by Ellen Barone
The land Down Under the equator is a surprising place, a sort of geographic and cultural oxymoron: desert and tropical, modern and ancient, rowdy yet peaceable, weird but wonderful, harsh yet welcoming. Think of a favorite eccentric auntie - plucky, with a no-nonsense sense of humor and throaty laugh that draws in everyone around her - and you have a hint of its affable charm.
We're in Oz, as the Aussies call their country, on a photo assignment. During our two-week visit, we will see Sydney Harbour, travel to the Outback, see wombats and wallabies, kangaroos and koalas, experience the Great Barrier Reef, and find out what makes Melbourne marvelous.
Officially, Australia has six states and two territories, combining a landmass that is only slightly smaller than the continental United States. It is the world's smallest continent, but the sixth-largest country.
The necessary half-dozen internal flights have been booked in advance and spaced at reasonably accommodating intervals. We've equipped ourselves with guide books and arranged for native guides in regions, like the outback and the northern rain forests, that are notoriously unforgiving to anyone who is slightly forgetful, slightly unfit, or geographically or mechanically inept. Basically that describes us.
And now, on a snowy morning in
November, late Spring down under, we set forth from Hobart, Tasmania:
Australia's second-oldest city and capital of the island state 125 miles south
of the eastern portion of Australia and southern terminus of the continent. At
first glance, Tasmania, tidy and green, feels more like Ireland, than the dusty
and desolate clichéd Australia of our American imaginations.
Hobart is a charming hillside colonial town that tumbles down the foothills of Mount Wellington to the banks of the River Derwent. We begin our morning at the wharves, where Antarctic icebreakers and crayfish and tuna boats berth. The morning snow flurries quickly give way to billowy clouds and two hours later, when we arrive in Port Arthur, it is sunshine and blue skies. Although we do not know it yet, the drive across the Tasman Peninsula is one of the most rewarding of the trip. The raw material is enchanting: craggy coastline, wild ocean, picturesque fishing villages and impossibly pretty vistas of rolling green hills dotted with sheep like flecks of rice on an emerald blanket.
We pass organic farm stands overflowing with produce. We stop to buy a pint of sumptuous ruby strawberries at one, leaving our money in a jar. Trusting. How nice. Life seems blessedly simple at the outset of our Australia tour. We should be forewarned - Australia is anything but simple.
We stop at the Tasmanian
Devil Park to see the famed feisty marsupials. We expect savage animals with
ferocious displays of powerful jaws and terrifying screams. Instead, we find
adorable stocky little black-coated and white-striped languorous creatures the
size of a small dog - much quieter than its fearsome reputation or its namesake
cartoon character.
Once the devils roamed the Australian mainland, but remote
Tasmania is their last refuge. A mysterious cancer has greatly reduced
populations in recent years, and breeding programs sponsored by the park have
become vital in helping the devil not disappear into the world of myth like the
now extinct Tasmanian tiger.
For the first quarter of its European history, Tasmania, named after the Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, was known as Van DiemenÕs Land in honor of Anthony van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies who had sent Tasman on his voyage of discovery in 1642.
Two years later, the Brits took control of the island and from the 1830s to the abolition of transportation in 1853, the island home of some 5,000 Aborigines, became the primary penal colony of the British Empire. In total, some 75,000 convicts, many petty thieves, were transported to Van Diemen's Land and the traces of that time are written all over the island in convict-built villages, bridges, and penal stations like Port Arthur, our destination today. To remove the unsavory connotations associated with its name, in 1856 Van Diemen's Land was renamed Tasmania. In 1876 the last full-blooded Tasmananian Aboriginal was dead; in 1877 Port Arthur was closed.
As we tour Port Arthur, with its oddly pretty buildings
and rose gardens, haunting cells and sordid history, we are struck by the
peculiar contrast of beauty and tragedy that seems to coexist here. Mark Twain,
traveling through the colony in 1895, noted the contrast in his ironic
way, "And it was in this
paradise that the yellow-liveried convicts were landed, and the corps-bandits
quartered, and the wanton slaughter of the kangaroo-chasing black innocents
consummated...."
