1 May
Sydney
Rainy and cool with a breeze
We leave for America tomorrow.
For the students, it's a mixed feeling. One month is probably just long enough to get a taste for the country, but not nearly enough time to get to know the people well at all. So, there are a lot of students who tell me -- with tongue firmly in cheek, of course -- that no, they will not be getting on the plane tomorrow; that I would get a big pile of (Australian) money if I would tell their loved ones that we lost them in the rainforest somewhere; they don't think their parents would mind at all if they just didn't come back. I'm pretty sure that I have no legal authority in Australia to make them get on the plane -- but I'll keep that to myself. Of course, those same students are getting tired and running out of money, so they're ready to get back home.
These days, we're pretty big on assessing outcomes for our courses. In this course, almost everyone has grown at least a little bit. We have some seasoned travelers in the group who have another country under their belt, now, but then we have someone who had never flown before in her life until this trip, and now appears to be completely infected with the travel bug. Another student tells me that I should offer this course as a 'backpackers course,' presumably meaning that we would live for a month as the backpackers do in Europe, Asia, and Australia. What a romantic life it must be -- as long as you don't have to do any sharecropping to support yourself. Others are pondering grad school or career options that might land them here for awhile.
Students who were scared of every little thing early on ate raw wichetty grubs on the camping trip, and have lived to tell the tale. Some who were certain that every shark on the reef wanted to gobble them up now want to get their dive certification and go exploring other reefs. People who look and sound different from them and their friends don't make them as nervous.
On the other hand, they know that there are things that can hurt: beautiful plants that contain silica stingers, miniscule jellyfish with enough venom to kill a person; cuddly koalas that actually have three-inch claws and a grouchy disposition. None of that freezes them, though. There is great beauty in nature, but one better have a little respect.
Everyone would like to climb Uluru. The view must be spectacular, and there are things up there very much worth seeing. There's actually a water source up at the top that is a men's sacred business site -- that water hole is the actual site of Uluru; the rock just got the name because it supports the site. The students would love to see the top. And if they had climbed it, I would have never known, but they chose not to out of respect -- the local indigenous people asked, and they listened. One of the students posted a photo on the course blog (http://ecaustralia09.blogspot.com) showing the line of tourists, marching right past the sign saying 'please don't' and marching up the hill like a lot of little ants. The students have something in their character worth having.
I will not take credit for their character traits; they own those. A course like this one allows students to begin to identify and nurture those qualities within themselves, though, and I'm gladdened when students more often than not leave this course on that path. It's one of the reasons I will offer this course as long as students will take it.
The other reason I will come back here is that I must someday take a decent photo of a kookaburra. I'll close this year's journal with my pathetic attempt this year. What follows is written in the form of a Zork text adventure. It is an account of my encounter with the king of the bush at the apartments on Magnetic Island.
---
CHARLIE VS. THE SMIRKING KOOKABURRA.
> walk west
You begin walking toward the swimming pool.
> look around
The pool water is inviting.
> lean on the fence
As you begin to lean on the fence, you notice that just a few feet away from you is a kookaburra! It is gazing at you expectantly.
> photograph kookaburra
You cannot take a picture without a camera.
> get camera
There is no camera here!
The kookaburra grooms his feathers, then looks at you expectantly.
> take camera out of bag.
You're wearing the bag.
> take off bag
You place the bag on the ground.
> get camera
There is no camera here!
The kookaburra appears to be restless.
> open bag
You carefully open the bag.
The bag contains:
a water bottle
sunblock
a notepad
a pen
a camera
> take camera
You are now holding the camera.
The kookaburra looks at you expectantly.
> photograph kookaburra
The camera is switched off.
The kookaburra looks amused.
> turn camera on
You flip the switch on the camera.
The camera begins its boot up sequence.
> photograph kookaburra
The camera is not ready.
The kookaburra snorts in disgust and flies away, laughing madly as it goes.
---
Well, maybe next year.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
The camping trip I missed
19 May
Alice Springs
Sunny and mild
The students returned from their camping trip last night. I was very nervous about how they would react to the camping tour of the rocks without me along, since it was unusually cloudy. But as they emerged from the bus, they were bubbling over with enthusiasm; they had so much fun. There were a few other campers along, and a second coach ran alongside ours with another group, so they met lots of people their age from all over the place.
The only moment of drama was that a trailer latch had come undone and one of the students had her camping bag fall out along the road, a potential disaster, as her passport was in the bag. After a few anxious hours, it was -- incredibly! -- found by some people who turned it over to the Australian Army. It turns out that because the course booklet mentions ANZAC Day, the folks who found it thought it belonged to them, and so brought it to an army base. The folks at the army base figured out -- again I guess from the course booklet -- that we were staying in Alice Springs and had been camping with The Rock Tour. And so they found us! Far above and beyond the call of duty, that one. All is well.
