I'm sure my blog activity had fallen off for now, as I'm stateside again. But since I've been getting comment spam, I am turning on word verification. I hate doing this. There are so many fools ruining the Internet. But all we can do is live with them.
In the future, if you post a comment to this blog, you will be required to enter a word that appears as a graphic. This is done to fool the internet robots trolling for a place to put unwanted ads.
Larry and I are beginning to plan the trip for next year, and it looks exciting. CHeck here for our plans.
Monday, August 29, 2005
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Uluru
7 June
Elmira
Sunny, mid 80s
(14880 steps on 22 May)
It is quite difficult to complete these last two entries. There are three reasons for this. First, I've moved on, thinking about my summer projects, beginning my planning for the next academic year, and getting back into my family life. Second, the events are fading into the past for me, and I fear that I'm forgetting something important.
The most important reason, though, is that I am under no pressure to quickly knock out a journal entry. When I am writing while in Australia, I am always at an internet station, and am paying for my time. There's no such pressure here, snug in my own house. I am not even online as I write this -- I'll paste it into the entry window when I log on later. So, I can correct spelling mistakes and rewrite passages I don't like, all of which takes much longer to do.
Ah, well -- such problems to have! Life must be good indeed. Back to the Outback …
I usually wake up very early when camping. I'm not sure what gets me out of my sleeping bag, but I do enjoy seeing the stars in the wee hours. The early morning was still hazy, though the moon was low enough in the sky so that the moon ring was gone. And there were enough clear patches so that it was possible to see some of the constellations, though the galactic center would never really be visible during the trip.
The camp resort at Yulara was very well appointed; some of the students actually complained a little bit in their journals that we had too many luxuries -- like showers and toilets. Speaking for myself, I am perfectly fine with camping out and roughing it, but I'll take my luxuries where I find them. The showers were very nice and warm.
We were supposed to leave camp in the dark and get to Uluru before sunrise so that we could see the Rock again change colors, but we couldn't -- our bus battery was dead. We settled for a nearby viewing spot -- I think some of the other campers were a little disconcerted that 36 college students showed up at an otherwise quiet observation platform, but the students were quite well-behaved.
Our tour guide did get someone to come and give us a jump, so we were soon on our way to Uluru. Our morning consisted of a walk most of the way around the Rock, a guided tour on the remainder, and a visit to the Anangu Cultural Centre.
Our walk around was unguided -- a little unfortunate, since there are many sights along the way about which I would like to ask questions. I think that we'll discuss that when we plan next year's course. Now, an explanation of everything at the Rock would be a lot, and there are some things that probably could not be explained, owing to their religious significance (and hence secretiveness). Still, leaving us on our own without a context limited our enjoyment of the Rock to the 7.4 kilometers of the portion we walked -- and perhaps the sound of a bird call or two, when people were quiet.
On a long walk like this with a group as large as ours, the students tend to spread out, so I walked on ahead, telling students that they should walk slower than me. That gave me the chance to get to the Mutitjulu site before they did, so that I could direct them to it. This site, a short ways into a cleft in the Rock, contains a water source, and several overhangs under which Aboriginal drawings can be seen on the walls. Uluru is an important sacred site, certainly, but it also served many practical purposes, and its massive size lets even the faraway traveler know where it is. It thus served as an important gathering place for the Anangu. Here, they could use some overhangs and/or caves as classrooms, nurseries, kitchens, infirmaries, and other areas useful to a village. The Mutitjulu area illustrates most of these, but the most important thing about it is the water source. Uluru's sandstone is quite porous, and so it acts as a giant sponge. It's one of the most reliable water sources in the region, and Mutitjulu is the headwater.
After our walk around, we met at the base of the rock climb. It's a little unfortunate that the rock climb even exists -- climbing Uluru is not only disrespectful to the Anangu, it is also dangerous. The Anangu elders have set specific conditions under which the climb must be closed. It cannot be open when the winds are too strong, when the temperature is too high, or when it is raining. The park must also close the climb when an Aboriginal elder dies, and the climb must remain closed during the mourning period. It is a testament to the power of the tourism industry in Australia that the climb remains open at other times. The Anangu men only climb it as a part of a sacred ritual, and don't want anyone else to do so. My guess is that keeping it open was a compromise forced upon the Anangu when they negotiated for reinstatement of their land rights.
Nonetheless, people do climb the Rock. They walk right past the signs put up by the Anangu asking them not to do so. Several students asked me how tourists could climb the Rock after reading the signs asking them not to. I think it's actually easy enough to understand -- it's an intriguing prospect, climbing up high, getting probably one of the best views there is on the planet, conquering the Rock, … and there aren't any elders nearby to scold you for doing it. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive for the guided portion of the walk, Joseph (one of the Aboriginal kids along with us) asked me if I would climb the Rock, and I said no. I then asked him if he would climb, and he did not hesitate -- yes, he would. I don't think there was any hint of disrespect in his attitude; he was reacting purely to the excitement of the place.
After we had all gathered and our tour guide had rejoined us, we went on the Mala walk, a shorter walk along the remaining side of Uluru we had not yet passed. We went past caves and overhangs in which the Anangu would gather for specific purposes -- one area might be a nursery, another might be a cave reserved for elders, a third overhang might be a kitchen. It's much like the Mutitjulu area.
There might be four or five such areas at the base of the Rock. It could thus serve as a meeting place for hundreds, perhaps thousands. In its time, it was probably quite a lively spot, like one of our county fairs or a large family reunion. It's probably not possible for it to be used this way anymore, and that's too bad -- I imagine it was fun.
After our tour of Uluru, we went over to the Cultural Centre, a few kilometers away. This is a place where the Anangu tell their story of the Rock -- and where the inevitable souvenir and food shops are located. It has changed very little from the previous years, though a few elders pictured in the Centre are now covered who weren't before, and there do not seem to be new elders replacing them at the same rate. I should explain that after a person dies, their name is not used, and no images of them are to be shown. This forbidden period lasts as long as the family is in mourning, so it may be years before they can be spoken about again or their images can be viewed. This is not unique to the Anangu; it appears to be true in most Aboriginal cultures -- in fact, it's a practice elsewhere in the world, too.
That elders would die is not what troubles me; that's natural and expected. But that there are fewer and fewer young Aboriginal men and women to take their place is very troubling. But, it's not for me to judge -- it must be hard to keep true to an indigenous culture amid the media blitz that characterizes our times. I hope that they find a way to sustain their identity.
We returned to Yulara for a quick lunch, then packed the coach and headed off to King's Creek Station, where we would camp for the night. Our tour guide played two videos for us as we traveled. The first was called Last of the Nomads, which told the story of an Aboriginal couple whose marriage was against tribal law. They fled into the bush, and were not seen again for many years, until drought and famine raised the concern of their families enough for them to mount a search to find them. They were indeed found, though they were ill and starving. The elders of the village took them in, but both passed away after a few years. It was very sad, but redemptive in some way -- they stayed true to their love throughout, though it went against everything that they knew.
The second video was called Bush Mechanics. I think this was an episode from an Australian television series produced by the Aborigines who live in the Alice Springs area. It is a little hard to describe -- if you've seen The Gods Must Be Crazy, you have a point of reference. The plot line is that four Aboriginal men go to incredible lengths to keep a car running that continues to break down. When a tire goes flat, they stuff it full of spinifex grass. When a wheel breaks off, they use a tree as a runner to replace the wheel. When the clutch burns out, they make a new one out of gum wood! The show is filled with tricks like that, as well as stories from elders about their experiences with cars and trucks from many years ago. It is very funny. (While shopping at the end of our stay, I found a DVD with four other episodes from the series, so I've had a chance to see a little more of it. This series is worth checking out; they do have a website -- I'll look for the link, but if you search on Bush Mechanics you will find it quickly enough.)
We arrived at Kings Creek Station late in the afternoon. We have camped there before, but this time, we were in the main camp, not the remote bush camp miles back in the came paddock. It was a change, and I think it disappointed my senior colleague, who was looking forward to his bush shower -- again, I've roughed it enough to appreciate when I don't have to. Our evening camp made, we fixed our dinner, and settled down for the night, waiting to go to Watarrka the next day.
There is one final item about this day. During the day, I had a few chances to talk with Gary about his work, and asked him if he would mind telling our students about what he does. Around the campfire, he spoke for almost an hour about his work with young Aboriginal men like Hank, trying to reestablish their connection with their culture. He talked about the Stolen Generation, the healing required, and his organization's part in it. He talked about the government funding (and sometimes the lack of funding) for the programs, and how it hung by a thread. He talked about Australian's indigenous peoples learning from the Native Americans about return-to-nature programs to help people recovering from drug addiction and alcoholism.
I know how difficult it is for a speaker to hold the attention of college-aged students -- I've had my share of successes and failures at it. But Gary was able to hold their interest for all that time -- and he was speaking entirely off-the-cuff. It was quite impressive. My hope is that we'll be able to use him as a resource in future courses. It's just good to inject a little reality into the course, and get past the tourism industry and the media.
Elmira
Sunny, mid 80s
(14880 steps on 22 May)
It is quite difficult to complete these last two entries. There are three reasons for this. First, I've moved on, thinking about my summer projects, beginning my planning for the next academic year, and getting back into my family life. Second, the events are fading into the past for me, and I fear that I'm forgetting something important.
The most important reason, though, is that I am under no pressure to quickly knock out a journal entry. When I am writing while in Australia, I am always at an internet station, and am paying for my time. There's no such pressure here, snug in my own house. I am not even online as I write this -- I'll paste it into the entry window when I log on later. So, I can correct spelling mistakes and rewrite passages I don't like, all of which takes much longer to do.
Ah, well -- such problems to have! Life must be good indeed. Back to the Outback …
I usually wake up very early when camping. I'm not sure what gets me out of my sleeping bag, but I do enjoy seeing the stars in the wee hours. The early morning was still hazy, though the moon was low enough in the sky so that the moon ring was gone. And there were enough clear patches so that it was possible to see some of the constellations, though the galactic center would never really be visible during the trip.
The camp resort at Yulara was very well appointed; some of the students actually complained a little bit in their journals that we had too many luxuries -- like showers and toilets. Speaking for myself, I am perfectly fine with camping out and roughing it, but I'll take my luxuries where I find them. The showers were very nice and warm.
We were supposed to leave camp in the dark and get to Uluru before sunrise so that we could see the Rock again change colors, but we couldn't -- our bus battery was dead. We settled for a nearby viewing spot -- I think some of the other campers were a little disconcerted that 36 college students showed up at an otherwise quiet observation platform, but the students were quite well-behaved.
Our tour guide did get someone to come and give us a jump, so we were soon on our way to Uluru. Our morning consisted of a walk most of the way around the Rock, a guided tour on the remainder, and a visit to the Anangu Cultural Centre.
Our walk around was unguided -- a little unfortunate, since there are many sights along the way about which I would like to ask questions. I think that we'll discuss that when we plan next year's course. Now, an explanation of everything at the Rock would be a lot, and there are some things that probably could not be explained, owing to their religious significance (and hence secretiveness). Still, leaving us on our own without a context limited our enjoyment of the Rock to the 7.4 kilometers of the portion we walked -- and perhaps the sound of a bird call or two, when people were quiet.
On a long walk like this with a group as large as ours, the students tend to spread out, so I walked on ahead, telling students that they should walk slower than me. That gave me the chance to get to the Mutitjulu site before they did, so that I could direct them to it. This site, a short ways into a cleft in the Rock, contains a water source, and several overhangs under which Aboriginal drawings can be seen on the walls. Uluru is an important sacred site, certainly, but it also served many practical purposes, and its massive size lets even the faraway traveler know where it is. It thus served as an important gathering place for the Anangu. Here, they could use some overhangs and/or caves as classrooms, nurseries, kitchens, infirmaries, and other areas useful to a village. The Mutitjulu area illustrates most of these, but the most important thing about it is the water source. Uluru's sandstone is quite porous, and so it acts as a giant sponge. It's one of the most reliable water sources in the region, and Mutitjulu is the headwater.
After our walk around, we met at the base of the rock climb. It's a little unfortunate that the rock climb even exists -- climbing Uluru is not only disrespectful to the Anangu, it is also dangerous. The Anangu elders have set specific conditions under which the climb must be closed. It cannot be open when the winds are too strong, when the temperature is too high, or when it is raining. The park must also close the climb when an Aboriginal elder dies, and the climb must remain closed during the mourning period. It is a testament to the power of the tourism industry in Australia that the climb remains open at other times. The Anangu men only climb it as a part of a sacred ritual, and don't want anyone else to do so. My guess is that keeping it open was a compromise forced upon the Anangu when they negotiated for reinstatement of their land rights.
Nonetheless, people do climb the Rock. They walk right past the signs put up by the Anangu asking them not to do so. Several students asked me how tourists could climb the Rock after reading the signs asking them not to. I think it's actually easy enough to understand -- it's an intriguing prospect, climbing up high, getting probably one of the best views there is on the planet, conquering the Rock, … and there aren't any elders nearby to scold you for doing it. While we were waiting for everyone to arrive for the guided portion of the walk, Joseph (one of the Aboriginal kids along with us) asked me if I would climb the Rock, and I said no. I then asked him if he would climb, and he did not hesitate -- yes, he would. I don't think there was any hint of disrespect in his attitude; he was reacting purely to the excitement of the place.
After we had all gathered and our tour guide had rejoined us, we went on the Mala walk, a shorter walk along the remaining side of Uluru we had not yet passed. We went past caves and overhangs in which the Anangu would gather for specific purposes -- one area might be a nursery, another might be a cave reserved for elders, a third overhang might be a kitchen. It's much like the Mutitjulu area.
There might be four or five such areas at the base of the Rock. It could thus serve as a meeting place for hundreds, perhaps thousands. In its time, it was probably quite a lively spot, like one of our county fairs or a large family reunion. It's probably not possible for it to be used this way anymore, and that's too bad -- I imagine it was fun.
After our tour of Uluru, we went over to the Cultural Centre, a few kilometers away. This is a place where the Anangu tell their story of the Rock -- and where the inevitable souvenir and food shops are located. It has changed very little from the previous years, though a few elders pictured in the Centre are now covered who weren't before, and there do not seem to be new elders replacing them at the same rate. I should explain that after a person dies, their name is not used, and no images of them are to be shown. This forbidden period lasts as long as the family is in mourning, so it may be years before they can be spoken about again or their images can be viewed. This is not unique to the Anangu; it appears to be true in most Aboriginal cultures -- in fact, it's a practice elsewhere in the world, too.
That elders would die is not what troubles me; that's natural and expected. But that there are fewer and fewer young Aboriginal men and women to take their place is very troubling. But, it's not for me to judge -- it must be hard to keep true to an indigenous culture amid the media blitz that characterizes our times. I hope that they find a way to sustain their identity.
We returned to Yulara for a quick lunch, then packed the coach and headed off to King's Creek Station, where we would camp for the night. Our tour guide played two videos for us as we traveled. The first was called Last of the Nomads, which told the story of an Aboriginal couple whose marriage was against tribal law. They fled into the bush, and were not seen again for many years, until drought and famine raised the concern of their families enough for them to mount a search to find them. They were indeed found, though they were ill and starving. The elders of the village took them in, but both passed away after a few years. It was very sad, but redemptive in some way -- they stayed true to their love throughout, though it went against everything that they knew.
The second video was called Bush Mechanics. I think this was an episode from an Australian television series produced by the Aborigines who live in the Alice Springs area. It is a little hard to describe -- if you've seen The Gods Must Be Crazy, you have a point of reference. The plot line is that four Aboriginal men go to incredible lengths to keep a car running that continues to break down. When a tire goes flat, they stuff it full of spinifex grass. When a wheel breaks off, they use a tree as a runner to replace the wheel. When the clutch burns out, they make a new one out of gum wood! The show is filled with tricks like that, as well as stories from elders about their experiences with cars and trucks from many years ago. It is very funny. (While shopping at the end of our stay, I found a DVD with four other episodes from the series, so I've had a chance to see a little more of it. This series is worth checking out; they do have a website -- I'll look for the link, but if you search on Bush Mechanics you will find it quickly enough.)
We arrived at Kings Creek Station late in the afternoon. We have camped there before, but this time, we were in the main camp, not the remote bush camp miles back in the came paddock. It was a change, and I think it disappointed my senior colleague, who was looking forward to his bush shower -- again, I've roughed it enough to appreciate when I don't have to. Our evening camp made, we fixed our dinner, and settled down for the night, waiting to go to Watarrka the next day.
There is one final item about this day. During the day, I had a few chances to talk with Gary about his work, and asked him if he would mind telling our students about what he does. Around the campfire, he spoke for almost an hour about his work with young Aboriginal men like Hank, trying to reestablish their connection with their culture. He talked about the Stolen Generation, the healing required, and his organization's part in it. He talked about the government funding (and sometimes the lack of funding) for the programs, and how it hung by a thread. He talked about Australian's indigenous peoples learning from the Native Americans about return-to-nature programs to help people recovering from drug addiction and alcoholism.
I know how difficult it is for a speaker to hold the attention of college-aged students -- I've had my share of successes and failures at it. But Gary was able to hold their interest for all that time -- and he was speaking entirely off-the-cuff. It was quite impressive. My hope is that we'll be able to use him as a resource in future courses. It's just good to inject a little reality into the course, and get past the tourism industry and the media.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
Kata Tjuta
31 May
Elmira
Sunny and Mild
(18900 steps on 21 May)
It's early Tuesday morning. I've been back for a few days, but getting over let lag and the business of the course have prevented me from writing in the journal before now.
