General Travel Notes

It was really a great trip. Two weeks, May 6 - May 20, that were about as packed as you can imagine. In brief:

• Bush Walk with Pete Baxendell. We did this the first day; had almost no jet lag.
• Tjapukai Cultural Park
• Hartley's Crocodile Farm
• Drove a car around (it's the left hand thing that makes this worth mentioning).
• Diving at the Great Barrier Reef. We were supposed to go out to Osprey reef, but 6 m waves and gale force winds kept us in safer harbours. We went with Mike Ball Diving (who were great) and did 9 dives over three days.
• Flew back to Cairns at a few hundred feet in a small plane
• Visited the Taronga Zoo in Sydney
• Visited the Sydney Aquarium
• Avoided spending hundreds of dollars on opals.
• Ate at lots of great restaurants in Sydney like Est, Bel Mondo, and Quay. The food at our hotel in Cairns (actually, Palm Cove) was great too: The Sebel Reef House and Spa.
• Did the Harbor Bridge Walk
• Saw the ballet Giselle at the Sydney Opera House.
• Took a tour of the Sydney Opera House
• Took a ferry and walked to Manley Beach (where I felt Manly).

Equipment Notes

Have to mention (put a plug in for) the iSee iPod video record that I got to beta test on this trip. It worked great and was really nice to have on the plane. It's pretty easy to put TiVo content on it too.

We really missed having our own fins on the dive. My feet got pretty torn up and are still healing. I did get a new pair of Birks that you can wear in the water for my troubles; they're incredibly light.

Editorial Notes

For better or worse, many of the reflections below were prompted by Bill Bryson's book, In a Sunburned Country which we read during our travels.

Australia cuts open a traveller's experience, giving the chance to face geological, historical, emotional and cultural realities previously only dreamt about.

Ancient and immediate, living and dieing. Wonderous and terrifying. Rock and water. Hurry to see it before it disappears (yet I think it'll be laughing long after we're gone).

We heard only a few notes of this world delineated by song. It left us wanting to hear more, yet fearful of the labyrinth promised.

At the risk of supreme conceit, Australia is living parts of American history of which most of us in the US have only faint recollections. This will play out differently, no doubt; but it gives us a chance for self reflection and criticism. This is particularly true in regards to the cultural and racial tensions visible here.

Consider:

• Terra nullius: Though there is some dispute over the legal and historical details and intentions, the doctrine of Terra nullius is identified as a declaration that Australia was officially uninhabited through its colonization. Given that the choices were "not to exist" or "to be conquered", it's not clear which is the better alternative. A 1992 court decision (Mabo) is seen as overturning this directive allowing the recognition of native title.
• These references from Bryson's book (which you can search on Amazon with "search for" links below).
  • Between 1910 and 1970 (1970!) 10 to 30 percent of Aboriginal children were taken from their parents and sent to foster homes or training centers and not allowed contact. Until recently, aboriginal parents did not have custody of their children; they were wards of the state. Search for '1910', page 269. See also Race and Remembrance.
  • Race relations are strained and only contained by the hegemony of white culture. Search for 'hanging', page 20 reference.
  • This is only indirectly related, but Bryson has some amusing references to what I can only call "denial" as expressed by some Australians (a trait shared by all of us around the world). For example, search for 'Lonergan' (the lost divers) and look over pages 216 and 217.
• The headline in (I think it was) the Australian paper the day we left read something like "Male rape rampant in aboriginal communities." While I have no doubt of the reality and significance of this problem, it doesn't take much analysis to see the cultural perceptions reinforced in this presentation.
• The marketing of aboriginal culture is well underway. I'm encouraged and fearful of this: encouraged because it provides some small bubble of cultural memory in an antagonistic environment; fearful because the filter into a consumable product is devastating in its own way.

Australia is surprisingly consumption oriented. At least 10 minutes of the end of our walk on the Harbor Bridge was a running monologue from the leader describing the local bars, how to find them, what we would find on the menu and how much we'd enjoy the refreshment of a beer about now. I'm sure he received no kickbacks; it was simply the natural thing to talk about. Admittedly, a beer was definitely in order at the time. To be fair, this is likely in part due to the tourist atmosphere we inhabitted.

At first I thought this an adoption of US influences, and that may be the case. But in hindsight, it is familiar in the streets of Hong Kong and other Asian locales; this is consistent with the growing awareness that Australia is really an Asian country.