will ensure a smoother show.

 Copy the folders as they are appear on the cdee, do not move, remove or change any file within the folders.

 Double click on the PPS file and sit back and enjoy. You can stop the slide show at any point but remember this will cease the soundtrack from playing if you continue from where you stopped.

“DARWIN CITY AND BEYOND” slide notes

Slide no. Comment

1 A recall of the devastation of Cyclone Tracy from 1974

2 View of Darwin City from nearby Charles Darwin National Park Music starts with this slide

3 Coconuts along the Darwin esplanade

4 Twisted coconut near some city buildings

5 An amazing length of Cyrtostachys renda planted along this inner city commercial building

6 Yours truly in same lipstick plantings

7 Darwin Court House, featuring royals, macarthur palms and dwarf dates.

8 Bizzies and Cuban royals. Note shrunken Roystonea crownshafts ? Too hot in Darwin you see

9 More bizzies around the corner from previous slide with standard cycad plantings Cycas revoluta and Zamia furfuracea

10 Group planting of Carpies (Darwin palm) , Carpentaria acuminata. At the museum park area.

11 Another photo from approximate area of previous slide

12 Another photo from approximate area of previous slide, entrance steps to museum

13 Photo taken from within the museum, looking through tinted window at enormous Bismarckia nobilis.

14 Various palms here, unsure of all species apart from Cocos nucifera. One for the "What palms are here?" quiz

15 Two wonderful green Bismarkias, just growing on the footpath. That's me trying to beam them back to my place in Brisbane. It didn't work

16 A wonderful mix of palms and cycads at the war museum at East Point

17 Nightcliff seaside parkland. An amazing selection of palms here. Bizzie and Latanias.

18 Same Nightcliff park with row of bizzies and row of coconuts

19 A single Latania, I think.

20 Same park again, this time with some local carpies.

21 Intro slide for part two features pic of local water buffalo. Took photo at cattle yards where these babies (shorn horns) were due for BBQ skewers.

22 First nursery visit, (Sunshine nursery), showing a Livistona humilis growing native (wasn't planted) against shed

23 One of my nieces amongst various selection at Sunshine nursery, including Arenga hookeriana and Pritchardia sp. Etc etc.

24 Famous plant this. It's a Gulubia costata and the nursery allowed us to dig it up for free and we transplanted it into my nephew's yard.

25 Aiphanes minima were growing through these pots, this palm nursery business was slow and they didn't care. $5 AUS which is $3-80 US

26 Next nursery (Ironside ?) my wife Donna strolling past a Phoenicophorium borsigianum.  

27 Same nursery where practically everything sold for $8-00 in these pot sizes. Here's the Livistona humilis I snuck back with me on the plane. Nurseryman spraying for bugs, spray includes fertiliser.

28 Next nursery, far bigger and more expensive, forgotten the name, some of the plants were superb like these Licuala grandis.

29 Same nursery, Corypha, Livistona and Carpentarias stand guard over the nursery plants.

30 Same nursery, these lipsticks were $25 AUS, bit expensive I thought compared to previous nursery $8 there.

31 Same nursery, lovely pink tinged leaves of Livistona rigida

32 Same nursery, bottle palm looked like it had previously been surrounded by growth, now cleared, I guess.

33 Same nursery, just a nice mix of fan palms and trees

34 My wife again at the termite cathedral mounds, showing the different heights Livistona humilis get to. These Livistona were everywhere.

35 Florence falls lookout, Litchfield national park, looking down on carpies in the wild. They too grew everywhere, way taller than cultivated ones.

36 Livistona inermis so I was told, at one of the Litchfield areas.

37 Florence falls, where my wife is standing next to a Carpentaria literally growing on rock

38 Hydriastele palms, probably wendlandiana, at Wangi falls walking tracks

39 Same again with carpies here and there

40 Carpy rooftop, Wangi falls, Litchfield national park

41 Same again, looking down this time

42 And again with sunshine artistically breaking through the canopy

43 Young carpies, Berry Springs

44 Livistona benthamii and Carpentaria acuminatas, with nieces etc., Berry Springs

45 Same spot looking up

46 Local silver cycad, grew wherever the Livistona humilis grew

47 Howard springs, Hydriastele and Carpies hither and dither

48 Howard springs, Livistona benthamii

49 Howard springs where big barramundi swim up to you. Soldiers of the Australian and American armies camped at Howard Springs in WW2.