A fourteen-hour time difference makes for a heck of a lot of jet lag. While I did sleep through the night on Friday after our return, I made the mistake of lying down Saturday morning to watch a movie. I did not get back up from the couch until late afternoon. Sunday and Monday were better, though I am finding that, as in years past, I get very tired around 5pm.
The remaining business of the course was the course reception, which took place Monday afternoon. I confess that I was nervous about this. My senior colleague and I had talked about including a poster session since the first year, but this was the first time we were returning early enough to permit the students the time they would need to create presentations. I guess I'm always nervous about including new things in the course, but this had a very public dimension to it.
Of course, there was no need to worry at all; everyone appeared to have a wonderful time. The parents and friends of the students had a chance to match faces with names; the students had a chance to see each other one last time before going home for the summer; my colleagues and I had one more opportunity to discover what the students had learned. It went quite well.
I have written nothing yet about our camping trip of 21 May. We spend a two-night, three-day tour of the significant rock formations of central Australia: Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), and Watarrka (King's Canyon). Watarrka lies at the end of the MacDonnells, an ancient mountain range slowly being worn away by wind erosion. The rocks and dust from this were washed away into the ocean that once covered central Australia, and some portions were deposited into deep valleys in the ocean floor, to harden into sandstone and conglomerate. Then, as the ocean levels fell again and the Australian continent emerged, erosion continued to work to strip away looser ocean bed, revealing the conglomerate rock of Kata Tjuta, and the smooth sandstone of Uluru and Mt. Conner.
We always get up very early for this portion of the trip, as Uluru and Kata Tjuta are about 350 km south of Alice Springs. Usually the students sleep for the first 90 minutes until we arrive at a camel farm/roadhouse at Stuart Wells, where we have breakfast. This is also a chance to have a camel ride for those who want one -- I've been on a camel once and have little desire to repeat it, so I stand back and let the other have their shot at it.
We had two 12-year-old Aboriginal boys with us -- I'll call them Joseph and Hank. Joseph was a typical young Aboriginal boy, with a stable family life. He appeared to be shy, though I think this is my cultural filter applied to his behavior, as Aborigines tend to be somewhat reserved when around a stranger. When I had met Joseph's parents in the early morning before we left, I found his mother to be very friendly and engaging, while his father was extremely reluctant to talk to me. Joseph takes after his dad.
Hank was a very different character, very gregarious and eager to talk. We learned later that Hank's family situation is very difficult. Along with other young Aboriginal teenagers considered at risk of going sour, he lives in a group home sponsored by a government-funded organization committed to breaking the cycle of failure in Aboriginal families.
This brings me to the third guest on our trip, a man I'll call Gary. Gary is a Torres Strait Islander, another indigenous Australian people. The Torres Strait Islanders occupy the islands in the Torres Strait, between Australia and Papua New Guinea -- I guess the name says it all. As a matter of race, they are more closely related to the South Sea Islanders than to the Australian Aborigines. Nonetheless, they are a minority group in Australia that has experienced treatment similar to the Aborigines. Gary lives in Darwin, and was down in Alice Springs evaluating Hank's case. He was along on the trip as a part of that evaluation.
After our stop at the Stuart Wells Camel farm, we continued on our way, turning west at Erldunda to head out to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. We stopped at the Mt. Ebeneezer roadhouse for a coffee break. This roadhouse is located nearby the Aboriginal village of the same name, and has a small art shop inside where the local artists sell paintings, tools, and other implements. Since we were going to stop at this place again on the return trip, we encouraged the students not to buy anything just yet.
After arriving at our campsite at Yulara shortly before noon and having a light lunch , we entered the Park and headed for Kata Tjuta. The white explorers called it The Olgas -- I'm not sure why. Kata Tjuta means "many heads" in the Anangu language, and that makes sense, given that Kata Tjuta does appear to be many round domes of conglomerate rock. Our trail through the rock formations ran about 10 kilometers, around two of the larger domes. A partially filled in pass between two domes served as the highest point on the trail, and gave a marvelous view of the central area contained within the domes. It's easy to see why the Anangu consider this a sacred area; it would provide the food, water, and shelter they would need in hard times.
I did get a chance to play a little with Hank. As we were nearing the end of the walk, I was bringing up the rear -- always behind the last student; that's the job description -- and Hank, who was far ahead, started teasing me, calling me "Grandpa." I took off running and passed him easily. A small bag fell off my Camelbak and landed behind me; Hank picked this up and ran the other way, back along the trail, So, I had to backtrack to get my bag while Hank ran ahead, the winner. All in all, a nice icebreaker -- I have to admit, as coarse as he was at times, I thought Hank was a good kid at heart, and am happy to have gotten to know him.
After our walk around Kata Tjuta, we returned to camp to set up and get ready for the evening. We've been to the campsite at Yulara before, since pretty much everyone who spends the night nearby Uluru uses Yulara as a campsite. It was planned by the Anangu to be used for that purpose, so people would camp to near Uluru.
There's an area not so far from our campsite at which we can get a nice view of the sunset on Uluru. This is always a nice treat, since as the sun sets, it causes the rock to appear to change color.
This was a night to sleep out under the stars, using swags instead of tents. A swag is a combination canvas bag and mattress; you put your sleeping bag inside it and zip it up. Very warm and comfortable. Unfortunately, there were not so many stars. But, there was a moon ring, owing to some high atmospheric clouds, so overall, it was a nice restful night, preparing us for our walk around Uluru the next day.
Elmira
Sunny and Mild
(18900 steps on 21 May)
It's early Tuesday morning. I've been back for a few days, but getting over let lag and the business of the course have prevented me from writing in the journal before now.
A fourteen-hour time difference makes for a heck of a lot of jet lag. While I did sleep through the night on Friday after our return, I made the mistake of lying down Saturday morning to watch a movie. I did not get back up from the couch until late afternoon. Sunday and Monday were better, though I am finding that, as in years past, I get very tired around 5pm.
The remaining business of the course was the course reception, which took place Monday afternoon. I confess that I was nervous about this. My senior colleague and I had talked about including a poster session since the first year, but this was the first time we were returning early enough to permit the students the time they would need to create presentations. I guess I'm always nervous about including new things in the course, but this had a very public dimension to it.
Of course, there was no need to worry at all; everyone appeared to have a wonderful time. The parents and friends of the students had a chance to match faces with names; the students had a chance to see each other one last time before going home for the summer; my colleagues and I had one more opportunity to discover what the students had learned. It went quite well.
I have written nothing yet about our camping trip of 21 May. We spend a two-night, three-day tour of the significant rock formations of central Australia: Uluru (Ayers Rock), Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), and Watarrka (King's Canyon). Watarrka lies at the end of the MacDonnells, an ancient mountain range slowly being worn away by wind erosion. The rocks and dust from this were washed away into the ocean that once covered central Australia, and some portions were deposited into deep valleys in the ocean floor, to harden into sandstone and conglomerate. Then, as the ocean levels fell again and the Australian continent emerged, erosion continued to work to strip away looser ocean bed, revealing the conglomerate rock of Kata Tjuta, and the smooth sandstone of Uluru and Mt. Conner.
We always get up very early for this portion of the trip, as Uluru and Kata Tjuta are about 350 km south of Alice Springs. Usually the students sleep for the first 90 minutes until we arrive at a camel farm/roadhouse at Stuart Wells, where we have breakfast. This is also a chance to have a camel ride for those who want one -- I've been on a camel once and have little desire to repeat it, so I stand back and let the other have their shot at it.
We had two 12-year-old Aboriginal boys with us -- I'll call them Joseph and Hank. Joseph was a typical young Aboriginal boy, with a stable family life. He appeared to be shy, though I think this is my cultural filter applied to his behavior, as Aborigines tend to be somewhat reserved when around a stranger. When I had met Joseph's parents in the early morning before we left, I found his mother to be very friendly and engaging, while his father was extremely reluctant to talk to me. Joseph takes after his dad.
Hank was a very different character, very gregarious and eager to talk. We learned later that Hank's family situation is very difficult. Along with other young Aboriginal teenagers considered at risk of going sour, he lives in a group home sponsored by a government-funded organization committed to breaking the cycle of failure in Aboriginal families.
This brings me to the third guest on our trip, a man I'll call Gary. Gary is a Torres Strait Islander, another indigenous Australian people. The Torres Strait Islanders occupy the islands in the Torres Strait, between Australia and Papua New Guinea -- I guess the name says it all. As a matter of race, they are more closely related to the South Sea Islanders than to the Australian Aborigines. Nonetheless, they are a minority group in Australia that has experienced treatment similar to the Aborigines. Gary lives in Darwin, and was down in Alice Springs evaluating Hank's case. He was along on the trip as a part of that evaluation.
After our stop at the Stuart Wells Camel farm, we continued on our way, turning west at Erldunda to head out to the Uluru-Kata Tjuta National Park. We stopped at the Mt. Ebeneezer roadhouse for a coffee break. This roadhouse is located nearby the Aboriginal village of the same name, and has a small art shop inside where the local artists sell paintings, tools, and other implements. Since we were going to stop at this place again on the return trip, we encouraged the students not to buy anything just yet.
After arriving at our campsite at Yulara shortly before noon and having a light lunch , we entered the Park and headed for Kata Tjuta. The white explorers called it The Olgas -- I'm not sure why. Kata Tjuta means "many heads" in the Anangu language, and that makes sense, given that Kata Tjuta does appear to be many round domes of conglomerate rock. Our trail through the rock formations ran about 10 kilometers, around two of the larger domes. A partially filled in pass between two domes served as the highest point on the trail, and gave a marvelous view of the central area contained within the domes. It's easy to see why the Anangu consider this a sacred area; it would provide the food, water, and shelter they would need in hard times.
I did get a chance to play a little with Hank. As we were nearing the end of the walk, I was bringing up the rear -- always behind the last student; that's the job description -- and Hank, who was far ahead, started teasing me, calling me "Grandpa." I took off running and passed him easily. A small bag fell off my Camelbak and landed behind me; Hank picked this up and ran the other way, back along the trail, So, I had to backtrack to get my bag while Hank ran ahead, the winner. All in all, a nice icebreaker -- I have to admit, as coarse as he was at times, I thought Hank was a good kid at heart, and am happy to have gotten to know him.
After our walk around Kata Tjuta, we returned to camp to set up and get ready for the evening. We've been to the campsite at Yulara before, since pretty much everyone who spends the night nearby Uluru uses Yulara as a campsite. It was planned by the Anangu to be used for that purpose, so people would camp to near Uluru.
There's an area not so far from our campsite at which we can get a nice view of the sunset on Uluru. This is always a nice treat, since as the sun sets, it causes the rock to appear to change color.
This was a night to sleep out under the stars, using swags instead of tents. A swag is a combination canvas bag and mattress; you put your sleeping bag inside it and zip it up. Very warm and comfortable. Unfortunately, there were not so many stars. But, there was a moon ring, owing to some high atmospheric clouds, so overall, it was a nice restful night, preparing us for our walk around Uluru the next day.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Sounds of Starlight
25 May
Potts Point, Sydney
Cloudy am, Sunny pm
4530 steps today
(4420 steps on 18 May)
(5250 steps on 19 May)
(5690 steps on 20 May)
We began today out at MacQuarie Point in Sydney Harbor, where the owner of the hotel we stay at here in Sydney arranged for a group photo that will hang on the wall in his lobby. My senior colleague purchased a few copies of the photo for the college. The owner, a native of Egypt but an Australian citizen for over 50 years, then took my two colleagues and I on a tour of his Sydney. We saw many of the bays and side streets of the east side: Rose Bay, Edgecliff, Watson's Bay, the Gap, Bondi Beach, and others. We had midmorning coffee and tea at the Bogey Hole cafe nearby one of the southernmost beaches before Botany Bay. He then took us thorugh the city to the southern part, where he treated us to lunch in an Italian neighborhood. Very picturesque, and a reminder that Australia is a nation of immigrants, much as we are.
On 19 May, we changed locations from Cairns to Alice Springs, for the outback portion of our course. I look forward to this; our trek through Watarrka (whitefellas call it "Kings Canyon") is one of my favorite times on the tour. But that's a few days away. Our flight from Cairns to the Alice was uneventful -- if you read the journal last year, you know that we were about ten hour late on this flight, owing to mechanical problems -- but nothing like that this year.
We checked in to Toddy's, a somewhat older hostel that continues to deliver good service. Much to my delight, our man Steve still works there. Steve is a big burly fellow with a long red beard and a ponytail -- you'd call him an old hippie if you saw him in the States, but no one falls into that category in the Alice. They're all characters, as near as I can tell. I like Steve. He's smart and will engage you in a conversation on almost any topic. We're both fans of the writer Jeffrey Deaver, so I brought him the latest paperback, The Garden of Beasts -- I think I talked about this book already.
We spent the evening of the 19th at a didgeridoo concert by Andrew Langford, called Sounds of Starlight. You can visit his website at http://www.soundsofstarlight.com.au. He plays with a percussionist and a keyboardist, and the trio make evocative and fun music. They also get the audience involved, playing didgeridoos and keeping time with Aboriginal instruments. I had been a little nervous about this, as it had been my idea to include it and I was concerned that the students would be bored by it. But they were enthused, and I think many bought their didgeridoos later from Mr. Langford.
You perhaps do not know what a didgeridoo is. It's a long wooden tube, hollowed out by termites, that produces the classic droning sound that evokes a vision of Australia whenever you hear it. You play it by making a Bronx cheer ("razzberries") into one end of it, though there are many additional things you can do to produce a sound from it. Andrew Langford is one master of the didgeridoo, David Hudson is another, but there are many more.
We spent the next day, the 20th, on a tour of Alice Springs and some of its important historical spots. We bagan the day at Alice Springs Desert Park. It's a good way to get an introduction to the types of land we would be visiting over the next few days on our camping trip. We only had two hours there, so most of the students went to the desert bird show. It's quite an event, involving wedgetail eagles, kites and desert kestrals and barn owls, displaying their natural behavior on free flight. They're very well-trained. I had seen it last year, so I spent my time visting the kangaroos and emus, the nocturnal house, and attending a show on bush tucker: specifically, witchety grubs (eaten live), honey ants (you eat their hind parts while they're alive) and desert 'coconuts' (a moth larva trapped inside a tree gall). Great gross-out food for teh tourists; sometimes I think the Aborigines just make all this up to see if they can get some tourist to eat something gross -- I'm just kidding of course. In fact, as you will see later on, I have actually learned a thing or two worth knowing about our blackfella brother down here. but more on that later.
After the Desert Park, we went to the Royal Flying Doctors Service. This was started early in the 20th century by one John Flynn, a circuit rider minister who saw the heartbreak of floks when they could not get good medical care in the remote regions of the Outback, and put together teams of aviators and electrical engineers to develop a flying medical service and a wireless system to get emergency messages out as needed. They are real heroes; it chokes me up a little even now to think of this wonderful and dedicated group of doctors, nurses, and pilots who serve the citizens of Australia who live far away from the rest of us. There's a tv series down here about them called Flying Doctors; I'll see if I can find a link to somne info about it.
After the Flying Doctors, we went to the School of the Air, a similar service that serves the educational needs of children who live on remote cattle and sheep stations and Aboriginal villages. Our students once again put the Australian tourists to shame by making significant book donations to the School after the tour of their operations.
We ended our day by visiting the original telegraph station that gave Alice Springs it name. The man who founded the station was one Charles Todd -- many things here are named after him -- he neede a location for a telegraph station that was near a gap in the McDonnell range, that was within 200 kilometres of the nearest station to the north, and was near a source of water. He called the water he found Alice Springs, believing it was a spring -- it was a low spot in a nearby riverbed, which doon dried up. But the name stuck; the dry river eventually was called the Todd River, and Alice Springs was born.
I should explain two things about Outback rivers. You can think of them as 'upside down', in that the water is underneath the sand and rock, not on top. The Todd River is usually dry, though my senior colleague and I are among the few tourists who can say that we have seen water flowing in the Todd River -- you can read more about it in last year's journal. Of course, this year, there was none, our weather was beautiful throughout our stay in the Outback.
Tomorrow will be my last full day in Australia, and I plan on doing little more than some last-minute shopping and journal reading -- and of course telling you about our camping trip to the Outback.
Potts Point, Sydney
Cloudy am, Sunny pm
4530 steps today
(4420 steps on 18 May)
(5250 steps on 19 May)
(5690 steps on 20 May)
We began today out at MacQuarie Point in Sydney Harbor, where the owner of the hotel we stay at here in Sydney arranged for a group photo that will hang on the wall in his lobby. My senior colleague purchased a few copies of the photo for the college. The owner, a native of Egypt but an Australian citizen for over 50 years, then took my two colleagues and I on a tour of his Sydney. We saw many of the bays and side streets of the east side: Rose Bay, Edgecliff, Watson's Bay, the Gap, Bondi Beach, and others. We had midmorning coffee and tea at the Bogey Hole cafe nearby one of the southernmost beaches before Botany Bay. He then took us thorugh the city to the southern part, where he treated us to lunch in an Italian neighborhood. Very picturesque, and a reminder that Australia is a nation of immigrants, much as we are.
