It wasn't so much a mishap as a weird experience for the people around me.
When we surfaced, I took off my mask and my face was covered in blood.
Nosebleeds are very common while diving apparently.
So today, to recap a bit, was the third day of my lesson, and so far I've dived four times and am now certified.
10 minutes before reaching the shoreline, I saw some brownish-red spots on my mask. I did the obvious thing of wiping the outer surface with my hand. Then I did a bit of a "mask clear." Still, reddish spots. My first thought: what a strange plant, and how did those leaf-pieces get inside my mask?! :)
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Darwin, Northern Territory
Today I said goodbye to Siall and took the bus to Hervey Bay. Tomorrow I will take a tour of Fraser Island. Currently, it feels a bit like being in the middle of nowhere, but that's because I've been so spoiled by visitors' centers, which are usually everywhere and not here. As a result, I'm tempted to book everything under the sun. Sunday night I will take a bus to Bundaberg and then make the slow climb north, up the coast.
Also, I caved in and got a cheap mobile phone, mainly as a precaution. Unfortunately, it means checking the phone every few minutes to see who or what has called me back, and it means calling random toll-free numbers on advertisements in brochures so as to look for budget travel options, of which there are few, because--let's face it--the U.S. dollar is weak. If only I had euros to spend! Young tourists have so much disposable income these days. When I was young and taking a break from uni, I was poor. Ah, "those were the days, my friend."
So, here are some more backlogged photos. These are the last of my Darwin photos. After the Kakadu fiasco, I went to Litchfield, also a waterfall and plunge pool haven. But first, here are some more photos of jumping crocodiles (and of me holding an olive python). FYI: this riverboat is the same one as was used in the upcoming and recently filmed thriller "Rogue," which is the Aussie version of "Jaws." It's about tourists getting eaten by crocodiles and stuff. On that note...
One would think that after thinking that one member of the cohort was bitten by a snake (we didn't find out until later that it was just dehydration and shock) that I wouldn't hold a snake, but ball pythons, I assure you, are not aggressive to humans. They're almost friendly, in that make-a-friend-with-a-scaly-untalkative-serpentine-thing way. Oh, and the picture above the snake one is of a kite. The whistling kites and the fork-clawed (or was it fork-fingered?) kites swooped over the riverboat, also eager to fly home with meat in their talons.
I became friends with two travelers from England, Jayna and Nicola, aka Nic. Here they are in front of a large termite mound.
At the Booley plunge pools that were beneath Florence Falls, we made paint from ochre (red, yellow, and white). Then we painted Nic's face in an Aboriginal style. She wore the look well.
The next day I visited the Darwin market, somewhat like Eugene's Saturday Market, since it includes merchants and food kiosks, but this market had lots of pan-asian food and papaya, more fish balls than tofu, more papaya than basil, and just as many chair masseuses. Then I burned my skin to a crisp while walking to the museum, washed off the memory with hard cider, and saw a gorgeous sunset.
My new friend Zephyr, a photographer who lives in a warehouse, made me a delicious fish dinner, which included freshly cut spices and kaffir lime, as well as risotto. I stayed with Zephyr and his roommate for two nights in the warehouse before flying to Brisbane on Sunday, the 18th.
Here is a view of part of the warehouse, taken from a high ledge.
Here is a view of the delicious fish and risotto.
Also, I caved in and got a cheap mobile phone, mainly as a precaution. Unfortunately, it means checking the phone every few minutes to see who or what has called me back, and it means calling random toll-free numbers on advertisements in brochures so as to look for budget travel options, of which there are few, because--let's face it--the U.S. dollar is weak. If only I had euros to spend! Young tourists have so much disposable income these days. When I was young and taking a break from uni, I was poor. Ah, "those were the days, my friend."
So, here are some more backlogged photos. These are the last of my Darwin photos. After the Kakadu fiasco, I went to Litchfield, also a waterfall and plunge pool haven. But first, here are some more photos of jumping crocodiles (and of me holding an olive python). FYI: this riverboat is the same one as was used in the upcoming and recently filmed thriller "Rogue," which is the Aussie version of "Jaws." It's about tourists getting eaten by crocodiles and stuff. On that note...
One would think that after thinking that one member of the cohort was bitten by a snake (we didn't find out until later that it was just dehydration and shock) that I wouldn't hold a snake, but ball pythons, I assure you, are not aggressive to humans. They're almost friendly, in that make-a-friend-with-a-scaly-untalkative-serpentine-thing way. Oh, and the picture above the snake one is of a kite. The whistling kites and the fork-clawed (or was it fork-fingered?) kites swooped over the riverboat, also eager to fly home with meat in their talons.