Our tour guide was a young woman named Hayley. Though I only spoke with her before the students left and after they returned, I was pretty impressed with her understanding of the job and of her clients. And the students adored her. Less-than-ideal weather must put additional pressure on the tour guide to keep the campers engaged, but Hayley clearly was equal to the task.
Women as tour guides are a relatively new thing here; it is one of those jobs that were populated for a long time by Crocodile Dundee wannabes. That's changing in the industry, and it's a good thing. While the students were on the trip, I had a nice conversation with the owners of The Rock Tour, Rob and Joe. They are very careful to train their tour guides to conduct the tour in such a way so that the clients not only have fun, but also learn some important things about central Australia and how to treat the country.
The students spent the evening telling me all their stories about the trip:
Alice Springs
Sunny and mild
The students returned from their camping trip last night. I was very nervous about how they would react to the camping tour of the rocks without me along, since it was unusually cloudy. But as they emerged from the bus, they were bubbling over with enthusiasm; they had so much fun. There were a few other campers along, and a second coach ran alongside ours with another group, so they met lots of people their age from all over the place.
The only moment of drama was that a trailer latch had come undone and one of the students had her camping bag fall out along the road, a potential disaster, as her passport was in the bag. After a few anxious hours, it was -- incredibly! -- found by some people who turned it over to the Australian Army. It turns out that because the course booklet mentions ANZAC Day, the folks who found it thought it belonged to them, and so brought it to an army base. The folks at the army base figured out -- again I guess from the course booklet -- that we were staying in Alice Springs and had been camping with The Rock Tour. And so they found us! Far above and beyond the call of duty, that one. All is well.
Our tour guide was a young woman named Hayley. Though I only spoke with her before the students left and after they returned, I was pretty impressed with her understanding of the job and of her clients. And the students adored her. Less-than-ideal weather must put additional pressure on the tour guide to keep the campers engaged, but Hayley clearly was equal to the task.
Women as tour guides are a relatively new thing here; it is one of those jobs that were populated for a long time by Crocodile Dundee wannabes. That's changing in the industry, and it's a good thing. While the students were on the trip, I had a nice conversation with the owners of The Rock Tour, Rob and Joe. They are very careful to train their tour guides to conduct the tour in such a way so that the clients not only have fun, but also learn some important things about central Australia and how to treat the country.
The students spent the evening telling me all their stories about the trip:
- Everyone did the climb up 'Heart Attack Hill,' the ascent to the rim of Watarrka that begins the hike. We sometimes will have a few students who for health reasons do not make the climb, choosing instead to do the gorge walk, but not this year. I must say, I wonder if some would have made the choice to do the gorge walk if I had been along.
- Hayley dug out a wichetty grub, the larva of the ghost moth. This grub is bush tucker for the Aboriginal peoples; it is thrown on the fire and seared, or eaten live. The taste -- I am told -- is like egg. Hayley got some of the students to give it a go, and I must confess, that alone impressed me.
- Though they were nervous about the 'rustic' camping, ultimately the students seemed to be of the opinion that they preferred that type of camping over the more comfortable camping at Yulara. At Curtain Springs, it was dark away from the fire, so they sat on their swags in a circle around the fire to socialize and eat. At Yulara, the campsite had a large lighted area where everyone gathered. And the lights at Yulara bothered them, as they did not have the same chance to see the stars.
- Not that there was much to see. The cloudy conditions persisted throughout the trip, so that they had only a few moments of star-gazing, around 3am one morning. The weather has been a point of ongoing frustration throughout the trip -- and one does not expect it to be overcast that much in the Centre. It's not just the star-gazing; the lack of sun impacts some viewing opportunities. For example, when we watch either sunrise or sunset at Uluru, the rock goes through several changes in its color when one views it at a distance. Again, the students did not complain much about it.
- One of the tasks that passengers must complete is the collection of firewood. Typically, the tour guide will pull over at a location where there was a controlled burning in the last few years, jump out, and tell everyone to start tearing down the burnt-out trees and breaking them up. I've done this every year, so it was no surprise to learn that the students did this as well. But another way in which their tour guide impressed them was this; after instructing the students to go knock down a tree, she demonstrated by running up to a tree and knocking it over with one scary-looking flying kick.
- Uluru is Aboriginal name for the big orange rock seen in most commercials about Australian tourism; white Australians call it Ayers Rock. At a somewhat inconveniently located Cultural Centre, the Aboriginal people, who are the traditional custodians of the rock, make their wishes known about how it should be treated. At the beginning of the course, I discuss with students the importance of deferring to the wishes of the indigenous people on matters like these, and it comes up several times, so that by the time the opportunity is offered, no one is interested. I am happy to report that none of the students made the climb, and everyone did the walk around -- one learns more about the Rock anyway.
