Placid Monday

May 1
Sydney
Sunny and pleasant(again!)

Today is a laundry day for me. We leave tomorrow for Canberra, so I want to get all my stuff in order.

I thought I'd write a little more about the group activities of the first two days: the Hyde Parks Barracks, the Australian Museum, the Taronga Zoo, and the Sydney Aquarium.

The very first thing we do after dropping our bags off at the hotel is to walk about a kilometer to the Hyde Park Barracks, one of the locations that housed the Convicts. You'll note the capitalization; the term 'Convict' in Australia refers only to those men and women that were sent to Australia from Britain for crimes (like stealing bread or being Irish). We like to make this our first stop; the students have just been through a 30-hour jaunt and might therefore feel some sympathy for the Convicts who had so much greater an ordeal.Our tour guide for the Barracks is different every year, and my colleague and I have noticed that each tour guide has a different aspect of the Barracks that they like to emphasize. One year it was the various uses of the Barracks, another year it was the more general history of immigration into Australia. This year, our guide concentrated on the punishments that the Convicts received. It was a little gruesome for my taste, but several of the students told me they thought it was great.

After the Barracks, we gather for a moment in Hyde Park to orient the students to the city. The park is beautiful, as are many of the parklands in the vicinity of Circular Quay and the Opera House. The students then have about 90 minutes for lunch and changing money before we move on.

Our next stop is the Australian/ Museum, where the students visit the exhibit on the indigenous peoples, the Aborigines and the Torres Strait Islanders. The exhibit includes both artifacts and testimony, and gives a fairly accurate perception of the state of affairs between white Australia and native Australia. After this visit, the students are on their own for the rest of the day.

The second day introduces the students to the fauna of Australia as we visit the Taronga Zoo and the Sydney Aquarium. We get to both via subways and ferries, so this is also a day to get the students familiar with these. Our hotel is very close to the Kings Cross subway station on the Eastern Suburbs line. Someone traveling to the end of this line would find themselves at Bondi Junction, where one could board a bus to get to the famous Bondi Beach. But we go the other way, toward the main loop. We make one transfer, which takes us to Circular Quay (pronounced "key"). It's one of those memorable moments in our course when the subway goes above ground, makes a turn, and the students get their close-up view of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. We usually take a few moments on the platform so the students can snap a few photos, then we move down to the wharf and take the ferry to Taronga Zoo.

Taronga Zoo is one of the better zoos I've seen. The animals are very well cared for; the exhibits are clean and informative, and there are daily shows all over the park. The zoo is on a hillside. We begin at the top after a picturesque ride in a cablecar; most of the rest of the visit is a slow walk down the hill. My favorite part of the zoo is the free flight bird show, an engaging introduction to some of the birds of Australia. I was only slightly disappointed this year at the echidna exhibit, as it was hidden. On the other hand, there was a wombat out and about. I think I've a photo of it; I'll post it if I do.

The Sydney Aquarium is a very good way for the students to get a close-up look at several animals, some of which they may or may not see at all in the wild, and others that they may want to not see so closely. The Aquarium has platypuses, penguins and great white sharks (those are the animals the students will likely not see in the wild); reef fishes (that they probably will see) and a nice large saltwater crocodile (that they would not want to be near). There are two oceanariums that have walk-through tunnels. one is for the sea lions; the other is for the sharks and rays. It's this second one that I find the most fascinating, as the behavior of the rays is very striking. Their motion is distinct from both swimming and flying; it is more an undulation. They also seem to like to lay atop the tunnels; the largest covers the entire top.

. . .

It is now much later in the afternoon. I spent a good portion of the time at the library again, doing more research, and I came across a very nice short movie, Harry's War. This is a short movie about an Aboriginal ANZAC soldier fighting in New Guinea in 1942, his relationship with his mates, his family, and his totem animals. It's a sad story -- as the film finished I was getting a little choked up, probably not a good idea in a public place like a library. The man who played Harry is David Ngoombujarra. He has a wonderful deep voice -- I suspect we've heard him in voiceovers from time to time. All the performances were good. The dialogue was a little preachy at moments, though the restrictions of a half-hour time slot might create that possibility. The direction and editing was okay. All in all, it was time well spent. I'll probably see about getting it in the USA. AT the moment, the TV here at the hotel lounge is showing Spiderman II, so I think I'll stop for now and enjoy the movie's end.