I became friends with two travelers from England, Jayna and Nicola, aka Nic. Here they are in front of a large termite mound.
At the Booley plunge pools that were beneath Florence Falls, we made paint from ochre (red, yellow, and white). Then we painted Nic's face in an Aboriginal style. She wore the look well.
The next day I visited the Darwin market, somewhat like Eugene's Saturday Market, since it includes merchants and food kiosks, but this market had lots of pan-asian food and papaya, more fish balls than tofu, more papaya than basil, and just as many chair masseuses. Then I burned my skin to a crisp while walking to the museum, washed off the memory with hard cider, and saw a gorgeous sunset.
My new friend Zephyr, a photographer who lives in a warehouse, made me a delicious fish dinner, which included freshly cut spices and kaffir lime, as well as risotto. I stayed with Zephyr and his roommate for two nights in the warehouse before flying to Brisbane on Sunday, the 18th.
Here is a view of part of the warehouse, taken from a high ledge.
Here is a view of the delicious fish and risotto.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Kakadu
Before returning to Alice Springs on November 11, we stopped to collect fossils. In a short time I was bitten by many mosquitos and later resumed a course of antihistamines, which I continue to take now -- 11 days later. The mosquitos don't end, and repellant has helped, though I left my aerogard on the bus in Darwin.
I was lucky to find this fossil. The glarey bits in the center are two seashells, stuck in a rock in the middle of Australia. The backdrop here is a hostel bunkbed, because I spare no expense for this kind of high class photography.
Before going to Kakadu forest, the bus driver stopped at Batchelor for the jumping crocodile cruise. These crocodiles can fling three meters of themselves into the air so as to chomp on a piece of meat. Supposedly, all crocodiles can jump, but we see them jump so rarely because the meat isn't flying through the air at them and bobbing along the water, like the raw meat which the feeders feed them does.
Kakadu boasts a series of plunge pools and waterfalls. Although by November the forest is officially into the "wet" season (the Top End has two seasons, wet and dry), many of the waterfalls were dry or barely trickling. The water, though, is quite refreshing, especially when the weather gets as hot as 35 degrees celsius. The pools are easy to swim in. It's easy to forget that you're a boiling potato, your skin getting brown and crispy. Before the first plunge pool, I met three guys sitting beside their 4WD and who had found four abandoned baby feral pigs. I didn't want to think that their rescue might have been motivated by hunger. Always keen on meeting the wildlife, I visited with this baby pig, who followed my every step. I'd walk a step, and it'd gruntily hobble forward. I'd walk another step, and it'd walk forward, its snout at my heel. We walked to the stream together, and I braved stepping on a crocodile to refresh myself with water; the pig drank. And it wouldn't leave my foot.
At this point there's a kind of gap in my picture-taking. I visited two plunge pools (Maguk and Jim Jim) and swam with our budget-style tour group. On the tour, the drivers take us on walks and pools and waterfalls and drive us to our campsites. When we returned to our campsite after visiting Jim Jim Falls, an Irish guy from our group couldn't leave the bus. His hands had started to go numb, and his legs started to cramp. Two big blokes carried him off of the bus, and we set up a place for him to lie down and put his feet up. He experienced a type of paralysis in his hands. I put a tablet into a water bottle, which had electrolytes and which would replace his sugars, and he wouldn't drink it. I gave it to his girlfriend to give him to drink, and he still wouldn't. He was in shock and very dehydrated. Because he was screaming out with pain, the guide radioed for help. He asked the injured fellow a number of questions, and Carl said that he might've been bitten. Worried he might have a snakebite, the two guides drove him to another vehicle where he was then taken to a helicopter and flown back to Darwin City.
Abandoned by our guides, our group sat around the campsite and had lunch. An hour passed and we found ourselves in the heat of the afternoon, a thick oppressive heat even in the shade. Several women from Barcelona went to the toilet facility to wash the dishes, and they never returned. A few of us later found them in the toilet area; they were sitting on benches, and we noticed it was indeed cooler there than at camp. We brought our camping mattresses into the toilet and sat around the ladies side of the facility, even the men, playing a card game called Asshole with the gals from Barcelona. When we passed our turns, we said "paso," and when someone at the end of the round was the asshole, we called him the "culo." Asshole in Barcelona consists of an entire hierarchy of castes, including assholes, sub-assholes, the middle citizenry, queens, and sub-queens. We passed the time this way and occasionally skipped a round to shower off the heat in the stalls with the running water, cane toads, and giant crickets.