On 19 May, we changed locations from Cairns to Alice Springs, for the outback portion of our course. I look forward to this; our trek through Watarrka (whitefellas call it "Kings Canyon") is one of my favorite times on the tour. But that's a few days away. Our flight from Cairns to the Alice was uneventful -- if you read the journal last year, you know that we were about ten hour late on this flight, owing to mechanical problems -- but nothing like that this year.
We checked in to Toddy's, a somewhat older hostel that continues to deliver good service. Much to my delight, our man Steve still works there. Steve is a big burly fellow with a long red beard and a ponytail -- you'd call him an old hippie if you saw him in the States, but no one falls into that category in the Alice. They're all characters, as near as I can tell. I like Steve. He's smart and will engage you in a conversation on almost any topic. We're both fans of the writer Jeffrey Deaver, so I brought him the latest paperback, The Garden of Beasts -- I think I talked about this book already.
We spent the evening of the 19th at a didgeridoo concert by Andrew Langford, called Sounds of Starlight. You can visit his website at http://www.soundsofstarlight.com.au. He plays with a percussionist and a keyboardist, and the trio make evocative and fun music. They also get the audience involved, playing didgeridoos and keeping time with Aboriginal instruments. I had been a little nervous about this, as it had been my idea to include it and I was concerned that the students would be bored by it. But they were enthused, and I think many bought their didgeridoos later from Mr. Langford.
You perhaps do not know what a didgeridoo is. It's a long wooden tube, hollowed out by termites, that produces the classic droning sound that evokes a vision of Australia whenever you hear it. You play it by making a Bronx cheer ("razzberries") into one end of it, though there are many additional things you can do to produce a sound from it. Andrew Langford is one master of the didgeridoo, David Hudson is another, but there are many more.
We spent the next day, the 20th, on a tour of Alice Springs and some of its important historical spots. We bagan the day at Alice Springs Desert Park. It's a good way to get an introduction to the types of land we would be visiting over the next few days on our camping trip. We only had two hours there, so most of the students went to the desert bird show. It's quite an event, involving wedgetail eagles, kites and desert kestrals and barn owls, displaying their natural behavior on free flight. They're very well-trained. I had seen it last year, so I spent my time visting the kangaroos and emus, the nocturnal house, and attending a show on bush tucker: specifically, witchety grubs (eaten live), honey ants (you eat their hind parts while they're alive) and desert 'coconuts' (a moth larva trapped inside a tree gall). Great gross-out food for teh tourists; sometimes I think the Aborigines just make all this up to see if they can get some tourist to eat something gross -- I'm just kidding of course. In fact, as you will see later on, I have actually learned a thing or two worth knowing about our blackfella brother down here. but more on that later.
After the Desert Park, we went to the Royal Flying Doctors Service. This was started early in the 20th century by one John Flynn, a circuit rider minister who saw the heartbreak of floks when they could not get good medical care in the remote regions of the Outback, and put together teams of aviators and electrical engineers to develop a flying medical service and a wireless system to get emergency messages out as needed. They are real heroes; it chokes me up a little even now to think of this wonderful and dedicated group of doctors, nurses, and pilots who serve the citizens of Australia who live far away from the rest of us. There's a tv series down here about them called Flying Doctors; I'll see if I can find a link to somne info about it.
After the Flying Doctors, we went to the School of the Air, a similar service that serves the educational needs of children who live on remote cattle and sheep stations and Aboriginal villages. Our students once again put the Australian tourists to shame by making significant book donations to the School after the tour of their operations.
We ended our day by visiting the original telegraph station that gave Alice Springs it name. The man who founded the station was one Charles Todd -- many things here are named after him -- he neede a location for a telegraph station that was near a gap in the McDonnell range, that was within 200 kilometres of the nearest station to the north, and was near a source of water. He called the water he found Alice Springs, believing it was a spring -- it was a low spot in a nearby riverbed, which doon dried up. But the name stuck; the dry river eventually was called the Todd River, and Alice Springs was born.
I should explain two things about Outback rivers. You can think of them as 'upside down', in that the water is underneath the sand and rock, not on top. The Todd River is usually dry, though my senior colleague and I are among the few tourists who can say that we have seen water flowing in the Todd River -- you can read more about it in last year's journal. Of course, this year, there was none, our weather was beautiful throughout our stay in the Outback.
Tomorrow will be my last full day in Australia, and I plan on doing little more than some last-minute shopping and journal reading -- and of course telling you about our camping trip to the Outback.
Monday, May 23, 2005
The Tablelands
24 May
Alice Springs
Mostly Sunny, Mild
(step count to appear in later journal entry)
I know it's been a week, but I have had little chance to get nearby a computer with more than a minute or two to spare since then. We've covered a lot of ground.
We're at the point where the course is beginning to wind down, at least at this end. We are going to be picked up in a little over an hour for our trip to the Alice Springs airport for our flight back to Sydney. As usual, the mood has begun to settle in on the group that we've had a lot of adevntures, we've learned a lot, but it's time to go home. We'll do that soon enough.
If you plan on being in the Elmira area on Monday, May 30, you will have the chance to see what we've been doing. We will have a reception fo rthe course from 2pm to 4pm at Hamilton Hall. Light refreshments will be served. We expect to see posters and other presentations about bush tucker, bush medicine, the Sydney Opera House, everyday AUstralian life, sports, and other things. I plan on doing a poster about what Aborigines think about whitefellas. I hope to see you there.
Let me catch you up on what we've been doing. I'll try to keep everything in order, and I expect to be doing several of these over the next few days.
For our last day in tropical north Queensland, we began by driving down the coast to Innisfail to see the Australian Sugar Museum. From Brisbane to Cairns, we had traveled through cane field after cane field, and so understanding the sugar industry here seemed appropriate. Australia exports a lot of sugar, mostly to Asia. I have written before about how we Americans spend 'way too much money on sugar, and how I think you all should start complaining loudly about this. (Of course, the Aussies want to sell their sugar in the States at the current prices).
The cane fields are no longer burnt off in northern Queensland, although some burning takes place in the south, nearer Brisbane. The virtue of burning the field before harvest is that it drives out the vermin that sickens the canecutters, and reduces the amount of 'trash', the portion of the cane that is not useful to producing sugar. There's only a minimal amount of sugar lost, so this was considered a reasonable way to harvest in the past.
Of course, these day, we know that it's a pretty big source of pollution to burn off enormous cane fields, so avoiding it makes sense. With modern farming machinery, it's unecessary, and so is no longer done.
The industry seems to be in the process of retooling itself to be as environment friendly as possible. Every bit of the harvest and the harvesting byproducts that can be used finds some use, so the sugar factories produce very little waste. The trash from the harvest is used as fuel in the refining of the sugar and the other plant operations. The sludge at the end of the process, and the ash produced from burning the trash, is sold as fertilizer. Probably the only emission to worry about at the factory is the heat and some greenhouse gas.
Of course, there's a lot of runoff, though through tree and mangrove replanting, everyone hopes to stop, or at least minimize, that trend.
That leaves the cane toad, a horrible environmental disaster still unfolding. Cane toads were introduced to control the sugar cane beetle. They had no interest in the beetles, but would eat many other critters, outcompete the native species, and reproduce like crazy. They're poisonous, too; nothing in Australia can eat them -- even crocodiles can be killed if they eat too many. The cane toad is now found in every state except Western Australia, and is expected to be there eventually. There is no known way to stop them. Ouch!
After the sugar museum, we headed west into the Tablelands. Though in the tropics, the mountains shield this region, giving it a climate similar to the US midwest. It's thus an area that sees a lot of dairy production and other truck farming. There are bananas and papaya grown as well.
One of the most interesting attractions is the Curtain Fig tree. The strangler fig begins life as a small parasite plant high up in a tree, that sends a vine to the ground. Once the vine finds the ground and creates a root, the fig then sends out many more, and uses the host tree as support. This continues until the fig completely envelopes the host tree, which then dies. The process can take up to 1000 years to complete.
The Curtain Fig is an example of just how extensive this can be. It's huge! the size of an office building. It's the result of a fig at work, and a host tree falling over into a second tree, which in turn fell over into a third tree. There are, in fact., four trees involved in its creation. And it's not done, the Curtain Fig will continue to grow -- people will be coming to see a much larger one milenia from now.
Well, I must surrender this machine now. Watch for my next entry on Alice Spring.
Alice Springs
Mostly Sunny, Mild
(step count to appear in later journal entry)
I know it's been a week, but I have had little chance to get nearby a computer with more than a minute or two to spare since then. We've covered a lot of ground.
We're at the point where the course is beginning to wind down, at least at this end. We are going to be picked up in a little over an hour for our trip to the Alice Springs airport for our flight back to Sydney. As usual, the mood has begun to settle in on the group that we've had a lot of adevntures, we've learned a lot, but it's time to go home. We'll do that soon enough.
If you plan on being in the Elmira area on Monday, May 30, you will have the chance to see what we've been doing. We will have a reception fo rthe course from 2pm to 4pm at Hamilton Hall. Light refreshments will be served. We expect to see posters and other presentations about bush tucker, bush medicine, the Sydney Opera House, everyday AUstralian life, sports, and other things. I plan on doing a poster about what Aborigines think about whitefellas. I hope to see you there.
Let me catch you up on what we've been doing. I'll try to keep everything in order, and I expect to be doing several of these over the next few days.
For our last day in tropical north Queensland, we began by driving down the coast to Innisfail to see the Australian Sugar Museum. From Brisbane to Cairns, we had traveled through cane field after cane field, and so understanding the sugar industry here seemed appropriate. Australia exports a lot of sugar, mostly to Asia. I have written before about how we Americans spend 'way too much money on sugar, and how I think you all should start complaining loudly about this. (Of course, the Aussies want to sell their sugar in the States at the current prices).
The cane fields are no longer burnt off in northern Queensland, although some burning takes place in the south, nearer Brisbane. The virtue of burning the field before harvest is that it drives out the vermin that sickens the canecutters, and reduces the amount of 'trash', the portion of the cane that is not useful to producing sugar. There's only a minimal amount of sugar lost, so this was considered a reasonable way to harvest in the past.
Of course, these day, we know that it's a pretty big source of pollution to burn off enormous cane fields, so avoiding it makes sense. With modern farming machinery, it's unecessary, and so is no longer done.
The industry seems to be in the process of retooling itself to be as environment friendly as possible. Every bit of the harvest and the harvesting byproducts that can be used finds some use, so the sugar factories produce very little waste. The trash from the harvest is used as fuel in the refining of the sugar and the other plant operations. The sludge at the end of the process, and the ash produced from burning the trash, is sold as fertilizer. Probably the only emission to worry about at the factory is the heat and some greenhouse gas.
Of course, there's a lot of runoff, though through tree and mangrove replanting, everyone hopes to stop, or at least minimize, that trend.
That leaves the cane toad, a horrible environmental disaster still unfolding. Cane toads were introduced to control the sugar cane beetle. They had no interest in the beetles, but would eat many other critters, outcompete the native species, and reproduce like crazy. They're poisonous, too; nothing in Australia can eat them -- even crocodiles can be killed if they eat too many. The cane toad is now found in every state except Western Australia, and is expected to be there eventually. There is no known way to stop them. Ouch!
After the sugar museum, we headed west into the Tablelands. Though in the tropics, the mountains shield this region, giving it a climate similar to the US midwest. It's thus an area that sees a lot of dairy production and other truck farming. There are bananas and papaya grown as well.
One of the most interesting attractions is the Curtain Fig tree. The strangler fig begins life as a small parasite plant high up in a tree, that sends a vine to the ground. Once the vine finds the ground and creates a root, the fig then sends out many more, and uses the host tree as support. This continues until the fig completely envelopes the host tree, which then dies. The process can take up to 1000 years to complete.
The Curtain Fig is an example of just how extensive this can be. It's huge! the size of an office building. It's the result of a fig at work, and a host tree falling over into a second tree, which in turn fell over into a third tree. There are, in fact., four trees involved in its creation. And it's not done, the Curtain Fig will continue to grow -- people will be coming to see a much larger one milenia from now.
Well, I must surrender this machine now. Watch for my next entry on Alice Spring.
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Rainforest Station
17 May
Cairns
Sunny and Mild (as usual!)
12310 steps (16 May)
6600(?) steps
Today we went over the mountain range to the edge of the Atherton Tablelands. We began by ascending the Great Dividing Range at the ocean's edge, using the Kuranda SkyRail, a system of cable cars that lifts you far above the World Heritage rainforest of Tropical North Queensland. The virtue of SkyRail is that it gives one a sense of the scope and depth of the ecosystem, with minimal intrusion. Of course, it's not the best of rides for anyone scared of heights.
There are two stops along the way, where you can quit your car and take a brief walking excursion. There are guides to explain what you see, as well as an interpretive centre. Along one of the walks, I had a very nice photo opportunity, and whipped out my camera, only to knock my pedometer off and into the raniforest, beyond my reach. Some archaeologist will dig this up thousands of years from now and wonder what it's doing there -- though I doubt that I'm the first to lose something off the boardwalk there, I still feel silly. Anyway, that's why there's a question mark on the number of steps above. I'll be estimating for teh rest of the trip.
SkyRail follows the Barron River and its gorge, a deep cleft cut into the mountains. There's also a railway that runs from Cairns all the to Kuranda that follows along this same gorge. The history of the railway is interesting; it includes episodes about the conflict between the whites and the Aboriginals, and revolves around the mining and clearcut timber industry that flourished during the late 1800s. The rainforest was much larger before then, but of course the growing nation needed its timber. It's pretty much the same story in the USA; there are areas that were forested that will never be again, both in the States and here in Queensland.
The mountain that they had to scale is significant. Putting in the cable cars was easy, compared to what went into laying the track for the railway. As the train ascends, it goes through many tunnels and trenches, all of which had to be dug, and still need maintenance. These days, the Kuranda Scenic Railway is a tourist line only, connecting the city of Cairns to the mountain village of Kuranda.
I've written about Kuranda in earlier journals, and will say little about it here, as we spent very little time there. Our bus picked us up at the top of the SkyRail, and took us along to Rainforest Station.
When the US was in Australia during WWII, they made use of DUKW -- I do not know what the letters stand for, but I believe everyone just calls them "ducks." Rainforest Station obtained a number of ducks that the US ARMY abandoned, and adapted them for use as tour vehicles in the rainforest. We boarded the ducks, and took a tour of the rainforest at the upper level, riding over a mountain lake, and seeing many of the tropical plants up close, as well as a few animals. No crocs, though; we were far above the salt water level.
Rainforest Station also employs many Aboriginal cultural instructors, who performed dances for us, showed us how to properly throw a boomerang, and demonstrated spear throwing. The guide we had for this was Aaron, a man in his forties (I suppose) who has been at Rainforest Station doing this for ten years. I recognized him as the same fellow who guided us last year, too. He's very funny and engaging, and I did have a chance to chat with him a little after the tour. It was nice, especially after that depressing conversation from the cruise. He's just a nice man whom it would be a pleasure to have as a buddy. We need to meet more folks like him during the course.
I should point out that the whole show is quite witty, and really with no edge to it. The dances are probably the sort of things parents might do to entertain children, but that's okay -- I get a chuckle from an Aboriginal story about fighting kangaroos, too.
We then had a very nice lunch. There were chopsticks available (many Japanese tourists) and I used them instead of a fork. I do wonder: why not use chopsticks all the time? I suppose it's a little weirdness on my part.
After lunch, we had a tour of their wildlife park. It's a gudied tour, and though the animals are similar to ones we've seen before, a knowledgable guide provides a depth to the exhibit that was lacking elsewhere. I think the students learned quite a lot.
After we returned, I walked down to the central city to find a bank. I pass out money to the students occasionally so that they can buy lunch, and I will do this tomorrow at the sugar museum. So, I needed to find a bank so that I'd have sufficient numbers of $10s and $5s. As I was walking along, a local 'character' starting walking with me, telling me his life story. He said he was feeling a lot better since he had taken his meds -- he was really quite nice, and helped me find the bank. I did find the empty shopping cart he was pushing a little strange, though.
Tomorrow, we go to Innisfail to find out about the sugar industry.
Cairns
Sunny and Mild (as usual!)
12310 steps (16 May)
6600(?) steps
Today we went over the mountain range to the edge of the Atherton Tablelands. We began by ascending the Great Dividing Range at the ocean's edge, using the Kuranda SkyRail, a system of cable cars that lifts you far above the World Heritage rainforest of Tropical North Queensland. The virtue of SkyRail is that it gives one a sense of the scope and depth of the ecosystem, with minimal intrusion. Of course, it's not the best of rides for anyone scared of heights.
There are two stops along the way, where you can quit your car and take a brief walking excursion. There are guides to explain what you see, as well as an interpretive centre. Along one of the walks, I had a very nice photo opportunity, and whipped out my camera, only to knock my pedometer off and into the raniforest, beyond my reach. Some archaeologist will dig this up thousands of years from now and wonder what it's doing there -- though I doubt that I'm the first to lose something off the boardwalk there, I still feel silly. Anyway, that's why there's a question mark on the number of steps above. I'll be estimating for teh rest of the trip.
SkyRail follows the Barron River and its gorge, a deep cleft cut into the mountains. There's also a railway that runs from Cairns all the to Kuranda that follows along this same gorge. The history of the railway is interesting; it includes episodes about the conflict between the whites and the Aboriginals, and revolves around the mining and clearcut timber industry that flourished during the late 1800s. The rainforest was much larger before then, but of course the growing nation needed its timber. It's pretty much the same story in the USA; there are areas that were forested that will never be again, both in the States and here in Queensland.
