Transcript of AE 1412 - The Goss: What Are Our Plans for 2026

G'day, you mob! Pete here. And this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English.

So today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news, whether locally Down Under here in Australia, or non-locally overseas in other parts of the world, okay.

And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right? If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in the Goss.

So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English, so it is particularly good to improve your listening skills.

In order to complement that though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy Membership at AussieEnglish.com.au, where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads, and you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time, okay.

So if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript. Listen and read at the same time. Keep practising. And that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode, guys. Smack the bird and let's get into it.

Wow, it's been, been a little while. Haven't, haven't released any Goss episodes in a little while.

I know, I know.

So what's the goss, dad? What have you been up to lately?

Been too busy, I think. Both of us.

We can have a chat too. What you've been up to, what we've been up to. And then maybe what our plans are for 2026.

Ooh. Plans for 2026.

Cause you've got a few. You're organised.

Well..

You got more than me.

Yes. I'm not sure organised is the right word, but.

So how was Christmas and New Year's? Did you get messed up?

No! No, I was sick for half of Christmas. As you know, I missed Christmas Eve. Christmas Day. It was just head cold. But it's one of those things where you don't want to go into a crowd of people coughing and sneezing and...

Yes.

Spreading your viruses around.

Well, we had the trouble. Like my uncle's been experiencing cancer, right. And...

Yeah. So he's sort of immunocompromised.

Yes.

And don't want to hang around with two 90-plus year olds as well.

Yes.

So.

Yeah, well my grandparents. Yeah. So they're in their 90s. It must be one of those things where I can't imagine what it's like getting to that age and how you view illness. Like, do they just see people who have got a cold and just ignore it and just don't think about it? Or are you seeing it like that could kill me if I get it.

Yeah, well, you're probably not going to get killed with a cold, but you don't want to get the flu.

Yeah. Yeah.

And the trouble is, you don't know whether somebody who's just got a cold symptoms actually has Covid, the flu.

Yeah.

And not suffering terribly, but.

Yeah. Well, you never know until you, you get it and find out.

Exactly. Yes.

Yeah. But it is interesting. I thinking about Nana and Grandpa. They're still around 95 and 92, right?

Yeah.

And just the older you get, the more I think you realise how different older people view the world, what their goals are, what they're thinking about.

Well.

What the..

I expect and, you know, we're talking about planning for this year, but I expect when you get to 95, you don't really have long term plans.

Well, that's what grandpa said. I've chatted to him about it before. He was like, funnily enough, I think I sat down with him once and was just like, you know, when he got to 90, what's it like? What's it like being 90 years old, you know? I think I said to him, what's it like knowing that you've probably outlived everyone else in this room? You know, except maybe Nana, like you guys are now at an age where the average person in this room is going to be dead in their late 70s, early 80s, right? And you're ten years older than that.

Exactly.

And just being like, does that feel weird? Does it feel like you've achieved something, you know? And he was just like, no one wants to talk about it. He's, I remember saying to him like, are you afraid of death, of dying? You know, is that something you think about more? He's like, yeah, I think about it all the time. And he's like, I don't mind talking about it at all. And yet no one else wants to talk about it because I'm old. And you're like, it is one of those interesting things, isn't it, that, you kind of...

You never ask a blind person what it's like not to be able to see. And I'm sure they're perfectly happy to talk about it because for them it's just normal.

See, I would, yeah. Depending on what kind of blind, right. There's the blind during life, where you were, you could see originally.

Yeah, or never being able to see..

Never being able to see. Yeah. And I would definitely want to know what the experiential. You know, what it would be like to experience that because it's just so foreign to me. And how, I guess the question on the other end of that would be, what's it like to see? And you'd be like, fuck, I don't even know how to start.

Yeah. Describe the colour red.

Yeah, I know, so it'd be I feel like it would go both ways, but I remember it was interesting chatting to grandpa about that stuff. And he was just like, you kind of just end up living every day as it comes and just enjoying it and not really thinking about. Like, oh, I'll do this thing and try and aim for five years. Like, as I told you a few minutes ago, I've got a bunch of cacti at home. You know, I'm a bit plant crazy. And some of these cacti...

Or I'm just crazy.

Some of these cacti can live for hundreds of years.

Yes!

And so it's the kind of thing where I get a bunch of these cacti and they're very slow growing. They're beautiful things, but it's like I'm going to have to put an effort for the next few decades. I potentially, with this thing. And I'm like, you know, it was funny. I sat there and I was doing it. I'm like, you know, Nana and Grandpa would probably enjoy this. And then I'm thinking..

No.

What are they going to be like? How old am I going to grow...

