Brief Encounters with Some Places in
Australia:
A Diary
Someone once sent me a
postcard that showed a map of Western Europe, on top of which was imposed an
outline of Australia, drawn to the same scale. Australia completely covered
Europe. This was the first time I really got a sense of the size of the
country, or continent.
The second time was, when
seated more or less soporifically in a BA Boeing jet, I watched the on-screen
flight tracker take hours to unfold the flight path from the North West landfall,
en route from Singapore, and the final 6am touchdown in Sydney. (On the daytime
flight back, I admired the mostly desert terrain far below.)
Day 1 (all days fell in October 2016, when Australian
Spring is getting going)
Sydney International Terminal: I suppose we were the first international flight of
the day (plane landings are banned before 6am).
To arrive in a major airport and encounter absolutely no passport queues
(there were more electronic gates than passengers heading through) was
certainly a pleasant novelty. And.. we’ve come all this way – the signs are in
English (with Chinese? Japanese? Korean? subtexts).
Sydney: first impressions: the traffic density is familiar, and driving is on the
left. (I find that this catches me out during the visit: when I leave the UK I
now have an instinct to expect European driving conventions.) But the speed
limits seem unusually high, possibly to encourage Mad Max style macho driving, in vehicles rather larger in average
size than in the UK? Eventually I twig that metrication in Australia (as in
Ireland) was more thorough than in the UK. In a country that Napoleon never
conquered, or spent any exile in, kilometres hold sway.
The kilometre business
slightly jars, for the foremost of the first impressions of Sidney and its
middle class suburbs is the “British” familiarity – almost overdone in certain
quarters (I should guess), like that incongruous Union Jack in one corner of
the national flag. (Really? You are another country, and globalisation spins
its own supra-national links, in spite of the dreams of certain Brexiteers.)
Yet – Australia is indeed
another country, and the English language, the imported place names, the school
blazers are but one lens to look through. In a short first visit one never
reconciles the view that lens suggests with the other crowding sensations of
strangeness, even weirdness. Perhaps this has always been true since the first
colonists: an attempt to impose memories of the Northern on the Southern
hemisphere – an imposition that necessarily slides apart.
All through the visit one is
sensitised to the strange birdsong (and the birds responsible); and the
off-kilter trees and othe vegetation.
Balmoral (oh
yes?) Beach: Lunch behind big glass
windows, through which one sees a big group of swimmers in wetsuits and
matching swimming caps, as if for the first leg of a triathlon, all setting off
into the bay and then swimming back. In retrospect, I realise that the group
was probably from the local life-saving club, an Australian institution that
combines upholding life-saving skills with sporty competion and socialising.
I see my first Kookaburra
bird. A strange, plump awkward looking thing.
I am impressed by the spring
green, the quality of public spaces, and the wonderful views over Sidney
harbour. Mind you, the harbour is so vast, so meandering, so surrounded by
steep points and so punctuated by inlets of every size, that there is no view
of the whole – just of aspects. The view towards downtown Sydney, with the
bridge and Opera House, is the most iconic.
Day two
We visit the Zoo for a crash
course in Australian wildlife. Up close to a wallaby in its walk-in enclosure
(shared with indolent kangaroos).
Day three
A ferry ride to downtown
Sydney – a claustrophobic area, dominated by tall business buildings and coiled
around by flyovers and elevated rail tracks. The skyline views from a distance
are preferable to the close up.
Then a bus ride, through
nondescript inner suburbs to the famous Bondi Beach. This turns out to be a
good beach surrounded by more nondescript development, with much close-up car
parking. Nothing to take the breath away. There are many better beaches, but
not, perhaps, that many which can compete in nearby bars.
Day four
A train trip, south of
Sidney, through yet more nondescript suburbs, but finally out into a vast,
heavily wooded national park, and thence to coastal development which
culminates in the town of Wollongong – once a major steel producing area, but
now in decline under China’s shadow.
We encounter another
Australian institution – the public barbeque fixture. You turn up and light up
the outdoor cooker courtesy of the Town Hall. I wonder what the etiquette is
during high summer, as opposed to on a cold windy day in early spring.
Day five
A day for culture: another
ferry, a delightful walk through the Sidney Botanic Gardens (the site of the
colony’s First Farm) and a visit to the Art Gallery, a spacious neo classical
building. We concentrate on Australian artists, of varying talents and
interest. It is notable how many spent, or have spent, time in Europe. Many of
the late c19 and early c20 paintings were executed in Europe, in line with
contemporary fashions (Impressionism, Cubism..). Distinctive Australian styles emerge more
recently.
At lunch in an outdoor café
opposite the gallery, we note the equivalent here of urban pigeons: Ibises,
with long curved beaks – good for getting inside bins. Also little sharp beaked
birds about the size of a starling, one of which flew into my hand in an
attempt to snatch a piece of bread.
Another walk though the Gardens,
this time along the Harbour shore and ending at the Opera House. Like
Australia’s animals and plants, this is a weird but magnificent specimen. It
was originally conceived as a dome, which was then cut out into the famous
sails.
