Australia

Visitors to that place from down under may leave still a bit burdened in their mind whether it is the largest island or the smallest continent, or is it that incredible land of marsupials where the Koala isn’t really a bear after being told severally that it truly isn't. However, they will undoubtedly, and perhaps surprisingly, depart with an impression they did not expect. The landscape, the different natural settings, the sounds and sights can all be captured in photos and videos but what we did not expect to bring back with us was the beauty of the Australian people. It was so totally unexpected, never much talked about in travel brochures, that when my wife and I began to sum up our experiences, we keep thinking and going back to about how well the people of Australia are defining the place that was founded as inauspiciously as can be imagined. While America barely began its first grasp at independence in 1776, Australia was first populated by a people weighted down by the identity markings of “convict” with a less than even chance at securing freedom or redemption.

My early recollection about Australia, when it was far too distant to be listed as one of a handful of places in our bucket list to visit, was a country unique in its location, almost an aberration in that part of the world where its history was a bit hazy to me. Today, very clearly, if it was not the lead story or highlight of their history then, Australians now talk with unabashed pride about the struggles of their forefathers who first arrived over two centuries ago, who were unwilling participants in a forced migration, bound in chains and cramped spaces of the cargo holds of ships that took them away from a world 24,000 kilometers to be transplanted to a very strange land.  I will talk in a bit about the First People, the aborigines, and how Australia is coping with this human issue in ways quite differently from what we know about this unique collision between colonization and assimilation.

Imagine a place halfway from across your world. It was a penal colony. How low can a place be down in the hierarchy of places when your destination was perhaps considered just a step above a leper colony? Eleven ships left Portsmouth, England in 1787, carrying the first 1500 or so convicts, to relieve overcrowded prisons. Before that, America was the first destination of choice in the 17^th century for England’s convicts but that changed overnight after the American Revolution. By the time the First Fleet of 11 ships left Portsmouth, the prison system swelled with convicts and England had no choice but to ship them abroad. Between the years 1788 to 1868 four generations of convicts summed up to a total of 162,000 men, women and children were brought over. It is on record that some of their transgressions were as minor as stealing a loaf of bread to feed a family, or inability to pay one’s debts but hardly hardened homicidal criminals who were deemed too dangerous to transport and mixed in with low level offenders.

Australia, a land mass just a tad smaller than the USA (contiguous states not including Alaska and Hawaii) is today populated by just 25 million people (330 million for the U.S.).  It is obviously one sparsely populated country, where it is ranked no. 55 in population density, yet it has a land mass ranked no. 6.

It would be unfair to comparably set side by side Paris, London and New York with Melbourne or Sydney.  Nevertheless, on a given workday morning, its busy streets are also filled with a crisscrossing of souls in a hurry to go to work. Just outside Melbourne’s Convention Center one such soul not only stopped her well-practiced daily morning cadence to give me a detailed direction and, not content with the already good deed, offered to take us to the place. We arrived in Melbourne a few days ahead of the beginning of the tour so we had time to explore the area. There were of course many chances to take the wrong tram, or be disoriented by city streets as you watch out for cars coming from one’s unfamiliar peripheral vision. It was a busy lunch crowd we encountered at one time and after disembarking one tram (free to anyone boarding them and disembarking within the city) we could not locate St. Paul’s Cathedral. Desperately but considerately, making sure my question was answerable by a short “yes” or “no” I phrased it to a young lady carrying a cardboard tray with two cups of coffee in one hand, “Are we heading correctly to the St. Paul’s Cathedral?” She stopped, and with her one free hand while the other was still holding the coffee tray, pulled out her smart phone, punched some buttons and a city map appeared on screen. She went on to explain the few turns we needed at what streets to get to the location. Who does that while on a hectic lunch break?

On another occasion I stopped a gentleman for directions (again) but he was clearly not familiar with the place. A younger gentleman, passing by, overheard our conversation and he stopped to listen. Not before long he interjected and gave us the details we needed. With these experiences, we never hesitated to ask questions because far from being intimidated we were encouraged to ask. These are anecdotal but because the total experience was 100% positively pleasant we can be held blameless to come away with such a memorable impression of the average Aussie.  They can be “flat out as a lizard drinking” but they will always stop to help. That is one of a handful of colloquialism our Tour Director taught us. It is not obviously as obvious as the more familiar western expressions, “Busy as a bee” or “busy as a beaver”.  Our Tour Director, an Aussie who is one of fourteen children, had in every way epitomized the indefatigable virtues of the ideal host to a collection of tourists whose different backgrounds and origins quickly amalgamated to a single family of 35 people. The Tour Director made us all feel that way. She was the consummate Tour Guide.

Another sort of peculiar point of interest was the absence of a line or space for TIPS that most western diners are familiar with as the check or bill for a meal is presented.  Yes, we were expected to tip the bell hop or tour bus driver but no such expectations are accorded to many other service providers. Strange but refreshingly liberating; yet, the services we got from the sales clerks, hotel desk personnel and everyone in the service industry were markedly superior.