50 Tolmer falls pool with yet another native carpy or two.

“LAND OF TIMELESS SUNSETS” slide notes

Slide no. Comment

1 Mindil Beach Sunset Markets every Thursday night.

2 Palmerston is the town I stayed at. Here's the local civic centre water tower.

3 My nephew's home in palmerston. I was amazed at the number and size of carpentaria palms there on my first night.

4 Walking around the block, palms grew everywhere in every yard, just an example here of various palms.

5 My first morning and virtually across the road from where I stayed, a magnificent Pritchardia pacifica I believe

6 Another typical Palm bespeckled Palmerston yard

7 Some yards had some biggies like this Arenga pinnata

8 Continuing my walk around the block and here we have Phoenicophorium and check the leaves and leaflets of some others  

9 My jaw was dragging now as I kept coming across amazing tall carpies with perfect form. That house is a high two storey building.

10 Final walk around the block photo is of some type of Dypsis perhaps. I hadn't even got out of Palmerston and I was in palm heaven.

11 Part two commences with a background photo of Oncosperma for a tour of the botanical gardens

12

13

14 This tall clump of Cyrtostachys renda in the middle of space is effective looking except for that darn power meter box.

15 Sorry, didn't get the name, but boy was it impressive looking, near the entrance

16 Amongst a group of different palm species is this lovely Neoveitchia storckii, others include Veitchia winin and Bentickia nicobarica

17 Bentickia nicobarica with a huge infructesence/infloresence

18 The main feature palm for me in Darwin, Lodoicea maldivica, a threesome in fact, here I am under the biggest one. Note the male seed only.

19 Wonderful Lodoicea fan leaves, big and bodacious

20 Bit glarry unfortunately, but here's the double coconut trio

21 Nephew Scott stands next to what is labelled Pseudophoenix vinifera, just down from Lodociea, Chamaerops humilis nearby

22 Latania loddigesii, Scott is a tad over 6 feet tall

23 Tallest betel nut palms I will ever see, Areca catechu, on far right includes yellow crownshafted Pinanga sp.

24 Looking up into the shading canopy of Calyptronoma occidentalis

25 Walt Disney couldn't design this better, Copernicia macroglossa dancing downhill chased by Roystonea sp.

26 Mixed batch of Copernicia baileyana, Cocothrinax sp. (I think far left) and Hyophorbe lagencaulis etc.

27 Forest of Corypha trunks. This was just plain stunning being there. I was overwhelmed and awestruck many times at these gardens.

28 So big I couldn't get a proper pic of these Corypha giants, managed to snap this baby one though.

29 Could be Phytelephas, don't know for sure, this is one of the real jungle sections of the gardens, expected to see Tarzan.

30 More of the jungle section. Unsure of species.

31 Livistona benthamii trunks. Could be on another planet. Man, I was drooling at this point, completely overcome by the wonder of it all

32 Various palms and plants, just another view, camera was operating by itself at this point.

33 Looking up the jungle hill to a bunch of Phoenicophoriums

34 Check out this amazing twisting Pritchardia. Peter Pan appeared briefly on the trunk but I didn't get a photo, too quick.

35 Sun blasted Pritchardia leaves, unsure of species.

36 Here I am, unsteady on the legs at some tall Licuala grandis and Rhapis etc etc.

37 Cycads, didn't look great but here they are, sorry you gotta guess what they are.

38 Cycas something

39 More cycads

40 Parched Wal seeks urgent shade of Cycas sp.cycad

41 A great looking Pinanga kuhlii sp.

42 Changed forever after only an hour at the George Brown gardens, Darwin.

43 Back at that rat pack of palms, Veitchia winin, Bentickia and there's a Rhopaloblaste somewhere there too.

[Zac in NC]

Hey Wal- Did Bob recieve his before his untimely death? If so, what were his comments?  I did enjoy seeing those slide shows.

Zac

[Walter John]

Hello Zac

Bob wanted me to send one of the cdees to the following address. I will never know if it got there.

Dr. John Kennedy,  Dept. of English

Indian River Community College

3209 Virginia Ave.

Fort Pierce, FL  34981-5596

U.S.A.