Chapter 1: East Malvern Part 1

The East Malvern streetscape is still very much pre-WWII federation style homes with moss covering parts of the roof tiles and red brickwork, large European deciduous trees overhanging and distributed around the front and back garden. The wattle birds and magpies fighting for dominance of an area and the crows squawking imperiously over their chatter. The rumble and bells of the trams could be heard across the Park opposite which was like the olde style common ground where everyone met. The strip shops were on two sides of the North East Corner of Wattletree Road and Burke Road, whilst the residential homes were on the other two sides, Kingston Street and Central Park Road. Guess what, the area is known a Central Park and is a quiet area, with the hum of the City in the background. The park has the compulsory football oval with the cricket pitch in the middle, a children’s playground, a conservatory and plenty of grass and trees. During the southern autumn the colours of all these imported trees is spectacular and so un-Australian but familiar in these transplanted British communities that can be found in all the major cities of Australia, indeed, even some of the regional towns and cities as well.

There he was sitting on the stairs to the front veranda with the green front door of his home behind him on a fine autumn morning awaiting the arrival of Jennifer. David has prepared for the journey to Central Australia to assist her and a couple of her fellow botanists. They will be looking for previously unknown or unnamed fossil bones. Dinosaurs of Middle Cretaceous period are suspected because of the age of the rock determined by a local mineral industry geologist, who is very excited about the prospects as he is a palaeontologist at heart. An additional bonus is a botanists dream, it has been raining in the Centre and types of plant, which hibernate until the rain arrives, are hidden for many years, and missed by the botanists and other observers for centuries it would appear, as Jennifer his sisters friend and former High School sweet heart, tells him quite frequently.

A very bright and vivacious young lady, who appears to be one too fragile and petite to be on expeditions into the interior of a country few have ever seen or experienced outside of the tourist routes. She has previously been on a faculty-supervised expedition into the interior to witness the adaptations nature has made to allow its creatures to survive in an inhospitable environment. Frogs that bury themselves for years as they hibernate between rains, which make what appears most of the time, a dry creek bed run with water. Various marsupials unique to this island continent like the Great Red Kangaroo, which can travel great distances with its huge leaps and bounds that only man with helicopters and motorbikes can possibly catch. Who at night when flooded by the lights of oncoming road-trains stand transfixed, as if hypnotised until the awful thud that leaves another animal crushed on the side of the road for the wedge-tailed eagle to have his meal. Ever vigilant in the blue skies above he spots the kill, it seems, and rarely does he have to make his own kills since man brought the metal monsters from the south to this land.

After having submitted his thesis it became a difficult time between the end of semester and the publishing of his paper, a time of uncertainty and freedom, relief and expectation. Professor Lawson told him it would be at least six months before all the sponsors had viewed the document and checked his reasoning and evidence it was a technical document, to do with a Magneto-hydrodynamic means to hypersonic propulsion and its integration with a suborbital impulse propulsion system. The theory involved the control of the system, more than the actual device, which had been first theorised in the middle to late fifties. Therefore, Aerodynamics, Electronics and MHD (Magneto-Hydro-Dynamics) specialities were involved, and a few departments required for analysis like Mathematics, Physics and Aeronautics, so six weeks was an optimistic assumption.

With this concern, he was looking forward to deciding which of the employer offers he had during the last six months from the US, UK and Japan, as well as a tentative offer from Russia, which intrigued him, as a lot of the MHD work had been done in the old Soviet Union during the Cold War years, to accept. To help him relax, his amorous interest of late had suggested he take a trip with her palaeontological and biological friends to the outback to assist in the study of new flora, thought to be showing themselves after seven years of absence outside Alice Springs and, of course Jenny’s embedded terrible lizards. The infrequent appearance of the flora means that they are rare and difficult to track down according to Dianne, the attractive blonde he had made acquaintance just 10 months ago which had become more serious as they got to know each other over lunch, occasional dates to see movies or social events. They had in common, their religion, Mormon, their origins, England, and their interests in two related subjects, namely, ancient Egypt and Early Christianity and Pre-Roman Judaism.

This occupied their discussions and helped develop a friendship that both thought would progress further after their respective studies were over, namely Aviation Propulsion for David and Rare Australian Flora for Dianne. It was a rare attendance by David to a Young Adult activity during a semester break that brought them together. Rare because David was basically restricted by his studies to how much free time he had, Dianne of course went to as many social things she could attend, on campus, church and political youth.

On top of this was the disappearance six months ago of his Father Dennis Bradford in the Outback of Central Australia. His father was an aviation journalist assigned a story about the mustering and management of large herds on stations the size of Wales or some small state in the US in central Australia. The distances that needed to be covered required a small fleet of small helicopters and light planes. It was the men that flew them and maintained them that were the subject of his story. A blank notebook was all that was found with the abandoned Ford Falcon on a dirt track out of the Alice. A number of four-wheel drive tracks heading in both directions were the sum total of the clues left behind that the police could find no sign of a struggle. The investigation dragged on and on with little or no progress and is still open, six months after the disappearance. You see, no body has been found, and no evidence of foul play.

This had been bothering his family during the whole media flurry about the missing journalist. After three months the investigation and media interest diminished to apparently, nothing. Phone calls and e-mails to the police in the Northern Territory and the newspaper were getting nowhere. The implication that his father had disappeared because of family problems were insulting and upsetting to his Mum. Dad had never shown any inclination to leave, in fact he made every effort to get home as soon as possible when on assignment away from his Melbourne Office. His father was a meticulous man, making copious notes, and the fact that his diary had been found at his motel room, two days after the last entry, was significant, but know one would release the diary to David or his mother.