The drive back to Hobart is punctuated by long quiet gaps
of contemplation. We're haunted by horrific images of cruel inhumanity and
isolation; a chapel where inmates once stood forlorn inside wooden partitions
while being preached to about a just and forgiving God. The bucolic landscape
of quiet farms and quaint villages has taken on a complexity that travel and
discovery often inspires. We marvel at how the alchemy of time has transformed
a place of oppression into a gentle land where people choose to honor, rather
than conceal, the past.
An hour-long flight the next day parachutes us into the state of Victoria and marvelous Melbourne, its cosmopolitan capital and center for fashion, food, fun, and shopping. Melbournians have an infectious love for their city and our contemplative mood soon shifts to reflect the sleek, sophisticated vibe of Australia's second-largest city of more than three million.
For the next two days, we immerse ourselves in Melbourne's urban charms. We ride the vintage tramcars, mingle with the hip and cutting-edge at futuristic Federation Square, wander among the hub of restaurants, sidewalk cafes, galleries and shops along the Yarra River at Southgate. We treat ourselves to outrageously good Italian, Indian, Chinese and Thai food available in the endless selection of restaurants that reflect the immigrant history of its population. No "bush tucker," wichetty grubs or kangaroo tail here. That will come later. We shop at Queen Victoria's Market where a sprawling mass of traders hawk epicurean wonders, leather goods and Aboriginal handicrafts in stall after stall of tempting you-name-its.
Most of all, we enjoy the amiable sunshine and general good cheer emanating from everyone we meet, including an easy going vendor who gifts us a hat, dismissing our incredulous objections with, "Na' worries. She's a dazzler, but you're the first un' in ages to pick it up. It's yours, mate."
We leave the metropolitan delights of Melbourne behind and head for the great arid Red Center of the country for two reasons. First, for the visual drama of the outback: vast expanses of dry, red-brown earth punctuated by white-gum trees with a sheltering cobalt sky overhead. Second, it is the home of the Aboriginal people.
The three-hour flight to Uluru, the giant monolith and focal point of the area, has been home to Australian Aborigines for at least 25,000 years. Uluru, the famed stone that lies at Australia's heart, formerly known as Ayers Rock, no longer bears the name of a 19th-century politician. Since 1985 when ownership returned to the Anangu, the Aboriginal caretakers who consider it sacred, it is officially called Uluru, its name before the ice ages.
When Capt. James Cook landed at Botany Bay in 1770 and
claimed the land for the British Empire some 300,000 Aborigines already lived
there. Within a few years, a campaign to rid the continent of local Aborigines
was waged. While successful in Tasmania within the span of one generation, the
policy of killing Aborigines continued on the mainland into the 1920s.
After the 1993 Native Title Act, which allowed Aboriginal
groups to claim government-owned land if they could prove continual association
with it since 1788, the conventional stigma against Aborigines was beginning to
erode. By the time of the Sydney Olympics in 2000, Australia had officially
begun to embrace its Aboriginal roots. Today, there are approximately 400,000
indigenous Australians; nearly the same amount as the number of visitors to
Uluru each year. The repercussions of decades of discrimination and policies of
forced assimilation, we will learn, continue to challenge the nation.
It occurs to us during the 10-minute air-conditioned van
ride from the airport to the cultural center at Uluru-Kata Tjunta National
Park, how recent the collision of past and present is here. Until little over a
century ago, Uluru was essentially unknown to the outside world. Until the
building of a reliable airport in the 1960s and the arrival of four-wheel-drive
transport, people arrived here by camel train. Today the Afghan drivers and
their versatile camels have gone from vital communication and transportation
link to tourist attraction.
A sign at the cultural center welcomes us: "This is
Aboriginal land and you are welcome. Look around and learn, in order to
understand Aboriginal people and also understand that Aboriginal culture is
strong and alive."-Nellie Patterson, traditional owner.