The mountain that they had to scale is significant. Putting in the cable cars was easy, compared to what went into laying the track for the railway. As the train ascends, it goes through many tunnels and trenches, all of which had to be dug, and still need maintenance. These days, the Kuranda Scenic Railway is a tourist line only, connecting the city of Cairns to the mountain village of Kuranda.
I've written about Kuranda in earlier journals, and will say little about it here, as we spent very little time there. Our bus picked us up at the top of the SkyRail, and took us along to Rainforest Station.
When the US was in Australia during WWII, they made use of DUKW -- I do not know what the letters stand for, but I believe everyone just calls them "ducks." Rainforest Station obtained a number of ducks that the US ARMY abandoned, and adapted them for use as tour vehicles in the rainforest. We boarded the ducks, and took a tour of the rainforest at the upper level, riding over a mountain lake, and seeing many of the tropical plants up close, as well as a few animals. No crocs, though; we were far above the salt water level.
Rainforest Station also employs many Aboriginal cultural instructors, who performed dances for us, showed us how to properly throw a boomerang, and demonstrated spear throwing. The guide we had for this was Aaron, a man in his forties (I suppose) who has been at Rainforest Station doing this for ten years. I recognized him as the same fellow who guided us last year, too. He's very funny and engaging, and I did have a chance to chat with him a little after the tour. It was nice, especially after that depressing conversation from the cruise. He's just a nice man whom it would be a pleasure to have as a buddy. We need to meet more folks like him during the course.
I should point out that the whole show is quite witty, and really with no edge to it. The dances are probably the sort of things parents might do to entertain children, but that's okay -- I get a chuckle from an Aboriginal story about fighting kangaroos, too.
We then had a very nice lunch. There were chopsticks available (many Japanese tourists) and I used them instead of a fork. I do wonder: why not use chopsticks all the time? I suppose it's a little weirdness on my part.
After lunch, we had a tour of their wildlife park. It's a gudied tour, and though the animals are similar to ones we've seen before, a knowledgable guide provides a depth to the exhibit that was lacking elsewhere. I think the students learned quite a lot.
After we returned, I walked down to the central city to find a bank. I pass out money to the students occasionally so that they can buy lunch, and I will do this tomorrow at the sugar museum. So, I needed to find a bank so that I'd have sufficient numbers of $10s and $5s. As I was walking along, a local 'character' starting walking with me, telling me his life story. He said he was feeling a lot better since he had taken his meds -- he was really quite nice, and helped me find the bank. I did find the empty shopping cart he was pushing a little strange, though.
Tomorrow, we go to Innisfail to find out about the sugar industry.
Monday, May 16, 2005
In Search of Baseball in Cairns
Many Australian newspapers carry American sports scores -- Australians love just about anything to do with sports, although they find our baseball a little more boring than they do cricket. Nonetheless, in past years I've been able to keep up with the Chicago Cubs by reading the sports page in papers in Sydney, Brisbane, and Cairns.
So last year, while I was in Cairns, I happened to see a score: "CUBS 5, REDS 2." But after further review, I realized that they were referring not to major league baseball in the US, but rather to a local Queensland league, and the Cubs involved were not from Chicago, but from Cairns: The Cairns Cubs.
One of my projects this time 'round has been to find out more about this team, and to see if I could obtain some Cairns Cubs memorabilia. So, I began searching on the internet and calling around here, and eventually was put in touch with the president of the Cairns Baseball Association, who is also the general manager of the Cairns Cubs. They played a game yesterday, but the time conflicted with the cruise, so we arranged to meet today at his day job, a car dealership on the west side of Cairns.
Unfortunately, I learned after walking out there that he had not been able to get the caps after all. So, I am going to leave some money at the front desk of the motel, and he is supposed to drop by with the caps tomorrow. We'll see.
We did get to talk a few minutes before his duties called him away. He is a Chicago Cubs fan as well; says that they get to watch a game once in awhile over ESPN International. He seemed to be up on the injury report, knowing about Zambrano.
And yes, the Cairns Cubs lost yesterday, too.
There was one additional matter I wanted to write about from the reef cruise yesterday. It's somewhat unpleasant, but it's one of those inevitable conversations a US tourist has while in Australia. One of the boat crew sat with my senior and junior colleagues and I toward the end of the day, as we headed back towards port, just for some light conversation. Somehow -- I do not recall how -- the conversation turned to Aborigines. This is always a difficult topic; you can tell that it makes white Australians uncomfortable. She wanted to be sympathetic to the Aborigines, owing to the history between the two peoples, but I think she found it difficult. She lives in a neighborhood in Cairns that is nearby a housing complex for Aborigines, and she has had to take several security measures to prevent break-ins -- she said her house had been broken into by young Aboriginal men over a dozen times. Pretty soon, a few more of the boat crew joined in with stories of their own. Soon after that, it had really become a conversation among Australians, and I moved elsewhere on the boat, feeling quite uncomfortable with it all. A lot of the stories were not firsthand, and so I suspect were inventions or needed to be discounted, as they were essentially about 'a friend of a friend.'
I don't hear those conversations much from Americans. Perhaps it's that the folks I associate with know enough of my own history to know that I don't appreciate that kind of talk -- I like to think that Americans of all races are starting to realize that they are more alike than they are different, and that the racism of yesterday has landed in the dustbin, but I am pretty sure that's naive. But it's disconcerting to hear it down here.
When you see the Aborigines in the cities for the very first time, you know for certain that you are looking at a people that have been beaten down by this society. They look tired. Their clothes look shabby and ill-fitting. In a society that values fitness, the way that Australians do, the Aborigines stand out in their poor health. It's heartbreaking. It's all the more so that some otherwise very good people view them with contempt, however gently put.
But it's hard to be judgemental, too. I'm a guest here. Have you been a guest at a meal in a home where your host family has obviously been fighting? You don't know what to say, but you'd like it to stop. That's about the best I can do to describe it all.
We take the students to the Cock and Bull tonight for dinner. Tomorrow, we're off to Rainforest Station, up in the mountains.
So last year, while I was in Cairns, I happened to see a score: "CUBS 5, REDS 2." But after further review, I realized that they were referring not to major league baseball in the US, but rather to a local Queensland league, and the Cubs involved were not from Chicago, but from Cairns: The Cairns Cubs.
One of my projects this time 'round has been to find out more about this team, and to see if I could obtain some Cairns Cubs memorabilia. So, I began searching on the internet and calling around here, and eventually was put in touch with the president of the Cairns Baseball Association, who is also the general manager of the Cairns Cubs. They played a game yesterday, but the time conflicted with the cruise, so we arranged to meet today at his day job, a car dealership on the west side of Cairns.
Unfortunately, I learned after walking out there that he had not been able to get the caps after all. So, I am going to leave some money at the front desk of the motel, and he is supposed to drop by with the caps tomorrow. We'll see.
We did get to talk a few minutes before his duties called him away. He is a Chicago Cubs fan as well; says that they get to watch a game once in awhile over ESPN International. He seemed to be up on the injury report, knowing about Zambrano.
And yes, the Cairns Cubs lost yesterday, too.
There was one additional matter I wanted to write about from the reef cruise yesterday. It's somewhat unpleasant, but it's one of those inevitable conversations a US tourist has while in Australia. One of the boat crew sat with my senior and junior colleagues and I toward the end of the day, as we headed back towards port, just for some light conversation. Somehow -- I do not recall how -- the conversation turned to Aborigines. This is always a difficult topic; you can tell that it makes white Australians uncomfortable. She wanted to be sympathetic to the Aborigines, owing to the history between the two peoples, but I think she found it difficult. She lives in a neighborhood in Cairns that is nearby a housing complex for Aborigines, and she has had to take several security measures to prevent break-ins -- she said her house had been broken into by young Aboriginal men over a dozen times. Pretty soon, a few more of the boat crew joined in with stories of their own. Soon after that, it had really become a conversation among Australians, and I moved elsewhere on the boat, feeling quite uncomfortable with it all. A lot of the stories were not firsthand, and so I suspect were inventions or needed to be discounted, as they were essentially about 'a friend of a friend.'
I don't hear those conversations much from Americans. Perhaps it's that the folks I associate with know enough of my own history to know that I don't appreciate that kind of talk -- I like to think that Americans of all races are starting to realize that they are more alike than they are different, and that the racism of yesterday has landed in the dustbin, but I am pretty sure that's naive. But it's disconcerting to hear it down here.
When you see the Aborigines in the cities for the very first time, you know for certain that you are looking at a people that have been beaten down by this society. They look tired. Their clothes look shabby and ill-fitting. In a society that values fitness, the way that Australians do, the Aborigines stand out in their poor health. It's heartbreaking. It's all the more so that some otherwise very good people view them with contempt, however gently put.
But it's hard to be judgemental, too. I'm a guest here. Have you been a guest at a meal in a home where your host family has obviously been fighting? You don't know what to say, but you'd like it to stop. That's about the best I can do to describe it all.
We take the students to the Cock and Bull tonight for dinner. Tomorrow, we're off to Rainforest Station, up in the mountains.
Sunday, May 15, 2005
Sunlander, ReefTeach, Passions of Paradise
15 May
Cairns
Sunny and Mild
4720 steps
I am caught up enough so that I can risk writing things down in order. Let me begin with the train ride to Cairns. Really, there is not much to say about a 30-hour train ride. My senior colleague is a train buff and enjoys traveling that way. It has some advantages, as you can do an amount of sightseeing from the train. As we go north and enter the tropics, we begin to see more sugar cane fields and banana and pineapple plantations. There's also plenty of cattle and sheep grazing land, on which we see cattle egrets, ibises, pelicans, and other birds. We spot the occasional dingo, and there are a lot of kangaroos. I've never seen a wild koala yet.
We scheduled nothing on the day of the 14th, so everyone had their separate adventures. I walked the Esplanade and found this internet shop, Global Gossip. The students engaged in many actvities, from shopping and hiking to river cruising and parasailing. Tomorrow (Monday) is a free day, so I expect that the students will have many more adventures.
I did find out about the Cairns Cubs. They played today (Sunday), and I was out on the cruise, so I couldn't go. But I will meet with their manager tomorrow, and will purchase some Cairns Cubs memorabilia. Before I leave this evening, I will find out when the next Cubs games on WGN-TV will be broadcast, and will send a message to the announcers about the Cairns Cubs. If you're interested, listen in.
Saturday evening, we went to ReefTeach, a 2-hour lecture about the reef intended for people who are planning on going out to the reef the next day. The man who gives the lecture is a marine biologist, Paddy Coldwell. He is a transplanted Irishman, and has a very distinctive lecture style. Some people find him a little over the top; he screeches and moves about the stage, full of energy and enthusiasm. But he is very effective at getting a few important points across to his audience about what to expect on the reef, how to treat the reef, and how to help preserve the reef.
While tourists do some damage to the reef, far and away the most damage to the reef somes from agricultural runoff. Earlier generations tore out the mangrove swamps and riverside trees, thus robbing the reef of runoff water that was relatively nutrient-free. More nutrients mean more algae; more algae is a threat to the coral, and if/when the coral goes, so goes the entire ecosystem. Personally, I think the reef is tougher than we are, but that doesn't mean we shoudln't be good caretakers.
Today, we got on the Passions of Paradise II, a twin-hull sailboat bound for Paradise Reef, a patch on the Great Barrier Reef. My colleague and I had both been on the original Passions of Paradise twice, and have now been on this new boat a couple of times. The weather was cooperative, and the sea was unusually calm. I have a cold, so I did not go snorkeling this year, but was content to watch the students as they snorkled and went scuba diving. They saw all mannr of fishes and corals, a few reef sharks (parents: the reef sharks are no threat to people), sting rays and sea turtles. Most report this as the high point of the trip so far, though they still talk about holding koalas.
I apologize for ending this entry so son, but it has been a long day, and I have about a kilometer walk back to the motel. Tomorrow is Monday, a free day, and I will return with more about Cairns.
Cairns
Sunny and Mild
4720 steps
I am caught up enough so that I can risk writing things down in order. Let me begin with the train ride to Cairns. Really, there is not much to say about a 30-hour train ride. My senior colleague is a train buff and enjoys traveling that way. It has some advantages, as you can do an amount of sightseeing from the train. As we go north and enter the tropics, we begin to see more sugar cane fields and banana and pineapple plantations. There's also plenty of cattle and sheep grazing land, on which we see cattle egrets, ibises, pelicans, and other birds. We spot the occasional dingo, and there are a lot of kangaroos. I've never seen a wild koala yet.
We scheduled nothing on the day of the 14th, so everyone had their separate adventures. I walked the Esplanade and found this internet shop, Global Gossip. The students engaged in many actvities, from shopping and hiking to river cruising and parasailing. Tomorrow (Monday) is a free day, so I expect that the students will have many more adventures.
I did find out about the Cairns Cubs. They played today (Sunday), and I was out on the cruise, so I couldn't go. But I will meet with their manager tomorrow, and will purchase some Cairns Cubs memorabilia. Before I leave this evening, I will find out when the next Cubs games on WGN-TV will be broadcast, and will send a message to the announcers about the Cairns Cubs. If you're interested, listen in.
Saturday evening, we went to ReefTeach, a 2-hour lecture about the reef intended for people who are planning on going out to the reef the next day. The man who gives the lecture is a marine biologist, Paddy Coldwell. He is a transplanted Irishman, and has a very distinctive lecture style. Some people find him a little over the top; he screeches and moves about the stage, full of energy and enthusiasm. But he is very effective at getting a few important points across to his audience about what to expect on the reef, how to treat the reef, and how to help preserve the reef.
While tourists do some damage to the reef, far and away the most damage to the reef somes from agricultural runoff. Earlier generations tore out the mangrove swamps and riverside trees, thus robbing the reef of runoff water that was relatively nutrient-free. More nutrients mean more algae; more algae is a threat to the coral, and if/when the coral goes, so goes the entire ecosystem. Personally, I think the reef is tougher than we are, but that doesn't mean we shoudln't be good caretakers.
Today, we got on the Passions of Paradise II, a twin-hull sailboat bound for Paradise Reef, a patch on the Great Barrier Reef. My colleague and I had both been on the original Passions of Paradise twice, and have now been on this new boat a couple of times. The weather was cooperative, and the sea was unusually calm. I have a cold, so I did not go snorkeling this year, but was content to watch the students as they snorkled and went scuba diving. They saw all mannr of fishes and corals, a few reef sharks (parents: the reef sharks are no threat to people), sting rays and sea turtles. Most report this as the high point of the trip so far, though they still talk about holding koalas.
I apologize for ending this entry so son, but it has been a long day, and I have about a kilometer walk back to the motel. Tomorrow is Monday, a free day, and I will return with more about Cairns.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Moreton Bay
14 May
Cairns
Sunny and Mild
8810 steps (as of 11am)
My guess is that I'll do a lot more walking today. I am in downtaown Cairns at a Global Gossip, but expect that I will walk far north today in search of baseball. I'll let you know in a later journal entry if I was successful.
I wanted to catch you up to day on what we did at Moreton Island. Moreton Island is a sand island just off the coast of Australia, near Brisbane. It lies to the south of Fraser Island, the larger sand island that we have visited in past years. We made the choice to visit Moreton Island this year in order to avoid some backtracking in the course -- the less time we spend doing so, the more time the students have to see new things.
Moreton is not only smaller than Fraser, it is also narrower. The result of this is that it has no developed rainforest as does Fraser, and thus not the amount of tourism. There are only two general stores on the island, and camping conditions are less developed than they are at Fraser. On the other hand, there are no wild dingoes to worry about, so the camps can be more open -- at times at the camp on Fraser last year, we felt as though we were in a POW camp, with the fences around our campsite.
Though there's no rainforest to walk in, there is a middle-level island habitat that is worth exploring. Moreton is a sand island, so there are several freshwater systems at work, such as swamps and window lakes. There are also beaches on the bay sie as well as the ocean side -- we had to chase the students out of the ocean side water; I don't think they fully understand concepts like riptides and undertows (parents, no one was in danger). We did swim nearby Honeymoon Cove, at the north end of the island.
The flora that cover Moreton are mostly fire-managed. The banksia tree and the grass tree both depend upon fire for germination, and of course the ever-present eucalyptus are fire-tolerant. The shop at Bulwer had dramatic forest fire photos; I'd be terrified at the approach of anything like that. The residents of the island appear to endure a larger-scale fire ever couple of years. Naturally set fires (due to lightning) can't be helped and indeed are necessary, but the most recent fire was set by an idiot on a boat who shot off a flare on New Year's Eve -- fortunately, the fire stopped before the village.
There was a threat of rain the entire time we were at the island, though it only rained the last few hours on the second day, before we got back on the ferry. We could see dark clouds in the west over Brisbane, and supposed that the mainland was getting socked hard with rain. it's interesting how the presense of the ocean changes the climate so much, over the course of just a few miles. It did hamper us some; we could not snorkel around some shipwrecks owing to strong currents and rough water.
At the end of teh first day, while the students splashed about at the beach, I climbed around the rocks at Honeymoon Cove. The north end of Moreton is the only bit that's not all sand; there's a series of ancient volcanic islands from a previous era of the world, and the north end of Moreton is a part of that series. The volcanic upheaval pushed through a lot of sandstone, so the rock formations have the unusual feature that all the sandstone sedimentary lines are nearly vertical. There's been a lot of erosion, and some areas appeared to be unstable enough so that I did not chance it. But there are narrow breaks in the rock, and weather pinnacles and other features of interest. When I get to the point where I can upload some photos, I will do so.