So, even though I was not with them, it sounds as though they learned a lot of nice things while camping. Students usually come back from the camping trip a little different: more confident and stronger. When I return to America, you'll notice a change in these students.
But first, it's back to Sydney.
Alice Springs
15-17 May
Alice Springs
Partly sunny and mild
I wish I had better news to report abut my own health. At the Cock 'n' Bull dinner on the 13th, I could only manage to eat a bite or two of my meal, and things got much worse afterwards. I awoke in the early morning hours with a pounding headache and shivers, and started having bouts of diarrhea. I got myself over to a 24-hour clinic nearby, where the doctor diagnosed me with a viral infection. He said I should expect the symptoms to lessen over the next few days, and prescribed medication to control my guts. MY main concern was whether I could continue to travel with the students. He thought that plane flights were fine, but that I needed to rest for awhile.
I could eat hardly anything yesterday -- it was not that I couldn't keep food down; I just had no appetite at all! I had no breakfast at all, and maybe a cracker or two during the flight. After we landed in Alice Springs, I told the students what was going on, and some of them brought me some fruit and crackers, which I have since managed to eat.
It is now the morning of the 15th. I sent the students on their day tour of Alice Springs with Brook, one of the staff members here. The tour is a visit to the Alice Springs Desert Park, the Royal Flying Doctors Service, a reptile zoo, the School of the Air, the old telegraph station, and ANZAC Hill.
The Desert Park is a park-style zoo and botanical garden devoted to the types of environments encountered in central Australia: red sand desert, scrub woodlands, and 'upside-down' rivers. it has several walk-through bird enclosures, as well as a free flight bird show that I've told the students they must attend.
The Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) was started by John Flynn in the early 20th century as a means of delivering health care to remote regions of the Outback. When there is a medical emergency on a cattle station, the nearest doctor may be hundreds of miles away. Medical help is available via the phone, and most stations will have a color-coded medical kit on hand so that the people on the station can administer a more extensive first-aid to victims. If required, the RFDS will fly out to the station with a medical team to transport the patient to hospital. RFDS also conducts health clinics on a regular basis, where people on the stations can receive physicals, vaccinations, and consultations.
I have not been to the reptile zoo before; the folks here at Toddy's suggested it and I added it to the tour. I will depend on student reports to decide if I want to keep it as a part of the tour. They have seen so many zoos at this point that I fear it might get a little repetitious, but since this place concentrates on desert species, I thought it was worth a try.
The School of the Air (SOA) is another way of addressing the needs of people living in remote regions of the Outback. The SOA is a school, conducted via satellite internet, to children in cattle and sheep stations, in Aboriginal villages, and anywhere else there are children isolated by distance who need schooling. The presentation is an all too brief introduction to the SOA and a bit of its history. At its inception in the 1950s, instruction was conducted via two-way radio, with exams, papers, textbooks and other course materials delivered by mail. Since then, the SOA has taken advantage of technological advancements as they've become available to enhance the educational experience of the children.
Alice Springs is where it is due to a few specific reasons. In the 19th century, telegraph lines were connecting all parts of the British empire to London, and the plan was to run a line from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north, where an undersea cable would then run up through Asia and continue on. Railways would run alongside the telegraph, thus providing a means to move freight more easily and cheaply.
But several expeditions revealed -- sometimes tragically -- just how forbidding the center of Australia can be. Several mountain ranges run east to west, providing a barrier to the straight level land needed for rail lines. Water would be needed, not only for human survival, but for the steam engines of the day. The gap between the mountains plus the availability of water in the nearby 'upside-down' river meant that the location was ideal. The explorers mistakenly thought that there was a spring located in the riverbed, but the standing water was only the result of a recent rainfall. Nevertheless, they found a reliable source of water, and a gap in the mountains, and so the Alice Springs Telegraph Station was founded.
The telegraph station operated for many years, but as technology improved and new means of communication came online, the need for it eventually lessened and it was closed down. By this time, of course, the city of Alice Springs had sprung up just south of the station, and served as a bit of civilization in the center of the young country. Th buildings of the telegraph station were converted for use as a native school called 'The Bungalow' by the local Aborigines. When the policies that created the Stolen Generation were finally abandoned in 1970, the Bungalow was shut down and languished until it was reopened as a living history museum.
It is now the morning of the 17th. While my condition has improved, I was clearly not well enough for camping, so I made the hard choice yesterday to send the students on the camping trip without me, in the capable hands of their tour guide, Hayley. The only alternative would have been to keep all of them here at Toddy's with nothing planned, and that just seemed so unfair. While they were disappointed that I wouldn't be along, they still seemed excited about getting out in the bush. I'm looking forward to seeing their photos.