Another reads, "Our land
is a unique and beautiful place. This is recognized by its listing as a World
Heritage Area for both its cultural and natural values. We would like all
people with an interest in this place to learn about the land from those who
have its knowledge. Please respect this knowledge and open your minds and
hearts to our enduring culture."
Out of respect and law, we
are required as professional photographers to have previously registered with
the park management for a photography permit. It is a picture-perfect day and
we are anxious to get shooting, but before we can go explore, we must first
attend a two hour educational session explaining what we can - and cannot -
photograph and why.
We learn what sacred sites
are off limits to our cameras in the same manner Aboriginals have kept their
traditions alive for millenniums, through a system of traditional fables, or
stories. The creation stories are intricate explanations of geology, mores, and
history, providing a sense of continuity with the past. We learn about the
landscape that makes up the 512 square miles that the park encompasses, Uluru
and Kata Juta (the Olgas), a series of 36 protruding rock domes situated 22
miles west of Uluru, and perhaps even more powerful in their mythic
significance. We are told that to climb Uluru is to go against the wishes of
the Aboriginals and that we are not to photograph any tourists who choose not
to honor their request and ascend the rock.
We leave the session with
new insight into the Aboriginal perspective along with a map filled with red Xs
to mark the spots and angles considered spiritually and lawfully disrespectful
to photograph.
The weather seems to
reflect the dull fog that has coated our overloaded Western brains. We pass
postcard racks filled with images of the red bulk shimmering beneath an immense
blue sky and exit from the cultural center into what has turned into a gray
overcast afternoon. As the flies descend, crawling up our noses, mouths and the
deepest recesses of our ears, we try hard to stay true to the amazing cultural
experience and not start complaining.
We have learned, however,
to wait and let the experience unfold. We walk in silence at the base of the
world's largest monolith for maybe an hour before we sense the first tingle of
spiritual connection and understanding.
Our attention focuses on a small cluster of tourists, curious and attentive, gathered around an Australian national park ranger and a small, wizened Aboriginal man. They stand in glaring contrast: the ranger, tall, white and young, dressed in his trim uniform, peaked hat, and hiking boots. The Anangu, black skin weathered by years in the blistering Australian sun, wears a frayed cotton dress shirt, faded denim jeans and stands barefoot. Their cooperation signals a respect and recognition of Australia's indigenous people and customs, long over due after centuries of invasion and abuse.
A photograph may not damage the solid hunk of rock in quite the same way that the tourist's Nikes and Timberlands beating a path to the top have worn the red rock into a faded gray. But this sandstone skyscraper the world flocks to see is homeland to the Anangu, with immense meaning for these people and their ancestors. If someone were to come to our home, there are places we might ask them not to go, not to photograph, not to climb on; and certainly, we would expect them to honor that.
We work our way to an approved area some distance from the
rock where we can photograph. For a while, we are content in the deep silence
of the land and the empty arc of the infinite sky. By dusk, the endless space
recedes in waves of violet and purple and eventually a flaming sunset
illuminates the stands of silver wattle and spiky tussocks of spinifex that dot
the wide valley. The large looming hulk of Uluru and undulating domes of Kata
Juta stand silhouetted like sentinels in the distance.
Approaching a town like Alice from the air feels like we are seeing an Aboriginal painting from the small aircraft window. During the short 45-minute flight from Uluru to Alice Springs, we are able to breathe in the enormity of the Outback. Sweeping views of parched blood-red terrain is interspersed with sudden clumps of olive-green stands of eucalyptus trees, the stark white of a ghost gum and ochre sandstone ridges, dazzle with an unearthly brilliance in the early morning light. From the air, the significance of the colors and abstract swirls and dots depicted in Aboriginal art, and their connection to the land and natural elements of their stark beautiful country, comes to life.
"G'day. First time in Alice?" asks Chris, the chirpy 24-year-old guide who greets us at the airport in a sparkling clean Toyota Land Cruiser dressed in pressed khakis and white shirt. All toothsome grin and wholesome manners, Chris appears more Ritchie Cunningham than the Man from Snowy River. "There's an Esky in the back if you're thirsty," he says pointing to a cooler on the seat behind us.