We arrived on Moreton with the report that there was a missing person. A Colombian tourist had gotten off the ferry the weekend before and had never returned. There were rescue helicopters and police boats combing the island, but we heard no report of any discovery. It remains a mystery.
I don't know if we'll return to Moreton or not. The problem with going to Fraser is that we spend several hours going north of Brisbane to get to the ferry for Fraser, and therefore several hours going back. We thus backtrack, since we board the train and go north the next day. Fraser is prettier, but Moreton still has a lot to offer. We have some things to discuss for next year's course.
Well, now I am off in search of baseball.
Cairns
Sunny and Mild
8810 steps (as of 11am)
My guess is that I'll do a lot more walking today. I am in downtaown Cairns at a Global Gossip, but expect that I will walk far north today in search of baseball. I'll let you know in a later journal entry if I was successful.
I wanted to catch you up to day on what we did at Moreton Island. Moreton Island is a sand island just off the coast of Australia, near Brisbane. It lies to the south of Fraser Island, the larger sand island that we have visited in past years. We made the choice to visit Moreton Island this year in order to avoid some backtracking in the course -- the less time we spend doing so, the more time the students have to see new things.
Moreton is not only smaller than Fraser, it is also narrower. The result of this is that it has no developed rainforest as does Fraser, and thus not the amount of tourism. There are only two general stores on the island, and camping conditions are less developed than they are at Fraser. On the other hand, there are no wild dingoes to worry about, so the camps can be more open -- at times at the camp on Fraser last year, we felt as though we were in a POW camp, with the fences around our campsite.
Though there's no rainforest to walk in, there is a middle-level island habitat that is worth exploring. Moreton is a sand island, so there are several freshwater systems at work, such as swamps and window lakes. There are also beaches on the bay sie as well as the ocean side -- we had to chase the students out of the ocean side water; I don't think they fully understand concepts like riptides and undertows (parents, no one was in danger). We did swim nearby Honeymoon Cove, at the north end of the island.
The flora that cover Moreton are mostly fire-managed. The banksia tree and the grass tree both depend upon fire for germination, and of course the ever-present eucalyptus are fire-tolerant. The shop at Bulwer had dramatic forest fire photos; I'd be terrified at the approach of anything like that. The residents of the island appear to endure a larger-scale fire ever couple of years. Naturally set fires (due to lightning) can't be helped and indeed are necessary, but the most recent fire was set by an idiot on a boat who shot off a flare on New Year's Eve -- fortunately, the fire stopped before the village.
There was a threat of rain the entire time we were at the island, though it only rained the last few hours on the second day, before we got back on the ferry. We could see dark clouds in the west over Brisbane, and supposed that the mainland was getting socked hard with rain. it's interesting how the presense of the ocean changes the climate so much, over the course of just a few miles. It did hamper us some; we could not snorkel around some shipwrecks owing to strong currents and rough water.
At the end of teh first day, while the students splashed about at the beach, I climbed around the rocks at Honeymoon Cove. The north end of Moreton is the only bit that's not all sand; there's a series of ancient volcanic islands from a previous era of the world, and the north end of Moreton is a part of that series. The volcanic upheaval pushed through a lot of sandstone, so the rock formations have the unusual feature that all the sandstone sedimentary lines are nearly vertical. There's been a lot of erosion, and some areas appeared to be unstable enough so that I did not chance it. But there are narrow breaks in the rock, and weather pinnacles and other features of interest. When I get to the point where I can upload some photos, I will do so.
We arrived on Moreton with the report that there was a missing person. A Colombian tourist had gotten off the ferry the weekend before and had never returned. There were rescue helicopters and police boats combing the island, but we heard no report of any discovery. It remains a mystery.
I don't know if we'll return to Moreton or not. The problem with going to Fraser is that we spend several hours going north of Brisbane to get to the ferry for Fraser, and therefore several hours going back. We thus backtrack, since we board the train and go north the next day. Fraser is prettier, but Moreton still has a lot to offer. We have some things to discuss for next year's course.
Well, now I am off in search of baseball.
Woolshed
13 May
Cairns
clear skies, mild tropical weather
(7500 steps on 9 May)
(8180 steps on 10 May)
(6420 steps on 11 May)
(< 1000 steps on 12 May)
4530 steps
We arrived in Cairns by train this afternoon. We travled from Brisbane to Cairns on sleeper cars; it takes about 30 hours.
After we dumped our bags at the Cairns Queenslander and bought provisions for the morning, we walked down the Esplanade to Barnacle Bill's, where I once again had the Very Best Meal I Have Ever Eaten whil in Australia: their Coral Trout, Blackened. The fish is fresh, cooked perfectely, with a blackening spice that is reminiscent of jerk seasoning. It comes with a wonderful coleslaw and fresh raw vegetables. It's just perfect.
The students love the place we're staying. The accomodations are like a motel -- it is a Comfort Inn. But, after the Wattle Lodge, the TinBilly, and the Sunlander train, Comfort Inn seems pretty good to them. Besides, they can do their own cooking now, so they get to save a little money.
So, let me catch you up on the last few days, gentle reader:
First, at the Woolshed in Brisbane. We've gone there for a few years now. It's a chance for teh students to get a glimpse of the workign of a sheep station, and to learn a little bit about the sheep industry in Australia. We also have a little fun at whip-cracking. Now, I should mention that I learned how to crack a whip the first year I was in Australia, and can do it fairly reliably. So, while the students seemed to be impressed with my ability, I think it's less than it appears. Our guide was Bill once again, an older Ausralian man who has learned enough Japanese to get along with their large tour groups as well as groups like ours.
Okay, truth told, it's a little touristy. But, we are tourists as well as students.
The kangaroos at the Woolsheds animal park are friendlier than the ones at Lone Pine, and our students enjoyed playing with them much more. The students discovered that if you pet a kangaroo between its front paws, it will completely relax -- like stroking a cat under its chin or between its ears.
On the other hand, they do not react so well when the sheep are sheared. It's a little discomforting for some city folk to see how farm animals are worked. I, for one, sleep quite well at night after eating my steak.
After the Woolshed, we took the students to Oxley's, a riverboat restaurant we passed on our way to the Lone Pine Koala Sancuary a few days before. The arrangement we had with Oxley's was that we would alternate entrees, main courses, and desserts -- so, they would put pumpkin sup in frnot of the first person, then spinach tortelini in front of teh seond, then pumpkin soup again, and so on, so that peopel could swap and eventually get what they liked. The soup and tortelini were our entrees. We had salmon or fillet steak for our main courses, and mango ice cream or chocolate eclirs for our dessert. All in all, the studnets enjoyed it very much, and the river view of the Brisbane skyline from the restaurant was an added touch.
We used the City Cat to get there. This is Brisbane's ferry system. It's a much simpler scheme than Sydney's: Brisbane is divided into travle zones; when you buy a ticket in Brisbane, you are buying passage from one zone to another for a day. So, our tickets to Ferny Grove for the Woolshed were good for getting to Oxley's as well.
I finished The Garden of Beasts by Jeffery Deaver today, and loaned it to my senior colleague so that he could read it on the train. My hope is to give it to the manager at Toddy's in Alice Springs, as he is a fan of Deaver's. The Garden of Beasts is set in 1936 Germany, just before the Olympic Games. An American gangster hitman is coerced by the Office of Naval Intellegence to infiltrate the U.S. Olympic team in order to assassinate a high ranking German officer, in order to thwart Hitler's rearmament plans. As always, Deaver's books are thrilling, with plot twists that occur when you least expect them and are never what you expect. I recommend him to anyone who likes mysteries. If you saw The Bone Collector, you saw a movie based on one of his books, so you will have an idea of what to expect.
I'm going to sign off for now. Tomorrow, I'll write about our trip to Moreton Island on 10 May and 11 May.
Cairns
clear skies, mild tropical weather
(7500 steps on 9 May)
(8180 steps on 10 May)
(6420 steps on 11 May)
(< 1000 steps on 12 May)
4530 steps
We arrived in Cairns by train this afternoon. We travled from Brisbane to Cairns on sleeper cars; it takes about 30 hours.
After we dumped our bags at the Cairns Queenslander and bought provisions for the morning, we walked down the Esplanade to Barnacle Bill's, where I once again had the Very Best Meal I Have Ever Eaten whil in Australia: their Coral Trout, Blackened. The fish is fresh, cooked perfectely, with a blackening spice that is reminiscent of jerk seasoning. It comes with a wonderful coleslaw and fresh raw vegetables. It's just perfect.
The students love the place we're staying. The accomodations are like a motel -- it is a Comfort Inn. But, after the Wattle Lodge, the TinBilly, and the Sunlander train, Comfort Inn seems pretty good to them. Besides, they can do their own cooking now, so they get to save a little money.
So, let me catch you up on the last few days, gentle reader:
First, at the Woolshed in Brisbane. We've gone there for a few years now. It's a chance for teh students to get a glimpse of the workign of a sheep station, and to learn a little bit about the sheep industry in Australia. We also have a little fun at whip-cracking. Now, I should mention that I learned how to crack a whip the first year I was in Australia, and can do it fairly reliably. So, while the students seemed to be impressed with my ability, I think it's less than it appears. Our guide was Bill once again, an older Ausralian man who has learned enough Japanese to get along with their large tour groups as well as groups like ours.
Okay, truth told, it's a little touristy. But, we are tourists as well as students.
The kangaroos at the Woolsheds animal park are friendlier than the ones at Lone Pine, and our students enjoyed playing with them much more. The students discovered that if you pet a kangaroo between its front paws, it will completely relax -- like stroking a cat under its chin or between its ears.
On the other hand, they do not react so well when the sheep are sheared. It's a little discomforting for some city folk to see how farm animals are worked. I, for one, sleep quite well at night after eating my steak.
After the Woolshed, we took the students to Oxley's, a riverboat restaurant we passed on our way to the Lone Pine Koala Sancuary a few days before. The arrangement we had with Oxley's was that we would alternate entrees, main courses, and desserts -- so, they would put pumpkin sup in frnot of the first person, then spinach tortelini in front of teh seond, then pumpkin soup again, and so on, so that peopel could swap and eventually get what they liked. The soup and tortelini were our entrees. We had salmon or fillet steak for our main courses, and mango ice cream or chocolate eclirs for our dessert. All in all, the studnets enjoyed it very much, and the river view of the Brisbane skyline from the restaurant was an added touch.
We used the City Cat to get there. This is Brisbane's ferry system. It's a much simpler scheme than Sydney's: Brisbane is divided into travle zones; when you buy a ticket in Brisbane, you are buying passage from one zone to another for a day. So, our tickets to Ferny Grove for the Woolshed were good for getting to Oxley's as well.
I finished The Garden of Beasts by Jeffery Deaver today, and loaned it to my senior colleague so that he could read it on the train. My hope is to give it to the manager at Toddy's in Alice Springs, as he is a fan of Deaver's. The Garden of Beasts is set in 1936 Germany, just before the Olympic Games. An American gangster hitman is coerced by the Office of Naval Intellegence to infiltrate the U.S. Olympic team in order to assassinate a high ranking German officer, in order to thwart Hitler's rearmament plans. As always, Deaver's books are thrilling, with plot twists that occur when you least expect them and are never what you expect. I recommend him to anyone who likes mysteries. If you saw The Bone Collector, you saw a movie based on one of his books, so you will have an idea of what to expect.
I'm going to sign off for now. Tomorrow, I'll write about our trip to Moreton Island on 10 May and 11 May.
Sunday, May 08, 2005
Mother's Day
8 May
Brisbane
Cloudy and light sprinkles
10910 steps
I just finished a letter to my mother, so I thought I'd write for a moment about Mother's Day in Australia. My impression is that it's taken pretty seriously here; all the restaurants are open and holding Mother's Day specials -- I think that means that they add 10% to their prices. It seems that families are out and about a lot, and you see many women holding small bouquets, surrounded by their families. It is very touching.
Today was a free day, so I spent the day mostly scouting. My colleagues and I think we have a good course going, but we are always eager to find new things to do, so I cast about looking for things.
Brisbane has been a hard city for me to warm up to. The first year of the course, 2000, found us in a dump of a hostel on the south side of the Brisbane River. It was loud, the patrons were unruly, and it was located far from anything interesting. It probably has colored my perception of Brisbane since.
But this year, I've found more and more that Brisbane is in fact a very nice place, after all. Today, I visited City Hall, which also houses a city museum and art gallery. The city hall has a clock tower, of course, at the top of which you get a great view of the city -- and numb ears when the bells ring! The museum is brief, and deals mostly with the building of the City Hall. The central rotunda was taken over today by promotional booths of many historical and cultural societies, and I was able to make some contacts with a couple of Aboriginal groups that I hope to turn into experiences for students in future offerings of the course.
We are planning another group dinner for the students tomorrow night, at a riverside seafood place called Oxley's. I walked over there this morning -- probably accounting for about 4000 of the steps above! -- to get a menu, find out about prices, and about how to get there. We like the group meals, as it gives all of us a chance to find out what one another has been doing in a relaxed setting. We saw this restaurant from the water as we sailed on the Mirimar cruise yesterday, and started thinking about it as a possibility.
In the afternoon, my senior colleague and I went off to the South Bank Parklands, one of the best areas of the entire trip. There's a short rainforest walk, an inland beach (one cannot swim in the Brisbane River, as it will have sharks from time to time), a performing arts center, an outdoor amphitheatre stadium, a Nepalese peace pagoda, many restaurants, a weekend fleamarket, and long sidewalks along the river. A very enjoyable gathering place for much of Brisbane -- the inclement weather did not seem to stop the families out for the day honoring their mothers.
Tomorrow, we go to the Australian Woolshed for a look at the sheep industry. Tuesday, we leave for Moreton Island.
Brisbane
Cloudy and light sprinkles
10910 steps
I just finished a letter to my mother, so I thought I'd write for a moment about Mother's Day in Australia. My impression is that it's taken pretty seriously here; all the restaurants are open and holding Mother's Day specials -- I think that means that they add 10% to their prices. It seems that families are out and about a lot, and you see many women holding small bouquets, surrounded by their families. It is very touching.
Today was a free day, so I spent the day mostly scouting. My colleagues and I think we have a good course going, but we are always eager to find new things to do, so I cast about looking for things.
Brisbane has been a hard city for me to warm up to. The first year of the course, 2000, found us in a dump of a hostel on the south side of the Brisbane River. It was loud, the patrons were unruly, and it was located far from anything interesting. It probably has colored my perception of Brisbane since.
But this year, I've found more and more that Brisbane is in fact a very nice place, after all. Today, I visited City Hall, which also houses a city museum and art gallery. The city hall has a clock tower, of course, at the top of which you get a great view of the city -- and numb ears when the bells ring! The museum is brief, and deals mostly with the building of the City Hall. The central rotunda was taken over today by promotional booths of many historical and cultural societies, and I was able to make some contacts with a couple of Aboriginal groups that I hope to turn into experiences for students in future offerings of the course.
We are planning another group dinner for the students tomorrow night, at a riverside seafood place called Oxley's. I walked over there this morning -- probably accounting for about 4000 of the steps above! -- to get a menu, find out about prices, and about how to get there. We like the group meals, as it gives all of us a chance to find out what one another has been doing in a relaxed setting. We saw this restaurant from the water as we sailed on the Mirimar cruise yesterday, and started thinking about it as a possibility.
In the afternoon, my senior colleague and I went off to the South Bank Parklands, one of the best areas of the entire trip. There's a short rainforest walk, an inland beach (one cannot swim in the Brisbane River, as it will have sharks from time to time), a performing arts center, an outdoor amphitheatre stadium, a Nepalese peace pagoda, many restaurants, a weekend fleamarket, and long sidewalks along the river. A very enjoyable gathering place for much of Brisbane -- the inclement weather did not seem to stop the families out for the day honoring their mothers.
Tomorrow, we go to the Australian Woolshed for a look at the sheep industry. Tuesday, we leave for Moreton Island.
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Lone Pine, Downfall
7 May
Brisbane
Sunny, mild
4560 steps
Today was our day to visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, via the Mirimar Cruise. The weather was wonderful, most sunny with a few clouds, mild temperatures and a gentle breeze. It had rained overnight, so we were worried, but it turned out quite well.
The cruise goes about 15 kilmoeters down the Brisbane River, a tidal river that changes course four times a day. It comes with a full commentary about the city of Brisbane and its history, the boat, and the Sanctuary. The Brisbane river floods once in awhile; I suppose it happens in conjunction with a typhoon. The flooding in 1974 submerged 75% of the city; the commentatior asserts that it would have been possible to use the Mirimar to navigate the local country club.
We arrived at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where a BBQ lunch was waiting for us. We had grilled beef and chicken, rice, salad, and fruit. It was all pretty good -- the beef was a little chewy, but it had a good flavor. The students were free to explore on their own, until a bus picked us up at 2:15.
I went to the snake show, which was very low-key. A tour guide came out with a carpet python, and talked about snakes and their life cycles. It was more for children, I guess, but I still enjoyed it. The snake was frisky -- it crawled into the tour guide's shirt, and she had to call over a fellow worker to coax it back out again.
I also went to the sheep dog show, which does not compare with what we will see on Monday at the Australian Woolshed. I fed kangaroos; they always seem so grateful -- the wallabies are more shy. And I wandered about seeing the other animals, such as the birds, the wombats, the lizards, and the dingoes.