In the evening we are back
for a Beethoven concert. Inside, the Opera House reminds me of the Barbican –
big concrete open spaces; efficient auditorium. The main difference is that, in
the Barbican, there is the occasional view of a pond, whereas the Opera House
stands on a promontory with wide views of the Harbour.
(After the trip I am told by
a musician that backstage conditions for musicians and other performers are
pretty bad.)
Day six
We leave Sydney from the
Domestic Terminal – the much dowdier sibling of the one where we arrived. A
short flight takes us to the Gold Coast airport, north of Sydney, still on the
East Coast.
The airport is, just, in
Queensland, which chooses not to adopt Australian Summer Time in keeping with
other States. Thus, without changing longitude position by one inch, there’s an
hour’s difference as one moves north or south over the State border. Very
confusing for us, as the resort where we are staying is back in NSW, although
very near the airport. (Local taxi drivers suffer from temporal vertigo.)
The place where we are
staying is called Salt, a manufactured community of hotels, holiday apartments
and expensive villas, together with some shops and restaurants, built about 10
years ago on what was an extensive mineral mining area. Now it is all tastefully
laid out, just a few metres inland from endless golden beaches and with plenty
of manicured green spaces – and a manicured coastal cycle/walking/jogging
track.
One feature of Salt is a new
(to us) scavenger – the bush turkey. This is an aggressive turkey-like bird
that wanders everywhere, oblivious to humans, even jumping on café tables. They
are highly territorial and fight one another viciously over scrap rights.
Day seven
This day centres on a short
trip up the coast to one of those life-savers’ club for a pre-wedding lunch
party. Whales are observed out at sea, if one can distinguish a whitecap from a
plume.
Day eight
Guests are packed into
minibuses and driven into Queensland, up a river valley. This is the valley of
the Currumbin River, which is very lovely. It is like going into a wooded
Alpine foothill in summer. We arrive at a steeply sited property with extensive
grounds (some thankfully flat) and extensive views. There a fine wedding and
party are held, until the last minibus home in the small hours.
Day nine
..is devoted to slow
recovery, although including an organised lunch.
In the evening, at a local
restaurant, the waiter turns out to be a chatty and knowledgeable Frenchman.
The chef is a burly and chatty Australian who produces pretty pricey
nouvelle-ish cuisine.
(Stereotypes are made to be
defeated. Most of the workers we meet in hotels and restaurants are not merely
more than polite than as in the pasted on have-a-good-day formula – they are
eager to talk intelligently with their guests.)
Day ten
A walk of under a mile to the
north takes us to the small town of Kingscliff. Pelicans and huge lizards are
passed on the way. Kingscliff has a beach and a set-back long street of shops
and cafes.
A river (“creek”) meets the
sea at Kingscliff. On one side there is an attractive headland park, ending in
a stone mole across the river mouth.
Day eleven
On our last day in Salt we
walk to the Kingscliff headland and back along the gorgeous empty beach.
One might suppose that Australia
is free wheeling country, where people are largely left alone to get on with
their lives. Not so, in those parts of Eastern Australia we visited.
Notices of rules, and
prohibitions and directions abounded, enough to drive a Farage into the jaws of
a shark.
The notices deal with
DANGERS; protection of PLANTS; dogs and their LEADS; even LOVE PADLOCKS(!) – in
addition to parking and littering (as mentioned, public spaces are wonderfully
well kept and clean).
Day eleven
A longish transfer by taxi to
Brisbane (in Queensland). The coastal highway is very congested,
Brisbane seems to be a city
which defeats taxi drivers. Ours needs to stop and set his satnav to find where
we are going.
Brisbane is set on a fine,
wide river, with steep hills rising up from the banks on the north side. We
stay with friends in a charming old wooden house. A possum, with her baby on
her back, is glimpsed.
Day twelve
A morning’s walk down through
a pleasant park (Roma Park) to the centre of Brisbane. Apart from the colonial
grandeur of City Hall (more Victorian neo-classical), it is not a particularly
impressive city centre (like Sydney, blighted by traffic). But the Botanic
Gardens (thanks for all of these), on the bank of the river, are wonderful, as
is the modern riverside parkland on the other bank. We encounter a graceful;
heron type bird hunting in a flowerbed.
We call a taxi for our
penultimate transfer to a motel near the airport. The driver arrives and
announces that he is “fit to bust” after sitting on his taxi rank all morning,
so we allow use of the friend’s bathroom. The driver doesn’t know the way to
our motel, but again the satnav saves the day.
Day thirteen
Out from Brisbane on a
Quantas flight. Dire food and unprepossessing seats. In Singapore there is a
pay-as-you-go (by the hour) lounge, which gives you cooked food and basic
drinks, and showers. It is very good value if one has a 3-4 hour layover before
the 13+ hour flight to Heathrow and a 5am arrival.
Given the near two day
travelling grief involved at each end in a trip to Australia, I have to concur
with the warnings of more experienced friends – two weeks (slightly less) is
too short a time for a visit.
Also, the East Coast cities
are no basis on which to judge the country, let alone the East Coast itself.
November 2016
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