One more and I will go on to some other special features of Australia. Part of our schedule was to attend the 50^th wedding anniversary of one my wife’s high school classmates. The celebrant-couple is now part of the myriad races of transplanted people who call Australia their adopted land. It was apparent that they too had been infected by the Australian malady of hospitality and a balanced well-being. We happened to share a table and sit next to an Aussie couple. The lady’s family tree, as far as she knows, can be traced to a family of convicts, while the husband is a transplanted Londoner, via S. Africa. We had a great conversation and equally enjoyed the evening. It was 10:00 p.m. when the party was over and drizzling outside.  We came via Uber and we could easily have done the same to get back to our hotel. The couple insisted to drive us over to downtown Melbourne. Who does that?  We are forever grateful and indebted permanently to all of these Aussies who made an indelible mark in our memory.

The First People are as unique a phenomenon as the land of their ancestors whose early existence before Australia, if they had come from somewhere else, is still debated. They are the longest continuous race of people, unchanged and unadulterated for 40,000 to 60,000 years.

“According to a new study published this week in the journal Nature, researchers conducting the first-ever genomic study of indigenous Australians have found evidence of a single “out of Africa” migration for modern humans and confirmed a long-standing claim that Australia’s Aboriginal civilization is the oldest on the planet, dating back some 50,000 years”.  

This only partially solves the mystery because there is no evidence of sea-faring artifacts that point to an ocean crossing episode in their past. If they did it while Australia was still part of Pangea – the single land mass that connected all lands at one time – then the First Peoples are even older than the genomic evidence suggests. Australia has done much to give the First Peoples their due and recognition far more quickly than by colonizers of other lands that took centuries to fulfill.

Australian Rules football was hard to ignore because there were nightly matches going on. I hesitated at first but then one free evening I decided to watch a whole match in its entirety, on TV. As a form of comparison I imagined two reels of film: one Australian football and the other the NFL. I imagined further to cut and splice only the action segments of film and throw away the extracurricular down times and interruptions. With Australian football I would be left with 95% of the original reel, while perhaps a mere 10% of the NFL. For example, time spent between downs that include forming the scrimmage line was a full one second where it would take minutes in the NFL to get the players together, then provide action that takes 3-5 seconds followed by minutes of setting up again for the next action. Referees hardly interrupted the game while the NFL referee spends a whole paragraph or two to explain the infraction, after a committee hearing among them. There was no stoppage for injuries in the field in the entire match played by burly men in short shorts, with no padding and helmets, who hit each other no less violently than a stock car roller derby.

Cricket was a little different. There is nothing intuitive about the whole game. You see, most games can be watched by any extra-terrestrial visitor and in due time will be able to extrapolate the nature and objective of the game. Cricket is different in that a special mental algorithm is required of the average watcher to decipher what the heck is going on. A few years ago while on temporary assignment in Barbados, I spent a whole weekend afternoon to immerse myself in the game. It was befuddling but really very confusing when I was told that the game will continue the next day and perhaps another day after that before a conclusion can be reached. But, our dear Tour Director came to the rescue and gave us a very simplified explanation of the rules in an 8-1/2 by 11 sheet. I share that with you below:

Cricket Rules Demystified

You have two sides, one out in the field and one in.

Each man that’s in the side that’s in goes out, and when he’s out he comes in and the next man goes in until he’s out.

When they’re all out, the side that’s out comes in and the side that’s been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out.

Sometimes you get men still in and not out.

When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man goes out and goes in.

There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out.

When both sides have been in and all the men have got out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are out, that is the end of the game!

You got all that? Does that not give you a better understanding of the game? I was no longer confused though mentally numb when I first read it because I lost total capacity to comprehend anything, albeit temporarily, and fortunately so, for recovering quickly. I would, however, re-read it from time to time because temporarily losing the ability to comprehend this incredibly incomprehensible set of rules re-assures me that I still have full control of my sanity.  I think. (Our Tour Director, of course, was teasing about the set of rules... but not entirely)

We took, as tourists obligatorily do, over a thousand photos but it is not justifiably proper to include all of them in this musing. Click to enlarge each photo.

Melbourne straddles the Yarra River that empties into Hobsons Bay. It is a daily sight for rowers and tourist boats. Photo is from our 8th floor window at the Crowne Plaza Hotel. Across from the Melbourne Convention Center is the Crowne Plaza Casino. Melbourne is of course the site of one of the Four Grand Slam Tennis tournaments - The Australian Open.

The ship in the background is about the size of the ships that first came ashore over two hundred years ago. Below is the view from the river's edge where along both sides one may find close to two hundred different international dishes - testimony to the diversity of people in Australia today.