Well, I know your grandfather..

When I'm 92 years old, you know,

Enjoys plants and, you know, bromeliads and things where, you know, you can, but you see what you're, what you're generating in a few months. You split up existing ones and repot them and stuff. And, and they've grown into something that looks new and flowering within months. So.

We have to decide, I guess, on that time period. How long do you need?

Well, it's like, yeah, if you're in your 80s or 90s, you don't go out and buy a pet cockatoo. It's going to live for 100 years, you know.

I was thinking about that the other day. Funnily enough, I'm like, you know what? They are pretty cool birds. But then even at my age now, I'm thinking if I bought one of them.

If you bought a young one, it'd outlive you.

Yeah, more than likely. Unless it died of something, you know, a disease or something. Yeah, but if it died of old age, it's going to get to 60s, at least in captivity, right? So I'd have to be over 100 or around 100 to see it out. So it is interesting. Yeah, there's a guy I follow, free shout out to a YouTube channel called Arid Zine. Like arid as in A R I D and then zine, Z I N E,

Maga-zine?

Yeah, he's really cool. Australian guy from Sydney, loves outdoor plants like those..

Arid plants.

Arid plants. Yeah. He's really obsessed with the caudiciform plants and the pachy... Is it pachy-poities? I can't remember what- pachyderms? Like the, these plants from places like Africa and Madagascar that are adapted to living in these really harsh, arid environments. And they grow like a fat base that's very water conservative and everything.

Yeah.

And there's some plants that he has, and he shows you the sort of naturally occurring form that you see there. Would they be these plants that look like a small shrub or a grass? And he'll show you the mature form and it's like a tree with all this grass at the top. And he's like, it's 400 years old.

Yeah.

He's like, he's like, I know that they're never going to get to that. And in fact, if I handed this down to my children's children's children.

Exactly.

They might get to this stage. But he's like, it's still cool growing them from seed and just knowing that you started from scratch. So I imagine that's how Nana and Grandpa would view growing cacti out now. It's sort of like I'm not going to see them get anywhere near mature.

No. So.

So what do you think about getting older? Have you completely changed the things that you think about since retiring? Do you still have long term plans? Have you noticed your plans getting shorter?

Nah, but I think I'm probably still at this age where I, you know, long term for me has always been 5 to 10 years. You don't have 40 year plans because...

Well, you can have them, but they're a waste of time! More than like...

Changing them every two years.

Yeah, exactly.

So in that sort of 5 to 10 year bracket, I still have those.

Yeah.

But you know, you start to, you start to- sorry, we just got an interloper!

My mum's come in. What are you after, Mum? She's just interrupting to get...

Stealing toys for the, for the grandchildren.

I'm looking for Joey's bathers..

All right, go for it.

Oh. Why is she going to go swimming? Oh! All right.

All right, so Joey's got new bathers because apparently we forgot to pack them the other day.

Yes. When she went to swimming lesson.

And I harassed Mum to buy some new ones. And now they live here.

Yeah, exactly. We pay for them. We own them.

Have you got- she's got a blanket over a box in front of me here. Is that to protect it from the sun? So the boxes don't fade.

Correct. It's not the boxes fading, it's the contents.

Yeah, the puzzle boxes.

The contents inside them fading.

That's what I meant. Yeah..

Yeah. Oh, don't get me started.

You know, the light comes around the sides as well, Mum.

No. Shh. Shh.

It's a tiny little blanket.

But yeah, I. Yeah. We've got and we're talking about, you know, plans for this year. We've got an overseas trip planned for this year and another one for the year following.

We can do a special episode.

We will. But but I think the you know, I'm probably now getting to the point going, I'm probably not going to be travelling overseas in ten years time. You know, when I get to my late 70s, I'm probably not going to be travelling overseas, mostly because, you know, you can't plan that your health is still going to be okay to do it. But also it's just the hassle and the expense.

Mhm.

And so there's plenty of things to do in Australia. So.

That's, that's the grey nomad way isn't it?

Yeah! Pretty much.

Once you get past your 60s in Australia, it's sort of like...

Get yourself a van or a caravan and off you go.

Well you've got the van! So that's all sorted.

Yeah. Which is, which is one of the things we did recently. Your mother and I went on a sort of three week trip up to northern New South Wales, camping.

Yeah.

In the van, if you can call that camping.

We did an episode on that, didn't we. Where you fitted out this campervan, the Delica from Japan that you imported?

Yes.

So give people a quick update on that. I mean, there's probably a bunch of people who heard that episode.

Yeah. Well, it's pretty much done now. So it's, it's really set up as a one person campervan.

Mhm.