If we thought outback towns were rundown, rowdy and cantankerous, the drive through Alice Springs put us right. It's a low-slung, spick and span town with wide tree-lined streets laid out on a neat grid. The mom-and-pop style ice cream parlors, pizza shops, department and hardware stores look straight out of the 1950s. Any building higher than two stories would be a skyscraper, and there is little traffic and few stop lights.
"Tourism's the main draw here, 500,000 people per year," Chris tells us. "Used to be Australians and Brits, mainly, but nowadays they come from all over. Lotsa Yanks, like yourselves, too."
He stops the SUV mid-street to explain the significance of an historic mural. The few vehicles that happen along, forced to swing around us, give a friendly wave on their way past. So where are these 500,000 tourists we wonder to ourselves, but can't help from asking "Um, not quite sure how to say this, but um, what's the draw exactly?"
"Good on you for asking," he says with typical Australian good humor and a friendly chortle. "It's the book that brings em: A Town Like Alice. You know it? It's famous here. Near every Australian reads it in school. Then they want to come see for themselves, you know."
Much of the surrounding outback is divided into cattle
stations the size of small countries, like the 1,000 square-mile station Chris
was raised on. We spend the afternoon touring The Royal Flying Doctors, a
medical service that covers an area almost as big as Central Europe and that
reaches most of their patients within two hours, and The Alice Springs School
of the Air, the biggest classroom in the world.
Chris was one of the rural children who received his
primary education by radio broadcast from the School of the Air. Today the
school supports140 children spread over 386 square miles, an area the size of
Egypt, and the Internet has transformed the way the school works, with
computers and web cams that now enable teacher and pupils to see one another.
We ask Chris if he was lonely, growing up isolated,
hundreds of miles from the nearest town, and if he wished he had been raised in
town, as he lives now. He thought for a minute, eyes twinkling with memory. "Wouldn't have had it any other way, mate. It was
the best childhood a larrikin (rascally boy) could ask for."
We close out the day wandering among the historic
buildings of the Old Telegraph Station, one of twelve repeater stations set up
in the late 1800s between Adelaide and Darwin. Now a museum, during a
particularly bleak period of the station's history, back in the 1930s it was
converted to a government hostel to house Aboriginal children from the Stolen Generation,
a term commonly used to describe the Aboriginal children who were removed from
their families by Australian government and church missions.
Alec Ross, a tour leader at the Telegraph Station since
2000, was part of that generation. He lived at the station, then known as The
Bungalow, from 1939 - 1942 after being taken from his mother at the age of
three. Alec is one of the children who enjoyed his life at the missions and
tells us "I think they did the right thing at the time. I never had it bad, I
can tell you. If I hadn't been taken away, I'd never have enjoyed the life I
live today. It was the best thing that ever happened to me."
Rod Whiteside, a gentle man of middle age, with graying
hair and a wry smile, is the Savannah guide who greets us in Darwin to show us
the Top End of down under. He
looks the part, dressed in a ranger's hat, khaki shirt and shorts and hiking
boots and turns out to be an indefatigable teacher with an intuitive knack for
making us fall in love with an otherwise inhospitable territory with his
passion for nature and quick Aussie wit.
Kakadu National Park in Australia's Northern Territory is
another world. For years it was uncharted wilderness. The only people who
bothered with it were Aborigines or a few Australian naturalists and sportsmen.
Then Crocodile Dundee, which was filmed in the park, put it on the map.
It is in Kakadu (pronounced CAK-a-doo) that the wildness
of Australia hits home. We are
here a month into the Wet season, a time when sixty inches of rain fall in 100
days. A month from now, much of Kakadu will be an impassable cauldron of
tropical torrents and mud. "It doesn't just rain in Kakadu, it floods. And when
it's dry, it's not just dry, it's a drought," Rod tells us.
Kakadu is a big place - more than 6,000 square miles - so we need to drive from highlight to highlight. In fact, between man-eating crocs, plants you don't dare touch, and tree sap that can cause second-degree burns, Kakadu isn't a place to head off for a stroll on your own.