We took a bus home, a different process from other years, when we rode the boat back. It was faster, and actually a little less expensive.
I went to the 3pm showing of Downfall, a German movie about the very last days of the Third Reich, as Berlin was falling. The actor Bruno Ganz played Hitler, and while he certainly turned in an excellent performance, there were many other strong points to the movie, as well as other story lines:
The movie is in German with English subtitles, and runs for over two hours. I hope you get a chance to see it, though you should expect it to be difficult to watch.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and is a free day for the students. Monday, we go to the Australian Woolshed for a look at Australia's sheep industry.
Brisbane
Sunny, mild
4560 steps
Today was our day to visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, via the Mirimar Cruise. The weather was wonderful, most sunny with a few clouds, mild temperatures and a gentle breeze. It had rained overnight, so we were worried, but it turned out quite well.
The cruise goes about 15 kilmoeters down the Brisbane River, a tidal river that changes course four times a day. It comes with a full commentary about the city of Brisbane and its history, the boat, and the Sanctuary. The Brisbane river floods once in awhile; I suppose it happens in conjunction with a typhoon. The flooding in 1974 submerged 75% of the city; the commentatior asserts that it would have been possible to use the Mirimar to navigate the local country club.
We arrived at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where a BBQ lunch was waiting for us. We had grilled beef and chicken, rice, salad, and fruit. It was all pretty good -- the beef was a little chewy, but it had a good flavor. The students were free to explore on their own, until a bus picked us up at 2:15.
I went to the snake show, which was very low-key. A tour guide came out with a carpet python, and talked about snakes and their life cycles. It was more for children, I guess, but I still enjoyed it. The snake was frisky -- it crawled into the tour guide's shirt, and she had to call over a fellow worker to coax it back out again.
I also went to the sheep dog show, which does not compare with what we will see on Monday at the Australian Woolshed. I fed kangaroos; they always seem so grateful -- the wallabies are more shy. And I wandered about seeing the other animals, such as the birds, the wombats, the lizards, and the dingoes.
We took a bus home, a different process from other years, when we rode the boat back. It was faster, and actually a little less expensive.
I went to the 3pm showing of Downfall, a German movie about the very last days of the Third Reich, as Berlin was falling. The actor Bruno Ganz played Hitler, and while he certainly turned in an excellent performance, there were many other strong points to the movie, as well as other story lines:
- We see a lot of Hitler's and Goebbel's final days through the eyes of Hitler's personal secretary, Frau Trandl Lunge. She was a loyal secretary, perhaps naive -- but as the real-life Frau Lunge says at the end of the movie, "being young was no excuse. I should have known." The story of her escape from the Russian forces is another part of the movie.
- We see a young boy who fights against the Russian tanks, and earns an Iron Cross for destroying a couple. His father does not want him to fight, but he does, only to have a change of heart after his friends die and he sees the horrible violence of the Battle of Berlin up close.
- It's conflicting to watch the German people as they suffer at the end of the war -- you feel terrible that they are going through this, yet at the same time, you cannot forget the concentration camps, the imperialist policy, Stalingrad, and all the other crimes for which they had to answer.
- It is even more disturbing to hear Hitler and Goebbels both make essentially that point -- that the German people are getting what they deserve, that they (Hitler and Goebbels) had no compassion for the people as Germany fell around them, that the people elected Hitler and swore allegiance to him, and that the people let Hitler down.
- The movie is hard to dismiss, at least in part because it refuses to make any of the Nazis into caricatures, as we so often see in wartime movies and cartoons. There are people who are heroic, such as the Nazi doctor who works feverishly to save as many soldiers as he can, and who stands up to the last remnants of the Brownshort thugs. There are nuanced debates among the generals about Hitler's sanity. Hitler himself is seen at times as a gentlemanly towards his personal staff, including Frau Junge.
- Eva Braun and Frau Goebbels were really quite insane. Frau Goebbels in particular should be judged as harshly as possible by history. It is a horrible mother that nurders her own children.
- The ultimate point of the movie may be that Hitler did not die alone because he did not rise to power alone. There were plenty of people around him who fed his ego and galvanized the support of a nation that, in the final analysis, wallowed in his madness.
The movie is in German with English subtitles, and runs for over two hours. I hope you get a chance to see it, though you should expect it to be difficult to watch.
Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and is a free day for the students. Monday, we go to the Australian Woolshed for a look at Australia's sheep industry.
Friday, May 06, 2005
Brisbane
Brisbane
6 May
Sunny am, late afternoon clouds
7430 steps
We left the Wattle Lodge and Canberra early this morning, up in time to see a beautiful sunrise after a cresent moon. Our coach driver knocked over a sign on the way to the Canberra airport. My senior colleague believes that he wasn't used to a coach as big as the one he was driving that day.
One thing that came up while we were meeting with the good folks at the US embassy yesterday. Do you know that you -- my fellow American citizens -- pay about three times as much for sugar as the rest of the world? And that's not the just white stuff you put in your coffee; we pay too much for all the sugar we use. Ponder for a moment how much you'd save, and then tell your friends and your congressman. We should really think about this.
As we yook off from the Canberra airport today, I thought about the first time I ever flew in a plane -- for several of our students, the flights in this course are their first; that's why I started thinking about it. I was 12, and my mother and grandmother were taking me out to Long Island, where my uncle and his family lived. I remember taxiing out to the runway, thinking "This isn't so bad," and then feeling terrified when the engines throttled up and we hurtled down the runway going 'way too fast! The bumpiness suddenly smoothing out when the wheels left the ground, the turbulence as we passed through the first cloud layer, my ears popping for teh first time, my certainty that the plane was going to break apart when I heard the loud bang -- someone explained to me that it was just the landing gear, of course. And of course, there's the first view of the horizon above the clouds, and the absolute knowledge for the very first time that the earth is round and you can see its roundness and sense its life-laden blue glow.
The ground around Canberra is very dry, apart form the aggressively irrigated bits of farmland. Locals were telling us about a severe drought lasting for a few years now. It looked as if storms might be heading in, but they appeared to have broken up. Good luck for us in the course, but not so good for the citizens of ACT.
We arrived in the Brisbane airport about 10:30, and made it to the TinBilly hostel about noon. It's definitely a place for the young; my colleagues and I are very much out of place here. After we put our bags in our rooms, the students were free to explore for the rest of the day. My colleagues and I walked down to the Queen Street Mall and took a quick look at the casino -- I quickly lost $10 AUD, as usual. I do not understand my senior colleague's luck. My junior colleague is wise enough to realize that the only way to win is not to play. I returned to the hostel and read awhile, then napped.
This evening, we ate at a passable restaurant, the Pig 'n' Whistle, after which we took a stroll around the South Bank Parklands, on the opposite side of the Brisbane River. The opera season starts May 14 -- frsutrating for me, as I'd love to see an opera down here some year. The Queensland opera seaon opens with La Boheme; Puccini holds a special place in my heart. Maybe someday ... they are also doing a stage version of The Hobbit -- sounds weird. In addition the the ads for the opera, we also saw some very entertaining street acrobats -- imagine two Australians pretending to be a Russian Siegfried and Roy without the animals and with contorns and you get the idea. The tights were red, and they had yellow stars on their left bum.
This next bit is somewhat directed to my lovely wife, but you all should read it, as I suspect you may never hear about this movie otherwise. Is the movie Downfall being released in American theaters? I will go see it in a day or so, and let you know more about it. The downfall is that of Adolph Hiter, it is a tragic account of his last days. I expect it to be difficult to watch; after all, he is one of maybe three of the most wicked men of the 20th century (along with Stalin and Pol Pot), and probably among the most wicked to ever live. It's hard to be sympathetic. The reason that my lovely wife might be interested in this is that Hitler is played by Bruno Ganz. If you ware familiar with the movie Wings of Desire or its sequel Far Away, So Close, then you have seen him as the angel who becomes human.
Tomorrow, we head off to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Many of our students are excited at the opportunity to hold a koala; many of you parents will probably see a photo of that soon. We also celebrate the first of six birthdays we will have on the trip.
6 May
Sunny am, late afternoon clouds
7430 steps
We left the Wattle Lodge and Canberra early this morning, up in time to see a beautiful sunrise after a cresent moon. Our coach driver knocked over a sign on the way to the Canberra airport. My senior colleague believes that he wasn't used to a coach as big as the one he was driving that day.
One thing that came up while we were meeting with the good folks at the US embassy yesterday. Do you know that you -- my fellow American citizens -- pay about three times as much for sugar as the rest of the world? And that's not the just white stuff you put in your coffee; we pay too much for all the sugar we use. Ponder for a moment how much you'd save, and then tell your friends and your congressman. We should really think about this.
As we yook off from the Canberra airport today, I thought about the first time I ever flew in a plane -- for several of our students, the flights in this course are their first; that's why I started thinking about it. I was 12, and my mother and grandmother were taking me out to Long Island, where my uncle and his family lived. I remember taxiing out to the runway, thinking "This isn't so bad," and then feeling terrified when the engines throttled up and we hurtled down the runway going 'way too fast! The bumpiness suddenly smoothing out when the wheels left the ground, the turbulence as we passed through the first cloud layer, my ears popping for teh first time, my certainty that the plane was going to break apart when I heard the loud bang -- someone explained to me that it was just the landing gear, of course. And of course, there's the first view of the horizon above the clouds, and the absolute knowledge for the very first time that the earth is round and you can see its roundness and sense its life-laden blue glow.
The ground around Canberra is very dry, apart form the aggressively irrigated bits of farmland. Locals were telling us about a severe drought lasting for a few years now. It looked as if storms might be heading in, but they appeared to have broken up. Good luck for us in the course, but not so good for the citizens of ACT.
We arrived in the Brisbane airport about 10:30, and made it to the TinBilly hostel about noon. It's definitely a place for the young; my colleagues and I are very much out of place here. After we put our bags in our rooms, the students were free to explore for the rest of the day. My colleagues and I walked down to the Queen Street Mall and took a quick look at the casino -- I quickly lost $10 AUD, as usual. I do not understand my senior colleague's luck. My junior colleague is wise enough to realize that the only way to win is not to play. I returned to the hostel and read awhile, then napped.
This evening, we ate at a passable restaurant, the Pig 'n' Whistle, after which we took a stroll around the South Bank Parklands, on the opposite side of the Brisbane River. The opera season starts May 14 -- frsutrating for me, as I'd love to see an opera down here some year. The Queensland opera seaon opens with La Boheme; Puccini holds a special place in my heart. Maybe someday ... they are also doing a stage version of The Hobbit -- sounds weird. In addition the the ads for the opera, we also saw some very entertaining street acrobats -- imagine two Australians pretending to be a Russian Siegfried and Roy without the animals and with contorns and you get the idea. The tights were red, and they had yellow stars on their left bum.
This next bit is somewhat directed to my lovely wife, but you all should read it, as I suspect you may never hear about this movie otherwise. Is the movie Downfall being released in American theaters? I will go see it in a day or so, and let you know more about it. The downfall is that of Adolph Hiter, it is a tragic account of his last days. I expect it to be difficult to watch; after all, he is one of maybe three of the most wicked men of the 20th century (along with Stalin and Pol Pot), and probably among the most wicked to ever live. It's hard to be sympathetic. The reason that my lovely wife might be interested in this is that Hitler is played by Bruno Ganz. If you ware familiar with the movie Wings of Desire or its sequel Far Away, So Close, then you have seen him as the angel who becomes human.
Tomorrow, we head off to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Many of our students are excited at the opportunity to hold a koala; many of you parents will probably see a photo of that soon. We also celebrate the first of six birthdays we will have on the trip.
Thursday, May 05, 2005
Parliament, the Embassy, and the ANZAC War Memorial
Our day tour in Canberra turned out much better thamn I thought it would -- I was very nervous about moving about, being on time, and having programs of interest to the students, but it all turned out just fine.
We began at the Australian Parliament house a little after 9am. There were some school groups ahead of us, so we didn't start our tour until 9:30am, but it really did not matter much. Our guide was a native of Thailand, I believe, though I'm sure she was an Australian citizen -- she certainly knew her stuff, as my junior colleague discovered when he asked her a couprl of tough questions.
Australian government, though a parliamentary system, is still organized in a way similar to our own. There are two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Representation in the House is proportional to population size -- they solve some of the apportionment problems by allowing the size of their house to vary. Each state is equally represented in the Senate, though the territories have fewer votes there. Tax bills and expenditure bills must begin in the House.
Of course, the Prime Minister is the head of government, so that makes things somewhat different, as the powers of the executive branch and legislative branch are therefore merged in Australia. There are some other differences, too, such as the mandatory voting of the citizens.
The parliament building is beautiful, and full of symbolism for the Australian people and its land. White marble columns in the entry represent the eucalyptus trees, while dark red columns in the lobby stand for teh satinays. The color theme of the senate chamber is the ochre of the central desert, while the house is the sea green of the ocean. There's earth from the Olgas around the outside of the building, and a large representation of an Aboriginal painting serves as a central location on the front of the building. The roof of the building is a park -- the people walk over the representatives. And above everything is the Australian flag, waving atop four stainless steels pillars.
There is nothing obstructing the view between Parliament House and the ANZAC War Memorial. That, too, is intentional. If a government is going to send its young man and women into harms way, one hopes that they take a good, long look at the War Memorial before doing it. The visit to the ANZAC War Memorial and Museum was emotional for some of our students; I saw at least one getting a little choked up. It is a memorial; I believe that the Australians have done their best to list every one of their casualties in every action they've ever been in. Many red poppies adorn the long list, put there by families of teh fallen. Even names of those killed in the Boer War have their poppy.
The museum is one of the better ones I have seen. There are relics, memories, battlefield diagrams, trophies, and a retelling of the history of it all. I think I've talked about the heartbreaking Gallipoli campaign in another year's journal, so I want to just say a few things about the Battle of the Coral Sea. At the time of WWII, the Japanese had invaded New Guinea and were setting their sights, so it was thought, on Australia. Australian troops were engaged in Africa, and the British were unwilling to release them so that Australia could defend itself. But along came the American troops. Because of our commitment to help and our subsequent involvement in the Coral Sea, Australia was saved, and then in turn played a major role in the rest of the war. Australians recognized that we were probably better to have as an ally, at least in part because we did not treat them like dirt (I think the Brits have never quite realized that they don't own it anymore.) That was the birth of the Australian-American alliance, the strongest we have, in my opinion.
Preserving and nurturing that alliance is the job of the staff of teh American Embassy, one of our stiops today. The staff members we spoke with reveal a deep level of patriootism and service that I frankly sis not expect -- and I believe was not due to any kind of party affiliation. I think that a few of our students might be thinking about foreign service now, and I can't blame them.
Well, there are people waiting to use the machine, so I think I'll sign off now. We leave for Brisbane tomorrow; I'll write more after we arrive.
We began at the Australian Parliament house a little after 9am. There were some school groups ahead of us, so we didn't start our tour until 9:30am, but it really did not matter much. Our guide was a native of Thailand, I believe, though I'm sure she was an Australian citizen -- she certainly knew her stuff, as my junior colleague discovered when he asked her a couprl of tough questions.
Australian government, though a parliamentary system, is still organized in a way similar to our own. There are two houses, the House of Representatives and the Senate. Representation in the House is proportional to population size -- they solve some of the apportionment problems by allowing the size of their house to vary. Each state is equally represented in the Senate, though the territories have fewer votes there. Tax bills and expenditure bills must begin in the House.
Of course, the Prime Minister is the head of government, so that makes things somewhat different, as the powers of the executive branch and legislative branch are therefore merged in Australia. There are some other differences, too, such as the mandatory voting of the citizens.
The parliament building is beautiful, and full of symbolism for the Australian people and its land. White marble columns in the entry represent the eucalyptus trees, while dark red columns in the lobby stand for teh satinays. The color theme of the senate chamber is the ochre of the central desert, while the house is the sea green of the ocean. There's earth from the Olgas around the outside of the building, and a large representation of an Aboriginal painting serves as a central location on the front of the building. The roof of the building is a park -- the people walk over the representatives. And above everything is the Australian flag, waving atop four stainless steels pillars.
There is nothing obstructing the view between Parliament House and the ANZAC War Memorial. That, too, is intentional. If a government is going to send its young man and women into harms way, one hopes that they take a good, long look at the War Memorial before doing it. The visit to the ANZAC War Memorial and Museum was emotional for some of our students; I saw at least one getting a little choked up. It is a memorial; I believe that the Australians have done their best to list every one of their casualties in every action they've ever been in. Many red poppies adorn the long list, put there by families of teh fallen. Even names of those killed in the Boer War have their poppy.
The museum is one of the better ones I have seen. There are relics, memories, battlefield diagrams, trophies, and a retelling of the history of it all. I think I've talked about the heartbreaking Gallipoli campaign in another year's journal, so I want to just say a few things about the Battle of the Coral Sea. At the time of WWII, the Japanese had invaded New Guinea and were setting their sights, so it was thought, on Australia. Australian troops were engaged in Africa, and the British were unwilling to release them so that Australia could defend itself. But along came the American troops. Because of our commitment to help and our subsequent involvement in the Coral Sea, Australia was saved, and then in turn played a major role in the rest of the war. Australians recognized that we were probably better to have as an ally, at least in part because we did not treat them like dirt (I think the Brits have never quite realized that they don't own it anymore.) That was the birth of the Australian-American alliance, the strongest we have, in my opinion.