They return to Alice Springs tomorrow, and then we return to Sydney and start making our way back home.
Alice Springs
Partly sunny and mild
I wish I had better news to report abut my own health. At the Cock 'n' Bull dinner on the 13th, I could only manage to eat a bite or two of my meal, and things got much worse afterwards. I awoke in the early morning hours with a pounding headache and shivers, and started having bouts of diarrhea. I got myself over to a 24-hour clinic nearby, where the doctor diagnosed me with a viral infection. He said I should expect the symptoms to lessen over the next few days, and prescribed medication to control my guts. MY main concern was whether I could continue to travel with the students. He thought that plane flights were fine, but that I needed to rest for awhile.
I could eat hardly anything yesterday -- it was not that I couldn't keep food down; I just had no appetite at all! I had no breakfast at all, and maybe a cracker or two during the flight. After we landed in Alice Springs, I told the students what was going on, and some of them brought me some fruit and crackers, which I have since managed to eat.
It is now the morning of the 15th. I sent the students on their day tour of Alice Springs with Brook, one of the staff members here. The tour is a visit to the Alice Springs Desert Park, the Royal Flying Doctors Service, a reptile zoo, the School of the Air, the old telegraph station, and ANZAC Hill.
The Desert Park is a park-style zoo and botanical garden devoted to the types of environments encountered in central Australia: red sand desert, scrub woodlands, and 'upside-down' rivers. it has several walk-through bird enclosures, as well as a free flight bird show that I've told the students they must attend.
The Royal Flying Doctors Service (RFDS) was started by John Flynn in the early 20th century as a means of delivering health care to remote regions of the Outback. When there is a medical emergency on a cattle station, the nearest doctor may be hundreds of miles away. Medical help is available via the phone, and most stations will have a color-coded medical kit on hand so that the people on the station can administer a more extensive first-aid to victims. If required, the RFDS will fly out to the station with a medical team to transport the patient to hospital. RFDS also conducts health clinics on a regular basis, where people on the stations can receive physicals, vaccinations, and consultations.
I have not been to the reptile zoo before; the folks here at Toddy's suggested it and I added it to the tour. I will depend on student reports to decide if I want to keep it as a part of the tour. They have seen so many zoos at this point that I fear it might get a little repetitious, but since this place concentrates on desert species, I thought it was worth a try.
The School of the Air (SOA) is another way of addressing the needs of people living in remote regions of the Outback. The SOA is a school, conducted via satellite internet, to children in cattle and sheep stations, in Aboriginal villages, and anywhere else there are children isolated by distance who need schooling. The presentation is an all too brief introduction to the SOA and a bit of its history. At its inception in the 1950s, instruction was conducted via two-way radio, with exams, papers, textbooks and other course materials delivered by mail. Since then, the SOA has taken advantage of technological advancements as they've become available to enhance the educational experience of the children.
Alice Springs is where it is due to a few specific reasons. In the 19th century, telegraph lines were connecting all parts of the British empire to London, and the plan was to run a line from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the north, where an undersea cable would then run up through Asia and continue on. Railways would run alongside the telegraph, thus providing a means to move freight more easily and cheaply.
But several expeditions revealed -- sometimes tragically -- just how forbidding the center of Australia can be. Several mountain ranges run east to west, providing a barrier to the straight level land needed for rail lines. Water would be needed, not only for human survival, but for the steam engines of the day. The gap between the mountains plus the availability of water in the nearby 'upside-down' river meant that the location was ideal. The explorers mistakenly thought that there was a spring located in the riverbed, but the standing water was only the result of a recent rainfall. Nevertheless, they found a reliable source of water, and a gap in the mountains, and so the Alice Springs Telegraph Station was founded.
The telegraph station operated for many years, but as technology improved and new means of communication came online, the need for it eventually lessened and it was closed down. By this time, of course, the city of Alice Springs had sprung up just south of the station, and served as a bit of civilization in the center of the young country. Th buildings of the telegraph station were converted for use as a native school called 'The Bungalow' by the local Aborigines. When the policies that created the Stolen Generation were finally abandoned in 1970, the Bungalow was shut down and languished until it was reopened as a living history museum.
It is now the morning of the 17th. While my condition has improved, I was clearly not well enough for camping, so I made the hard choice yesterday to send the students on the camping trip without me, in the capable hands of their tour guide, Hayley. The only alternative would have been to keep all of them here at Toddy's with nothing planned, and that just seemed so unfair. While they were disappointed that I wouldn't be along, they still seemed excited about getting out in the bush. I'm looking forward to seeing their photos.
They return to Alice Springs tomorrow, and then we return to Sydney and start making our way back home.
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