From the paved road, Rod helps us spot wildlife and
geographical intricacies that would otherwise be an invisible menagerie:
gigantic dirt sculpted termite mounds, lizards scurrying through the
underbrush, a black kite resting on a tree stump, a wallaby bounding through
the trees, or a brazen crocodile lurking in the banks of the Alligator Rivers
(there are no alligators; the explorers made a mistake).
He knows the back roads too, taking us down dirt tracks to
remote billabongs (watering hole) and wetlands covered with water lilies and
teeming with birds where kangaroos, and its smaller cousins, wallabies and
wallaroos, bound and feed.
Two of the easiest, safest, and most enjoyable ways to
view the park, Rod suggests, are on a boat cruise or an aerial flight. In the
course of an hour-long Yellow Water river cruise while flocks of whistling
kites wheel and dive overhead, we spot black cockatoos, several species of
kingfishers, sea eagles, ibises, cormorants, kite raptors, ducks, herons, and a
dozen deadly crocodiles. From the air, Kakadu is an absolute stunner. A green
maze of marshy floodplains and wetlands abut rugged walls of ochre sandstone
escarpments and olive-silver eucalyptus woodlands.
Like Uluru, Kakadu is a prehistoric and cultural landscape,
a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and managed jointly by its Aboriginal owners and
the Australian government. More than 1,000 sites of ancient rock art are
scattered throughout the park.
Rod takes us to Obiri Rock, one of the most spectacular,
where the sheltered walls of the rock overhangs stand like an art gallery, with
men, women, hunting scenes, boomerangs, animals and fish painted in vivid reds,
browns, ocher and white. The oldest paintings are estimated to be about 20,000
years old, which places them among the most ancient works known.
Regretfully in charge of our own discoveries once again,
we bid farewell to Rod in Darwin and hop an evening flight to Cairns, a popular
jumping off point for visits to the worldÕs largest coral reef. By some incredible
oversight, our plans allow us only one day here. We awaken to gray storm clouds
that transform into sheets of rain by the time we board the Catamaran cruise
that will take us out to the Great Barrier Reef.
The day is a complete wash out. Not a speck of sunshine
and seas so rough that there are more than a few green faces aboard. We opt to
snorkel anyway, reasoning that the rain won't matter in the water, but the
famed reef is little more than faint scaffolding viewed through a cloudy haze
of churned up sand and silt. We return to the bobbing vessel, and eventually
back to our hotel room in Cairns, feeling as if we spent the day being tossed
about in a washing machine.
Later, we lurk quietly in the dreary hotel bar, sipping
drinks, chafing with curiosity, wondering how we could possibly have failed to
allow more time to see one of the great wonders of the world. "Crikey! Only a
day? Sorry mate," says the proprietor after we confess our stupidity.
A dawn hot-air balloon ride the next morning before we
catch a plane for Sydney manages to assuage the previous day's disappointment.
As we float over an agricultural landscape of tilled red earth and green
treetops, we see kangaroos. At first one or two, then dozens of startled
kangaroos, bounding down the valley with us, leaping everywhere; beautiful
creatures of elegant power seeming to float, as we are, through the air, their
tails thumping the ground acting as a rudder and balance as they race across
the ground. We glide silently, suspended together in a moment of dynamic grace;
then as if it never happened, they are gone.
Sydney, Oz's largest, oldest and most iconic city, is our
final Australian destination. ItÕs a delightful place to end up. Familiar,
sunny, and friendly, it is infused with a laid-back, outdoorsy vibe that draws
us in. We hang out in waterfront cafes, people watch and soak in the booming
laughter, while eavesdropping on the bits of Aussie conversation that drifts
across our table "G'day, mate. He's a good bloke. Buggered if I know. Have a
tinnie." We watch the boat traffic. We indulge whim and
curiosity, using water taxis, like the locals, to get about. We take the mandatory harbor cruise and
opera house tour and visit Koala Park. Shop a bit. Get a haircut. Sydney's easy
charm has made our end-of-trip so subtle, that when it happens, we don't even
notice.
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