Preserving and nurturing that alliance is the job of the staff of teh American Embassy, one of our stiops today. The staff members we spoke with reveal a deep level of patriootism and service that I frankly sis not expect -- and I believe was not due to any kind of party affiliation. I think that a few of our students might be thinking about foreign service now, and I can't blame them.
Well, there are people waiting to use the machine, so I think I'll sign off now. We leave for Brisbane tomorrow; I'll write more after we arrive.
Wednesday, May 04, 2005
Canberra
4 May
Canberra
partly cloudy
<1000 steps
I'm at one of those overpriced internet kiosks, so please be patient with the spelling and sentence structure. This will also probably be short.
I was at my usual internet place in Sydney this morning, writing about Kings Cross, when their network froze and my entry was lost. I when that happens. I will try to recreate it, but I know that I'll fall short. I was writing about Kings Cross, as I don't think I've ever dealt just with the environs in the part of Sydney where we stay.
I know that I've alluded to the nature of Kings Cross, and it's deserved -- but to compare it with USA sleaze is unfair. Kings Cross is the area immediately around the intersection of Darlinghurst Road and Williams Street -- it's a little over a block long. The block contains many small shops: internet cafes like the one where I usually work on the journal; diners, pastry shops and other eateries; backpackers travel agents; and of course the trade. There are s that troll for business; it's best just to ignore them and move on -- to me, there's nothing attractive about that sort of thing at all; I see the economics of it all and none of the ism.
There are also street people: some aboriginals, but also out-of-luck white folks, too. They sleep on benches until the police chase them along; they beg for change; some of the women try to pick up men. It's all very pathetic and sad.
There's no doubt a business going on, but I really don't think that it leads to a lot of violent crime in the Kings Cross area -- that probably takes place out in some of teh western suburbs of Sydney, where there's more gang activity.
The internet cafe that I use is a small shop, probably a converted boutique of some sort. They've crammed about 40 older computers into it, running Windows. It's run by a Taiwanese family, who are very nice and seem to remember me from year to year. It's $3 for essentially unlimited time. Apart from the network crash this morning, I've always been happy with the place.
I don't recall describing the staff at the Bernly. The owner and his wife are immigrants from Italy, I think they speak at least four languages. They treat us very well; the owner is taking the faculty of the course on a private tour of Sydney when we return late in May -- I'm not sure exactly what a 'private tour' includes, but my senior colleague did ask him if he was a good driver. The owner has also arranged for us to have a group photo taken before we return to the States, so that's nice. Other staff members are from Germany, Indonesia, Turkey, and Korea; they are as friendly as the owners.
The faculty stay on the ground floor. We have 'en suite' rooms that include a bath and fridge. The floors above are for teh students. Some rooms share a bath, and allow for four guests per room.
The top floor gives a very nice view of Sydney; Kings Cross is at the high point between central Sydney and the ocean. If you were to continue east from Kings Cross, you'd eventually reach Bondi Beach.
The Bernly is on Springfield Avenue, one block west of Darlinghurst. It's a very short, narrow residential street that ends in an alley serving as the back door to the shops and boutiques of Kings Cross. We are within two doors of a medical clinic, and a half-block walk to the Kings Cross station of the subway. It is quite convenient. There's an IGA grocery store right across the street, and a street vendor selling fresh produce a little farther along.
There are also a variety of restaurants. Last night, we took the students to Out of India for an Indian-style banquet. I was a little nervous; I was not impressed with the Indian cuisine my graduate school friends at SIU would prepare for me. But it actually turned out quite nicely -- I was especially impressed with the tandoori chicken and the beef vindaloo, very spicy. So, I could be convinced that I misjudged it. The restaurant's owner claimed that Bill Clinton ate there and said it was the best meal he had ever had.
Our trip today to Canberra was very short. We stopped at a McDonalds in Goulburn -- they're the same all over, but we can't eat adventurous every meal. Our hostel here is somewhat outside the city, which is a bit disappointing, as it limits the amount of exploring the students can do. But it's a nice place: clean rooms and kitchen facilities; nice activity areas, and a friendly staff. We ordered 20 pizzas from Dominos for dinner -- and that is a bit of an adventure, as I don't think that Australians really do pizza well. I will never understand why someone would use BBQ sauce as the base for a pizza, though sdome of the students say they like it.
Canberra
partly cloudy
<1000 steps
I'm at one of those overpriced internet kiosks, so please be patient with the spelling and sentence structure. This will also probably be short.
I was at my usual internet place in Sydney this morning, writing about Kings Cross, when their network froze and my entry was lost. I when that happens. I will try to recreate it, but I know that I'll fall short. I was writing about Kings Cross, as I don't think I've ever dealt just with the environs in the part of Sydney where we stay.
I know that I've alluded to the nature of Kings Cross, and it's deserved -- but to compare it with USA sleaze is unfair. Kings Cross is the area immediately around the intersection of Darlinghurst Road and Williams Street -- it's a little over a block long. The block contains many small shops: internet cafes like the one where I usually work on the journal; diners, pastry shops and other eateries; backpackers travel agents; and of course the trade. There are s that troll for business; it's best just to ignore them and move on -- to me, there's nothing attractive about that sort of thing at all; I see the economics of it all and none of the ism.
There are also street people: some aboriginals, but also out-of-luck white folks, too. They sleep on benches until the police chase them along; they beg for change; some of the women try to pick up men. It's all very pathetic and sad.
There's no doubt a business going on, but I really don't think that it leads to a lot of violent crime in the Kings Cross area -- that probably takes place out in some of teh western suburbs of Sydney, where there's more gang activity.
The internet cafe that I use is a small shop, probably a converted boutique of some sort. They've crammed about 40 older computers into it, running Windows. It's run by a Taiwanese family, who are very nice and seem to remember me from year to year. It's $3 for essentially unlimited time. Apart from the network crash this morning, I've always been happy with the place.
I don't recall describing the staff at the Bernly. The owner and his wife are immigrants from Italy, I think they speak at least four languages. They treat us very well; the owner is taking the faculty of the course on a private tour of Sydney when we return late in May -- I'm not sure exactly what a 'private tour' includes, but my senior colleague did ask him if he was a good driver. The owner has also arranged for us to have a group photo taken before we return to the States, so that's nice. Other staff members are from Germany, Indonesia, Turkey, and Korea; they are as friendly as the owners.
The faculty stay on the ground floor. We have 'en suite' rooms that include a bath and fridge. The floors above are for teh students. Some rooms share a bath, and allow for four guests per room.
The top floor gives a very nice view of Sydney; Kings Cross is at the high point between central Sydney and the ocean. If you were to continue east from Kings Cross, you'd eventually reach Bondi Beach.
The Bernly is on Springfield Avenue, one block west of Darlinghurst. It's a very short, narrow residential street that ends in an alley serving as the back door to the shops and boutiques of Kings Cross. We are within two doors of a medical clinic, and a half-block walk to the Kings Cross station of the subway. It is quite convenient. There's an IGA grocery store right across the street, and a street vendor selling fresh produce a little farther along.
There are also a variety of restaurants. Last night, we took the students to Out of India for an Indian-style banquet. I was a little nervous; I was not impressed with the Indian cuisine my graduate school friends at SIU would prepare for me. But it actually turned out quite nicely -- I was especially impressed with the tandoori chicken and the beef vindaloo, very spicy. So, I could be convinced that I misjudged it. The restaurant's owner claimed that Bill Clinton ate there and said it was the best meal he had ever had.
Our trip today to Canberra was very short. We stopped at a McDonalds in Goulburn -- they're the same all over, but we can't eat adventurous every meal. Our hostel here is somewhat outside the city, which is a bit disappointing, as it limits the amount of exploring the students can do. But it's a nice place: clean rooms and kitchen facilities; nice activity areas, and a friendly staff. We ordered 20 pizzas from Dominos for dinner -- and that is a bit of an adventure, as I don't think that Australians really do pizza well. I will never understand why someone would use BBQ sauce as the base for a pizza, though sdome of the students say they like it.
Tuesday, May 03, 2005
Police Museum, Library, Blue Mountains
Sunday, 1 May
Sunny am, showers late pm
4450 steps
I visited the Police and Justice Museum near Circular Quay today. When we first started running this course in 2000, my younger son wanted to be a detective when he grew up, so I first went to this museum on his behalf. It's a very nice, smaller museum, the publkic face of a historical archive of the NSW police. Each time I have visited (2000, 2001, and 2005) there has been a different special exhibits along with the permanent display collection. The special exhibit focuses on jails in Australia this time. The jails were built upon the polygonal model -- is it called the panoptikon? There were floor plans, photos, displays of the prisoner uniforms, weapons made by prisoners, and many other things. The prisoner weaponry was impressive. The most ingenious device was a nasty-looking crossbow, while the most bizarre was a shiv hidden in the handle of a ping-pong handle.
Notable quotes: A prison is "a machine for grinding rogues honest." [Jeremy Bentham, about the new model of prison]
There are two additional deaths to add to the list of NSW police killed in the line of duty. One was killed on 14 January, 2001, while anopther was killed on 3 April, 2002. So, unfortunately, the example I use in my statistics class about deaths of NSW police got a little larger.
There is also an exhibit on the Aborigines and the law. I have nothing new to add, apart from this quote: "They seem'd to set no Value upon anything we gave them, nor would part with anything of their own ... This, in my opinion, argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of life." [James Cook, logbook of the Endeavor, 1770]. Clearly, Captain Cook was writing about his first contact with the Aborigines.
"Warra, warra!" This is what the Aborigines shouted at the first ships to enter Botany Bay. It translates as "Go away, go away!" I visited the NSW library to start researching my project on the panhandling laws and aborigines. I picked up the above quote, along with some other useful but not directly relevant information. I may have more when I visit Canberra in the next few days.
It was odd that only the reading room of the library was open. I would have expected more, since the children are off from school for the weekend.
Monday, 2 May
Cloudy am, sunny afternoon
7520 steps
Today we went to the Blue Mountains, a system of canyons cut into the plateau region west of Sydney. A blue mist hangs in the air; there are several stories about this, ranging from moisture to koala farts. I walked a lot through the rainforest, so my legs are pretty sore now.
Everything in Sydney seems so nice, soi it's a real eye-opener for the students to take the train through the western suburbs -- the poor people must live somewhere, of course(!) The train passes through many depressing neighborhoods, clearly dominated by gangs and drugs. It does put Kings Cross in perspective.
When walking in the woods, people should be quiet.
Tuesday, 3 May
Sunny all day
<1000 steps
Today was a day to do laundry and grade journals. I am a little less than halfway through journal reading. My laundry is all done, though. And I even sent my lovely wife and my charming mother flowers for Mother's Day. The florist is just across the street from this internet cafe, so I will pass it along to the students.
And a note to my two sons: SUNDAY IS MOTHER'S DAY. SUNDAY IS MOTHER'S DAY.
.
Sunny am, showers late pm
4450 steps
I visited the Police and Justice Museum near Circular Quay today. When we first started running this course in 2000, my younger son wanted to be a detective when he grew up, so I first went to this museum on his behalf. It's a very nice, smaller museum, the publkic face of a historical archive of the NSW police. Each time I have visited (2000, 2001, and 2005) there has been a different special exhibits along with the permanent display collection. The special exhibit focuses on jails in Australia this time. The jails were built upon the polygonal model -- is it called the panoptikon? There were floor plans, photos, displays of the prisoner uniforms, weapons made by prisoners, and many other things. The prisoner weaponry was impressive. The most ingenious device was a nasty-looking crossbow, while the most bizarre was a shiv hidden in the handle of a ping-pong handle.
Notable quotes: A prison is "a machine for grinding rogues honest." [Jeremy Bentham, about the new model of prison]
There are two additional deaths to add to the list of NSW police killed in the line of duty. One was killed on 14 January, 2001, while anopther was killed on 3 April, 2002. So, unfortunately, the example I use in my statistics class about deaths of NSW police got a little larger.
There is also an exhibit on the Aborigines and the law. I have nothing new to add, apart from this quote: "They seem'd to set no Value upon anything we gave them, nor would part with anything of their own ... This, in my opinion, argues that they think themselves provided with all the necessarys of life." [James Cook, logbook of the Endeavor, 1770]. Clearly, Captain Cook was writing about his first contact with the Aborigines.
"Warra, warra!" This is what the Aborigines shouted at the first ships to enter Botany Bay. It translates as "Go away, go away!" I visited the NSW library to start researching my project on the panhandling laws and aborigines. I picked up the above quote, along with some other useful but not directly relevant information. I may have more when I visit Canberra in the next few days.
It was odd that only the reading room of the library was open. I would have expected more, since the children are off from school for the weekend.
Monday, 2 May
Cloudy am, sunny afternoon
7520 steps
Today we went to the Blue Mountains, a system of canyons cut into the plateau region west of Sydney. A blue mist hangs in the air; there are several stories about this, ranging from moisture to koala farts. I walked a lot through the rainforest, so my legs are pretty sore now.
Everything in Sydney seems so nice, soi it's a real eye-opener for the students to take the train through the western suburbs -- the poor people must live somewhere, of course(!) The train passes through many depressing neighborhoods, clearly dominated by gangs and drugs. It does put Kings Cross in perspective.
When walking in the woods, people should be quiet.
Tuesday, 3 May
Sunny all day
<1000 steps
Today was a day to do laundry and grade journals. I am a little less than halfway through journal reading. My laundry is all done, though. And I even sent my lovely wife and my charming mother flowers for Mother's Day. The florist is just across the street from this internet cafe, so I will pass it along to the students.
And a note to my two sons: SUNDAY IS MOTHER'S DAY. SUNDAY IS MOTHER'S DAY.
.
Sunday, May 01, 2005
Sunday Morning
Potts Point, Sydney, Australia
1 May
Sunny warm am
4560 steps (on Saturday)
Okay, so I saw this sign that said "Undercover police are patrolling this area for kerb crawlers," and I had to find out what is a 'kerb crawler.' You can look it up yourself, if you really want to know, but it has something to do with what Kings Cross is known for in these parts. And to the parents: we are officially staying in Potts Point, not Kings Cross. It just that Kings Cross is where the McDonald's is. And it's where this interne cafe is.
Yesterday was the day we introduced the students to the Harbor Ferry system. There are a few moments that are consistent across the different years that this course runs, and one of those happens when we go to Circular Quay (pronounced "key"). We board a subway at Kings Cross, transfer at the Town Hall stop to a different subway. All of this is underground. The subway car then climbs and emerges from underground, and goes above the Quay for a splendid view of the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House! It has never yet failed to take the students' breaths for awhile; we build a few minutes into thechedule so that the students can take photos of it all from the platform.
We use the ferry to go out to the Taronga Zoo. Again, we've had nice weather so far, and the trip out was sunny and mild, with little chop from the water. Getting into the zoo ran smoothly. This involves getting into a cable car that goes up a hillside to the zoo entrance. We then spend a couple of hours walking down the hill, back to the ferry. We let the students explore on their own, of course.
Last year, there was a lot of construction going on at the zoo, as they were installing several mega-habitats. I expected it to be finished this year, but it looks as though they have a ways to go before it's all done. They have finished the food court, an indoor/outdoor eatery that offers a reasonable selection. No peacocks attacking me for my meat pie this year (see the 2000 journal). I had a greek salad, it was okay.
There was not too much that was different from prior years. I always like the bird show, so I never miss that. We did find two echidnas in their enclosure. An echinda is a monotreme, probably most closely related to the duck-billed platypus. It's an egg-laying mammal, but unlike the platypus, it has no teats; mother's milk comes from sweat-like glands on mother's underside. The female carries the egg externally, altering her belly by muscular contractions to create a pouch for it.
Echidnas most closely resemble out porcupine. They're not exactly quills on its back, but rather short stubby pointed sticklike bristles -- you'd not want to step on one. When threatned, the echidna digs a little hole and hunkers down so that it looks like a little pile of stubbly grass. I can't imagine any predator looking at this as a tasty critter, so well-adapted are they. We had seen one last year at the zoo, and I think it's on the DVD from last year. The neat thing about seeing two this year was that one was camoflaged, as I described above.
In the afternoon, we took the ferry over to Darling Harbour to walk through the Sydney Aquarium. My faborite part of the aquarium is the reef shark tank. It's a chance to see some of the big sharks and rays moving around, as you walk through tunnels built into the tank. I could watch the big stingrays move through the water all day; they appear to fly through the water rather than swim, with their graceful wing undulation.
In the evening, my senior colleague and I went to the Sydney Opera House to see Influence, a play by David Williamson. Williamson is one of Australia's most prominent playwrights, though you may not have heard of him. He wrote the screenplays for the movies Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously, and has written many other plays performed at the Opera House. The first year I was here, a student and I went to see The Great Man, and last year, my colleague and I went to see Amigos.
Influence is an episode in the life of a hate-mongering radio talk-show host: the dealings with his aging ballerina 'trophy' wife, his teenaged daughter by his first wife, his sister, his father who was secretly a Croatian war criminal from WWII, his chauffer, and his Turkish housekeeper. Many references to the world today, to 9/11 and its effect on Australians, to the influence of hate shows. It's edgy black comedy, and not for the sensitive. But I like his writing a lot, and hope to see more over the next few years.
I send a note of congratulations to the senior biologist at my home college, on the birth of her daughter. If you know Lynne, pass it along.
Today, I am going out to Watson Bay for a walk around, and then I'm going to see what the Sydeny Public Library has to offer.