But it doesn't have any cooking inside the, the kitchen is out the back. So you open the back door and.

Out the back!

Out the back! And so using the kitchen out there.

So if it's raining, you're fucked.

If it's raining, well, you're...

You're going without the door.

The, the rear door opens upwards. So it acts like a roof.

Yeah, but if it's not windy and rainy.

If it's windy and raining, then you, yeah..

Get some awning to protect yourself under there? Or there's a little tent or something..?

There's an awning on the side, but not at the back. I mean, I've thought about it, but the, the challenge with doing those things is that, you know, you spend 20 minutes setting the thing up.

Mhm. In the rain and...

In the rain and the wind. And then if it's too windy, you've got to take it down anyway. So.

Yeah, you're not going to go to sleep and sleep soundly...

But yes. There have been times. I'm just looking at this falcon flying past.

Once a birder...

Once a birder. You can't. Yeah. Something moves in the sky and your eye just goes straight to it. But yeah, so there have been a couple of times where I've been out camping and it's, it's been pouring with rain, I think. I'm not going to get outside and set up the table and the stove.

Cold dinner!

Or something. So it's just a...

Can of beans.

I got. Yeah. I've got a, I've got some bread and cold meat. I'll just make myself a sandwich.

Yeah. You just need to make sure..

You just go out and grab those and then you can build them indoors.

Yeah.

But other than that, it's really just a mobile bed. I just got sick of camping in tents where you...

You had to construct it.

You had to construct it. Whereas in this case, I can just, you know, literally pull over on the side of the road if I want to and go to sleep.

Is the bed already made?

... much in Australia.

Or do you have to unfold it and construct it inside the car?

Ah no. For me, for one person, it's there.

Yeah.

You know, just sort of one side is like a, a narrow single bed. It expands into a double. But then if you've expanded in a double, it fills the whole back. You can't sit there.

Yeah, yeah.

So I've made a sort of L shape, but then the, the gap that fills up the L into a rectangle slides out. So you can two people can sit in it quite comfortably with a table and do whatever they want to do. But it's, but then once you've made it into a double bed, then there's nothing else. And that's the challenge. When you get to our age and you've got to get up for the 2:00 toilet stop..

The bucket!

The one who's away from the door has to climb over the other one.

Yeah.

It's sort of like most of the time both of you end up going, sort of...

Can't you, just, can't you just cut a small hole in the side of the van or something with a hose? You know.

Just get a bucket. Yeah.

What is it? What is it called again? The tray that you get in a hospital?

Oh, yeah. The bedpan.

Just get that done. You'll be fine.

No..

Just empty it out...

Wake up in the morning and you can step in it. Yeah.

So it's been holding up well.

Yeah! Yeah, it's going well. I'm actually going away next weekend. Just down to at Portland. For those of you who are not familiar with Victoria's...

Sort of the end of the Great Ocean Road, isn't it?

Yeah, geography. It's the, the last large town on the coast of Victoria going west...

Before you get to Adelaide or to...

Port Nelson.

.. to South Australia.

Yeah. Before you get to South Australia.

Why are you going to Portland?

Um, there's a...

Pelagic bird trip?

Pelagic bird trip, exactly. Everything comes back to birds and photography.

That's it. There's always a pelagic bird trip. Yeah, if it's a coastal town several hours away from where we currently are, there's pretty much only one reason to go.

Well, you know, there are other reasons, but going to the beach is okay. But given that we live close to a good beach, there's no point in driving for four hours to go to another beach.

Well..

Unless...

Everyone's in Portland, aren't they? Like they've got cliffs, don't they? At that point, you're almost getting to the Great Australian Bight..

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yes.

So what else have you got planned? You said you've got a few trips planned for this year. Anything else big? Anything around the house? Anything closer to home?

Oh, look, you know, I'll just do a few bits and pieces here and there. Yeah, just, you know, birding and photography trips, weekenders or, you know, 2 or 3 days in the middle of the week.

Well, you did your bird book last year and you said you were planning to sort of go around and photograph every national park.

Yeah, that's...

In Victoria...

That's a, it's too ambitious to do in a year, but just an ongoing project that'll start of...

Well, you've already smashed probably all of them anyway, right. So you could potentially go into your bank of photos.

There are a few that have got new parts to it that I haven't visited that have been incorporated into national parks.

Mhm.

But the I think I've probably visited every national park in Victoria, but I've never intentionally done it, if that makes sense. And decided to photograph things while I'm there.

What are the rules now, though? Like for this book, you said you wanted to put together with photos of each of these national parks. What's the criteria? What's the, what's the aim? What's the theme?

Umm..

And do you have to do it all in a single year or...