 Except for Alice Springs that sits alone in the Outback, all major cities are along Australia's coastlines. The beach and Australian's love for sun and sea go hand in hand with population growth being where they are. Of course, water - scarce in the outback - is the determining factor, as in almost all places, for human development.

 Non-arctic penguins, smaller but behaviorally similar to their bigger cousins, had colonies by the thousands along many locations along the coasts for thousands of years. The parade of penguins on Phillip Island is a tourist spectacle. Their sanctuaries on the island were made possible by government intervention to protect their habitats and now maintained by non-profit organizations. Penguins would leave at dawn to feed and bring back fish for their young.  Some may stay out for days before coming back by nightfall. Those coming back at night for waiting tourists to watch come at random intervals so one night there could be a thousand of them waddling back or just a hundred will. Their burrows are all over the place including in between parking spaces but that part of the island is theirs. 

Taking photographs during the penguin parade was prohibited. The birds eyesight are so sensitive that flash photography will blind them as their eyes are like night vision goggles when they're in the water hunting for prey or when they come out of the water at nightfall. The digital age made this photograph a virtual reality, of sort.

These formations took thousands if not millions of years to carve out from edges of the continent.

 In the twenty days of the tour, flying was necessary to cover the wide expanse of Australian geography. The Outback that used to be a huge inland sea in primordial times is one red carpet with a sprinkling of hardy green vegetation that look the same for hundreds of square miles around. The Uluru or Ayers Rock is an Outback icon that is the center of the First People's story of creation. Here an aborigine shows their native proclivity to draw, which is part of their culture handed down through generations.

The larger painting to the left was created by an aborigine. We, the tourists, had our chance to emulate and had something to show after an hour (smaller patch works).

The children of the Outback, separated by miles and miles of distance between ranches, farms and communities benefit from the digital age through a specially designed school system using the internet to connect teachers and students in real time school schedules.  Similarly, health and emergency coverage are linked through a network of planes and hospitals through non-profit and volunteer programs.

The reddish clay soil indicate a high concentration of iron oxides and sure enough the country is a huge producer of iron and a net exporter of iron ore.  Coal is its other main export. Emus and kangaroos keep their activities nocturnally for the most part in dealing with the heat or seek refuge away from the scorching sun.

Little known fact - camels were brought in from Afghanistan to transport goods and people to and from the Outback in the early years. They were released, mostly to the wild, once the railroad took over.  They are now overpopulating the Outback.

 Sydney's skyline and that of Melbourne are about as cosmopolitan as any modern coastline cities.  The iconic Sydney Opera House cannot be mistaken for anywhere else. When it was picked from a design contest in the late 50's, it was way ahead of its time and still is when juxtaposed against the straight vertical lines of glass and steel skyscrapers. It was many times over budget and years beyond the original completion date but today it stands to represent the risks that Australia was founded on.

 The nautically inspired architectural drawing submitted by a 38 year old Dane, Jorn Utzon, did not come with civil or structural plans, let alone signed by structural engineers. The curved sails house not just one venue. Aside from the main hall there are other smaller theaters for separate performances.

A guided tour of the place is worth the time.

I almost forgot. Let's get back to Melbourne for a bit. The life-size painting of Chloe below is not in travel brochures when visiting Melbourne but a rather word-of-mouth tourist attraction and a historical footnote towards a convoluted definition of Australia's social mores. Google explains.

"Chloé made its first debut in the Paris Salon in 1875 with great success. With that success, it and Lefebvre won the Gold Medal of Honour in 1875. It was subsequently displayed in art exhibitions such as the French Gallery at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 and the Melbourne International Exhibition in 1880.

Chloé was then purchased by Dr. Thomas Fitzgerald of Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, for 850 guineas.^[2] Controversy arose when the painting was to be exhibited on Sundays. The Presbyterian Assembly found the painting to be too scandalous to show on Sundays, so it had to eventually be taken down from galleries.^[3] Upon Fitzgerald's death in 1908, the painting was auctioned off to Norman Figsby Young.^[2] Henry Young and Thomas Jackson bought Chloé in 1908 from Norman Figsby Young and placed the painting in the bar of their hotel."

Interestingly, Young & Jackson where the painting now resides on the second floor, is displayed with very little drama next to a window in a small venue good for just a couple of tables for a handful of clientele to enjoy their beer.  One of them offered to take our photo (above). Chloe was modeled by a 19 year old, named Marie, whose sister the painter married. Marie/Chloe, as the story went, was distraught by the marriage because she too was actually in love with the painter.  One day she hosted a party and amidst all that she took poison with her drink and died. When you get a chance to visit Melbourne, check out Chloe.  Young & Jackson is directly across the corner where St. Paul's Cathedral stands.

It was a balmy and warm time to spend Thanksgiving in Australia. It took some getting used to see Christmas decorations and store displays when it was 95 F degrees outside early this month. However, the photo below says it all. 

Merry Christmas Every One!!!