1 May
Sunny warm am
4560 steps (on Saturday)
Okay, so I saw this sign that said "Undercover police are patrolling this area for kerb crawlers," and I had to find out what is a 'kerb crawler.' You can look it up yourself, if you really want to know, but it has something to do with what Kings Cross is known for in these parts. And to the parents: we are officially staying in Potts Point, not Kings Cross. It just that Kings Cross is where the McDonald's is. And it's where this interne cafe is.
Yesterday was the day we introduced the students to the Harbor Ferry system. There are a few moments that are consistent across the different years that this course runs, and one of those happens when we go to Circular Quay (pronounced "key"). We board a subway at Kings Cross, transfer at the Town Hall stop to a different subway. All of this is underground. The subway car then climbs and emerges from underground, and goes above the Quay for a splendid view of the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House! It has never yet failed to take the students' breaths for awhile; we build a few minutes into thechedule so that the students can take photos of it all from the platform.
We use the ferry to go out to the Taronga Zoo. Again, we've had nice weather so far, and the trip out was sunny and mild, with little chop from the water. Getting into the zoo ran smoothly. This involves getting into a cable car that goes up a hillside to the zoo entrance. We then spend a couple of hours walking down the hill, back to the ferry. We let the students explore on their own, of course.
Last year, there was a lot of construction going on at the zoo, as they were installing several mega-habitats. I expected it to be finished this year, but it looks as though they have a ways to go before it's all done. They have finished the food court, an indoor/outdoor eatery that offers a reasonable selection. No peacocks attacking me for my meat pie this year (see the 2000 journal). I had a greek salad, it was okay.
There was not too much that was different from prior years. I always like the bird show, so I never miss that. We did find two echidnas in their enclosure. An echinda is a monotreme, probably most closely related to the duck-billed platypus. It's an egg-laying mammal, but unlike the platypus, it has no teats; mother's milk comes from sweat-like glands on mother's underside. The female carries the egg externally, altering her belly by muscular contractions to create a pouch for it.
Echidnas most closely resemble out porcupine. They're not exactly quills on its back, but rather short stubby pointed sticklike bristles -- you'd not want to step on one. When threatned, the echidna digs a little hole and hunkers down so that it looks like a little pile of stubbly grass. I can't imagine any predator looking at this as a tasty critter, so well-adapted are they. We had seen one last year at the zoo, and I think it's on the DVD from last year. The neat thing about seeing two this year was that one was camoflaged, as I described above.
In the afternoon, we took the ferry over to Darling Harbour to walk through the Sydney Aquarium. My faborite part of the aquarium is the reef shark tank. It's a chance to see some of the big sharks and rays moving around, as you walk through tunnels built into the tank. I could watch the big stingrays move through the water all day; they appear to fly through the water rather than swim, with their graceful wing undulation.
In the evening, my senior colleague and I went to the Sydney Opera House to see Influence, a play by David Williamson. Williamson is one of Australia's most prominent playwrights, though you may not have heard of him. He wrote the screenplays for the movies Gallipoli and The Year of Living Dangerously, and has written many other plays performed at the Opera House. The first year I was here, a student and I went to see The Great Man, and last year, my colleague and I went to see Amigos.
Influence is an episode in the life of a hate-mongering radio talk-show host: the dealings with his aging ballerina 'trophy' wife, his teenaged daughter by his first wife, his sister, his father who was secretly a Croatian war criminal from WWII, his chauffer, and his Turkish housekeeper. Many references to the world today, to 9/11 and its effect on Australians, to the influence of hate shows. It's edgy black comedy, and not for the sensitive. But I like his writing a lot, and hope to see more over the next few years.
I send a note of congratulations to the senior biologist at my home college, on the birth of her daughter. If you know Lynne, pass it along.
Today, I am going out to Watson Bay for a walk around, and then I'm going to see what the Sydeny Public Library has to offer.
Friday, April 29, 2005
We have arrived.
Potts Point, Sydney, Australia
29 April
Sunny warm am, cloudy pm with sprinkles
4250 steps
We landed this morning at about 7:45 am local time. Immigration and customs was very fast, and out coach criver took a very direct route to the Bernly. So, even though we arrived a little late, we were only 15 minutes late to our first tour.
The trip was uneventful from my point of view, though for a few students, it was their first flight ever. What a trial by fire! We did encounter quite a bit of turbulence after take-off at JFK, and little pockets here and there over the Pacific. My colleague noted that QANTAS pilots seem less willing to turn on the "No Seat Belt" sign than do pilots of US airlines -- perhaps a symptom of our litigious nature. Anyway, the novice flyers seemed none the worse for wear, though all of us were happy to get off; we had been on the same plane for about 24 hours.
Most of the socks I have down here have holes in the toes. I pack the stuff that I don't mind chucking at the end of the trip; I get more souvenir room that way. But I felt a little shame before I left home, so I darned the pair of socks I was going to wear on the plane. When you have to take your shoes off for security, you begin to worry about holey socks. But, they didn't ask me to remove my shoes, and I set off no alarms. I'm tempted to say that it was a waste of time, though I did do some mending.
The students this year seem so far to be very good-natured and willing to engage the course; I've already had several good conversations with many of them -- I must confess that I don't know everyone's name yet, but this is a big group! I had one conversation about the Wright brothers, and what they would think about seeing machines like the 747 we were on. I wonder what Orville Wright thought about all the things that came from his idea. Though Wilbur died in 1912, Orville lived until 1948. SO, he'd have seen the stunt flyers, the first mail flights, the passengers flights, Lindbergh's flight accross the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart, and others.
We have at least one boyfriend-girlfriend pair on the trip, a first for us (so far as I know). It made me miss my lovely wife; I would love nothing more than to walk under the trees in Hyde Park holding her hand.
Each seat on the flight was equipped with individual monitors, so that you could choose your movie, tv show, or play computer games. One of the movies I watched, Hotel Rwanda recounts the events of the horrific clash between the Hutus and the Tutsis, from the point of view of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle) as he tried to shelter his family and staff from brutal gangs. This fact-based account is difficult to watch -- the world pretty much turned its back on Rwanda, and the resulting body count surpassed a million.
I also watched National Treasure, starring Nicolas Cage as a seeker of the treasure of the Knights Templar, which somehow fell into te hands of Fressmasons George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. It was fun enough, although it stretched credulity very nearly to the breaking point at times. There are conspiracy theories and then there are conspiracy fantasies.
Today, we visited the Hyde Parks Barracks and the Australian Museum. The barracks was great, as usual, the tour guides always do such a good job with it. Our guide this year emphasized that though the building is important to the history of the Convicts, it is also important for other things. It served as housing for women immigrants in mid-XIX, and it was the Government House until the early 1900s.
We also went to the Australian museum. I always learn something new when I see the Aboriginal exhibit -- there's a portion of it that describes the interactions of the Aboriginal religions and Christianity -- in a positive way. I am not sure at all that Christian Fundamentalists would be happy to hear of this, but I find it interesting, and want to know more about it. There seems to bee a book (or movie?) called The Serpent and the Cross that I hope to find about it.
The only other thing to talk about today is the Thai chicken salad I had at a carvery in a food court in downtown Sydney. Peppers, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, and mint, with a sweet Thai chili sauce -- I can still recall the taste.
Speaking of food ... it is evening, and I must go eat. look tomorrow for entries about the Taronga Zoo and the Sydney Aquarium.
29 April
Sunny warm am, cloudy pm with sprinkles
4250 steps
We landed this morning at about 7:45 am local time. Immigration and customs was very fast, and out coach criver took a very direct route to the Bernly. So, even though we arrived a little late, we were only 15 minutes late to our first tour.
The trip was uneventful from my point of view, though for a few students, it was their first flight ever. What a trial by fire! We did encounter quite a bit of turbulence after take-off at JFK, and little pockets here and there over the Pacific. My colleague noted that QANTAS pilots seem less willing to turn on the "No Seat Belt" sign than do pilots of US airlines -- perhaps a symptom of our litigious nature. Anyway, the novice flyers seemed none the worse for wear, though all of us were happy to get off; we had been on the same plane for about 24 hours.
Most of the socks I have down here have holes in the toes. I pack the stuff that I don't mind chucking at the end of the trip; I get more souvenir room that way. But I felt a little shame before I left home, so I darned the pair of socks I was going to wear on the plane. When you have to take your shoes off for security, you begin to worry about holey socks. But, they didn't ask me to remove my shoes, and I set off no alarms. I'm tempted to say that it was a waste of time, though I did do some mending.
The students this year seem so far to be very good-natured and willing to engage the course; I've already had several good conversations with many of them -- I must confess that I don't know everyone's name yet, but this is a big group! I had one conversation about the Wright brothers, and what they would think about seeing machines like the 747 we were on. I wonder what Orville Wright thought about all the things that came from his idea. Though Wilbur died in 1912, Orville lived until 1948. SO, he'd have seen the stunt flyers, the first mail flights, the passengers flights, Lindbergh's flight accross the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart, and others.
We have at least one boyfriend-girlfriend pair on the trip, a first for us (so far as I know). It made me miss my lovely wife; I would love nothing more than to walk under the trees in Hyde Park holding her hand.
Each seat on the flight was equipped with individual monitors, so that you could choose your movie, tv show, or play computer games. One of the movies I watched, Hotel Rwanda recounts the events of the horrific clash between the Hutus and the Tutsis, from the point of view of hotel manager Paul Rusesabagina (played by Don Cheadle) as he tried to shelter his family and staff from brutal gangs. This fact-based account is difficult to watch -- the world pretty much turned its back on Rwanda, and the resulting body count surpassed a million.
I also watched National Treasure, starring Nicolas Cage as a seeker of the treasure of the Knights Templar, which somehow fell into te hands of Fressmasons George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. It was fun enough, although it stretched credulity very nearly to the breaking point at times. There are conspiracy theories and then there are conspiracy fantasies.
Today, we visited the Hyde Parks Barracks and the Australian Museum. The barracks was great, as usual, the tour guides always do such a good job with it. Our guide this year emphasized that though the building is important to the history of the Convicts, it is also important for other things. It served as housing for women immigrants in mid-XIX, and it was the Government House until the early 1900s.
We also went to the Australian museum. I always learn something new when I see the Aboriginal exhibit -- there's a portion of it that describes the interactions of the Aboriginal religions and Christianity -- in a positive way. I am not sure at all that Christian Fundamentalists would be happy to hear of this, but I find it interesting, and want to know more about it. There seems to bee a book (or movie?) called The Serpent and the Cross that I hope to find about it.
The only other thing to talk about today is the Thai chicken salad I had at a carvery in a food court in downtown Sydney. Peppers, cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, and mint, with a sweet Thai chili sauce -- I can still recall the taste.
Speaking of food ... it is evening, and I must go eat. look tomorrow for entries about the Taronga Zoo and the Sydney Aquarium.
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Before class starts
Sunday, April 24, 2005
Elmira
Cold, cloudy am, clearing evening.
Sprinkles and flurries
4960 steps
We start the course tomorrow. I'm in the office this evening wrapping up a few things.
We always spend a few days on campus before heading out. Since we spent many Sunday nights during our winter term talking to the students about Australia, most of what we will do tomorrow and Tuesday involves procedural things: how the course will work, what's expected of them, how to act while traveling and while in Australia.
It's heartbreaking at times. For example, consider the matter of panhandling. When you or I are approached by someone begging for change, we either give them money or we don't, but we never think of it as a matter of law, only of conscience. We had an eye-opening experience the first year in Cairns. An elderly Aboriginal man approached a group of us as we were waiting for a shuttle bus, and starting saying "How're you doin'?" as he rubbed his thumb over his two fingers -- the universal sign (I suppose) asking for money. A younger woman standing some distance away hollered at him to get over to her, so he shuffled away. When he got to her, she slapped him hard and glared at us -- I don't think I'll ever forget the mixture of shame and anger in her eyes.
After she led him away, a couple of Australian men approached and asked if we had given him any money. We had not; the woman had intervened before it could have come to that. The men identified themselves as plainclothes policemen and told us that in Australia, it is illegal for Aborigines to beg for money, and it is illegal for anyone to give them money if they beg.
Of course, as a practical matter, we must tell the students things like this; we don't want them inadvertently breaking the law. And I think I understand that the Australian government is trying to do the right thing here, and perhaps is even working with the Aboriginal tribal leaders in enacting and enforcing such laws. I do wonder, though, about the place in a country's spirit from which such laws emerge.
As a part of the course, we are requiring the students to make a presentation at a reception for the course on May 30, when we return. I don;t ask the students to do anything that I won't do, so I'll probably do one of my own. The above incident has been on my mind for quite awhile. Maybe that will be my project.
Elmira
Cold, cloudy am, clearing evening.
Sprinkles and flurries
4960 steps
We start the course tomorrow. I'm in the office this evening wrapping up a few things.
We always spend a few days on campus before heading out. Since we spent many Sunday nights during our winter term talking to the students about Australia, most of what we will do tomorrow and Tuesday involves procedural things: how the course will work, what's expected of them, how to act while traveling and while in Australia.
It's heartbreaking at times. For example, consider the matter of panhandling. When you or I are approached by someone begging for change, we either give them money or we don't, but we never think of it as a matter of law, only of conscience. We had an eye-opening experience the first year in Cairns. An elderly Aboriginal man approached a group of us as we were waiting for a shuttle bus, and starting saying "How're you doin'?" as he rubbed his thumb over his two fingers -- the universal sign (I suppose) asking for money. A younger woman standing some distance away hollered at him to get over to her, so he shuffled away. When he got to her, she slapped him hard and glared at us -- I don't think I'll ever forget the mixture of shame and anger in her eyes.
After she led him away, a couple of Australian men approached and asked if we had given him any money. We had not; the woman had intervened before it could have come to that. The men identified themselves as plainclothes policemen and told us that in Australia, it is illegal for Aborigines to beg for money, and it is illegal for anyone to give them money if they beg.
Of course, as a practical matter, we must tell the students things like this; we don't want them inadvertently breaking the law. And I think I understand that the Australian government is trying to do the right thing here, and perhaps is even working with the Aboriginal tribal leaders in enacting and enforcing such laws. I do wonder, though, about the place in a country's spirit from which such laws emerge.
As a part of the course, we are requiring the students to make a presentation at a reception for the course on May 30, when we return. I don;t ask the students to do anything that I won't do, so I'll probably do one of my own. The above incident has been on my mind for quite awhile. Maybe that will be my project.
Saturday, April 23, 2005
Sydney Harbor Bridge and Opera House
I'm testing some features, so a few of the entries over the next days might be a little odd. This was a photo from the 2004 trip.
Friday, April 22, 2005
April 22
Elmira
Sunny am, cloudy pm. rain expected.
2489 steps
Welcome to my 2005 weblog of the Australia trip. I'm putting up this short entry so that those of you who received an email message about this know you're in the right place.
This journal is an account of my trip to Australia in May of 2005. Along with two other faculty members, I am taking 36 college students on a month-long tour of Eastern Australia and the Red Centre. Our itinerary begins in Sydney, and includes Canberra in the south, Brisbane and Cairns in the north, and Alice Springs and Uluru(Ayres Rock) in the center.
This is my fourth time going, and I always look forward to this trip. You can read my other journals at my web site or at Diaryland. Before I got involved with this, I had done relatively little traveling, and almost none outside the USA. While I certainly do not think of myself as well-traveled, I see the need for more Americans to get out and hear first-hand what non-Americans think about. In this way, I like to think that this course does serve a larger purpose.
My main purpose for this post is to lay out a few ground rules about this log:
Elmira
Sunny am, cloudy pm. rain expected.
2489 steps
Welcome to my 2005 weblog of the Australia trip. I'm putting up this short entry so that those of you who received an email message about this know you're in the right place.
This journal is an account of my trip to Australia in May of 2005. Along with two other faculty members, I am taking 36 college students on a month-long tour of Eastern Australia and the Red Centre. Our itinerary begins in Sydney, and includes Canberra in the south, Brisbane and Cairns in the north, and Alice Springs and Uluru(Ayres Rock) in the center.
This is my fourth time going, and I always look forward to this trip. You can read my other journals at my web site or at Diaryland. Before I got involved with this, I had done relatively little traveling, and almost none outside the USA. While I certainly do not think of myself as well-traveled, I see the need for more Americans to get out and hear first-hand what non-Americans think about. In this way, I like to think that this course does serve a larger purpose.
My main purpose for this post is to lay out a few ground rules about this log:
- When I am writing journal entries in Australia, I am usually at an internet cafe, where I am paying for my time on the computer. I am therefore writing in a hurry, and will not catch all my misspellings, grammatical errors, typos, and the like. Please feel free to find them amusing.
- I do not discuss issues that involve individual students or faculty in this journal. You'll find that I hardly ever use names in the journal: my wife Coleen is "my lovely wife"; Larry is "my senior colleague," while Dale is "my junior colleague." Parents, if you need to discuss something about your child with me, you should email me at chjacobson@elmira.edu.
- For the time being, I will enable comments on this log. But I keep my journal as clean as I can, and I expect readers to do the same when they comment.
- The level of this journal is probably best described as "PG," as I will no doubt have occasion to discuss grown-up topics. So parents of younger children, you are warned.
- The opinions in this journal are my own. They do not reflect the policies of Elmira College, my home institution.
- This is a journal of my thoughts. Sometimes, I will only indirectly be discussing Australia. Those of you who have read my journals from other years know that I wander sometimes. Again, you are free to be amused by that.
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