No, it'll just be from now on. And it may never even be a book. It might just be. I'll probably restart the YouTube channel, which I haven't done anything on for. You know, since the first year of Covid, really.

Give it a shout out. What is it?

Yeah. Ian Smissen Photography.

Yeah.

There's probably 70 or 80 episodes on there. But.

You find Dad yacking away.

Yeah. Find dad yacking away out, out in the bush. Photographing stuff. But yeah, I just got disillusioned. Well, firstly, once Covid came in because all the plans were.

We were locked down!

Just went out the window for a year.

Mhm, here we are at Ocean Grove Beach again!

Exactly.

For the 10th week in a row!

Which isn't a bad thing but...

Five minutes down the road.

Um, yeah. And...

Within my...

Within my five kilometre radius. But the, the other thing was that, you know, having not posted for a year...

Mhm..

YouTube in their infinite wisdom, just killed advertising on my channel and you know, then you had to, and funnily enough, it's harder to get the points value back to reinstitute.

Than starting from scratch..

Than it is to start from scratch, which is just sort of bizarre.

It's weird...

I didn't understand it anyway because I still get I still get, you know, hundreds of hits a week. Not that that's going to make any money for me, but I still get a dollar. Yeah, exactly. But I still get the hundreds of hits a week on the existing, existing videos...

They're evergreen content.

And, and, but it's, it's just YouTube's algorithm is you've got to be producing frequently and regularly.

Well, they incentivise it. Otherwise you need to be getting a lot of views because I'm sort of on and off with my YouTube channel, but I've never been demonetised. And I think it's because I'm still bringing in a certain amount of views every single month.

Yes, but you haven't gone a year without producing something, have you?

Yeah, sometimes. Several times, I think.

Yeah. So I just looked at and I, I basically said, oh, well stuff it, you know, why would I bother? Not that I was doing it for the money anyway, but that was just another thing. I just.

Cherry on top, right?

I got pissed off with YouTube rather than pissed off with the idea of creating videos and putting them on YouTube.

Just start an OnlyFans, Dad!

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. People would pay me a lot of money not to take off my clothes.

Well, but OnlyFans was initially made, apparently, for you to just be..

For just be you!

Content only for your fans! You don't have to do...

I know! Well, people have to pay to see your content.

People will be disappointed, Dad. They'd be like, what the hell? This guy's just showing photography crap. Like.

He's just sitting here talking bullshit with his son!

Get your kid off me!

No, don't! Please don't!

Mhm.

Yeah. So I might do that and just, you know, do a, you know, a video for each one.

Yeah.

But.

So is it more about doing it for the sake of doing it than you actually..

No, it's...

Like, I want to document these places for YouTube and everything.

It's, it's more of an excuse, I think, just to create a project to go out and do something.

Yeah.

Like.

That's what I mean.

Yeah. The photographing...

... doing it right.

Yeah. The 2024 where I had the, the project of photographing as many birds as I could that year.

Yeah.

And without going completely stupid, I mean, I could have done 500 if I'd spent $15,000 on airfares and gone to, five different places in northern Australia and stuff.

What was the tally you got to?

307, I think, but the ambition was to do 366 because it was a leap year. So, you know..

One a day.

One, one for each day. It was never going to be one a day.

That's pretty easy for the first couple of months.

Oh, well, I knock off 100 in a week, but I could do 100 in a day just around here.

Yeah, yeah.

But then the second hundred is harder, and the third hundred is getting much harder. And then the fourth...

The last seven?

Yeah, exactly. And yeah, so that, but that was not particularly as a, you know, a vanity project in terms of can I get as many birds as possible? But it was just an excuse to say, well, and that's going to force me to do 30 or 40 birding trips.

Yeah.

You know, one day trips, two day trips. I had three weeks driving around New South Wales and southern Queensland. So it was just something to do. Get out, do more walking, travel more. And the national parks idea is the same thing. It's mostly to say go to some places that I haven't been before, even in national parks that I have. Like there's a few very large national parks where I've done some bits of them, but not been to others. So.

Yeah.

It's an excuse to do that.

So how do you plan these things out? Is this like, I need to have a reason to get out of the house and move around and like, see the world and therefore, okay, now I'll have a plan. Or is it more that you're like, I want to see this national park. How do I sort of create a bigger theme around it, to sort of give myself some challenges this year? Like how do you come at it? How does the, or is it just random?

It's well, it's random. The national parks one is sort of obvious because it's, you know, it's a finite thing.

Yeah.

There's 45 of them. There's proposals to make another three, but I don't know. Well, one might get up, the other two will...

You do that in a month and a half.

Yeah. The 45. Yeah.

You'd be exhausted but you could do it.

And I think I'd run out of money for fuel. So yeah, just trying to do it all that quickly. But so yeah, it's just an excuse to do that. Get out. Do something. No great plans for it at the moment. It'll probably be design a few trips to go to places where you can do a cluster of them in the one go, rather than 45 different trips, because, you know, there's 2 or 3 of them within, you know, driving, you know, half day driving distance from our place where you go out for a morning, photograph a park, and then come home again.

Well, what have we got? The You Yangs?

Oh, yeah. That's a state reserve.

Oh, that doesn't count?

The Otway National Park, Great Otway National Park. There's Brisbane Ranges, which is only, you know, 45 minutes away.

How far do you need to be? Like when you say that? Do you mean just get there and take a minimum of one photo?

Yeah. Minimum. Well, I'd try...

Click!

Yes, try..

See ya!

Try and take, try and take photos. For me, photography is about telling stories as well.

Yeah.

And so you have a collection of photos. It might be a handful. It might be ten, that actually tell a story about the place.

Yeah.

It could be. And, you know, each national park has its own reason for being a national park. Some of it is purely about conserving particular habitats. Others there's some history that are involved in it. And it's been created like Point Nepean National Park on the other side of the bay.

Yeah.

Is not a particular habitat that's being saved because there's lots of other habitat around the peninsulas that are not in the national park.

Is that the first place that was colonised in Victoria?

That's just outside of where the national park is.

Yeah, okay.

But it's the, it includes the quarantine centre that was quarantined when sailing ships first arrived from Europe.

So it was more that they had a whole bunch, a whole bunch of these sort of older buildings. And then historically...

There's First World War and Second World War.

Yeah.

History there because there were forts made with cannons protecting the, the heads, the opening to Port Phillip Bay.

From the Japanese, right.

Well, from the Russians initially.

Was it the Russians, okay.

Before the wars.

The submarines.

And then because the forts were built before the war started and, and Russia was the big fear.

Really?

Yeah. Following the Crimean War in, in Europe.

Yeah.

Russia was the big fear up until the First World War.

Yeah.

And then.

Oh, so they were built that much for, that much before..

Well, they built, they started building it, I think in the 1880s.

Oh my God, okay.

And, and, and then, you know, just kept fortifying it. And ironically, the, the and I haven't got the detail in, you know, exactly on, off the top of my head, but the first shots fired, other than the shooting of the prince in, you know, in what became Yugoslavia, which started notionally started the first World War. Yeah.

Yeah.

Archduke Ferdinand.

Mhm.

The first shots fired in anger in the First World War and the Second World War were both here.

Really?

Yeah. Yeah. At ships entering the bay. Once war was declared.

Yeah.

And then foreign ships entering the bay...

over the top of the bow or something...

And they were, they were firing on them to stop them. To stop them coming in without being inspected.

Yeah.

So. And there were. And the person who fired the shot on, I think it was either fired the shot or was it was there a young sort of army officer or naval officer? I think he might have been, was there in both the shots for the First World War and the Second World War.

Wow.

And you sort of think weird. You know how weird this is with. Yeah.

Yeah. What are the chances!

25 years in between.

So what about other plans around the house? Anything close to home that you've got for the year?

No, not really. Just no specific plans. Just get out and look at some national parks, do some driving around, do some pelagic birding trips, going to Eden in New South Wales in March, for another pelagic birding trip...

Why there's so many...

He get to...

... birding trips there at Eden?

Well, all around the- well, most of the coast of Australia, but the southern New South Wales and western Victoria and south eastern South Australia are all very close to the continental shelf. And so it's the where you get the continental shelf, the edge of the shelf, the drop off in the sea to deeper waters gets upwellings of of colder water, which brings extra nutrients to the surface. So they're a lot more, there's a lot more life there, more fish, and therefore a lot of birds hang around there. And you can, you can tell, it's weird. You can be out, you know, you can take two hours in a small boat to get out to the shelf and see nothing other than sort of gulls and a few terns and things.

And then all of the sudden..

Coastal birds. Then all of a sudden you go, oh, there's an albatross, and then there's another one. There's another one. And there are some smaller birds and stuff that are all just these oceanic birds. And it's as soon as you get close to the continental shelf.

Yeah.

So because it's close here, it's easy to get to. And you, you don't need to spend squillions of hours in a boat.

Yeah.

Getting out there.

Oh, well, probably a good point to stop. Thanks for hanging out, guys. We'll see you next time.

... mouth full of beer!

Yeah.

Yes. Next time!

You'll have to let us know what your plans are. Send me a message. Hope you, hopefully you have a good 2026.

See ya!

Bye!