Here is what our campsite at Muirella Park looked like.
That night we camped near Gunlom Falls and walked out there for star-gazing. It's easy to see shooting stars, and I can find some of the Northern Hemisphere constellations, though they're backwards and upside-down, but I have trouble pointing out other constellations. Usually I first spot Orion, then Taurus, then the Pleiades. Also, the moon waxes and wanes untraditionally. I'm used to the cheshire cat moon (the smile) being a waning moon. Here it's a waxing moon. One of my professors told me many years ago at university that "Cum crescet decrescet, et cum decrescet crescet." With a crescent or a "C" moon, the moon decrescendos (wanes). And with a decrescent or a "D" moon, the moon crescendos (waxes). It's one of those cool Latin ironies. Here the crescents wax; it's odd.
Anyway, our tour guides were emotionally exhausted from Carl's possible snakebite emergency. (There were no puncture wounds, and it turned out to be dehydration, not helped by the night before's heavy drinking, poor bloke.) So, they left us to our devices, and we donned our bathers and climbed up the cliffs. Well, two of us did, I and my new friend Judith from Barcelona. The guides lay prone in the grass and didn't bother to tell the rest of the group. We had to wave at them from the top of the falls.
It was beautiful up there, a series of cascading pools.
I ended up climbing up even further and swam down a ravine to another waterfall (the third waterfall of Gunlom, if you're counting). Several Irish blokes from the group did the same. Later they sat atop the second waterfall and jokingly blocked the falls by sitting in a small enclosure and stopping the water.
I was lucky to find this fossil. The glarey bits in the center are two seashells, stuck in a rock in the middle of Australia. The backdrop here is a hostel bunkbed, because I spare no expense for this kind of high class photography.
Before going to Kakadu forest, the bus driver stopped at Batchelor for the jumping crocodile cruise. These crocodiles can fling three meters of themselves into the air so as to chomp on a piece of meat. Supposedly, all crocodiles can jump, but we see them jump so rarely because the meat isn't flying through the air at them and bobbing along the water, like the raw meat which the feeders feed them does.
Kakadu boasts a series of plunge pools and waterfalls. Although by November the forest is officially into the "wet" season (the Top End has two seasons, wet and dry), many of the waterfalls were dry or barely trickling. The water, though, is quite refreshing, especially when the weather gets as hot as 35 degrees celsius. The pools are easy to swim in. It's easy to forget that you're a boiling potato, your skin getting brown and crispy. Before the first plunge pool, I met three guys sitting beside their 4WD and who had found four abandoned baby feral pigs. I didn't want to think that their rescue might have been motivated by hunger. Always keen on meeting the wildlife, I visited with this baby pig, who followed my every step. I'd walk a step, and it'd gruntily hobble forward. I'd walk another step, and it'd walk forward, its snout at my heel. We walked to the stream together, and I braved stepping on a crocodile to refresh myself with water; the pig drank. And it wouldn't leave my foot.
At this point there's a kind of gap in my picture-taking. I visited two plunge pools (Maguk and Jim Jim) and swam with our budget-style tour group. On the tour, the drivers take us on walks and pools and waterfalls and drive us to our campsites. When we returned to our campsite after visiting Jim Jim Falls, an Irish guy from our group couldn't leave the bus. His hands had started to go numb, and his legs started to cramp. Two big blokes carried him off of the bus, and we set up a place for him to lie down and put his feet up. He experienced a type of paralysis in his hands. I put a tablet into a water bottle, which had electrolytes and which would replace his sugars, and he wouldn't drink it. I gave it to his girlfriend to give him to drink, and he still wouldn't. He was in shock and very dehydrated. Because he was screaming out with pain, the guide radioed for help. He asked the injured fellow a number of questions, and Carl said that he might've been bitten. Worried he might have a snakebite, the two guides drove him to another vehicle where he was then taken to a helicopter and flown back to Darwin City.
Abandoned by our guides, our group sat around the campsite and had lunch. An hour passed and we found ourselves in the heat of the afternoon, a thick oppressive heat even in the shade. Several women from Barcelona went to the toilet facility to wash the dishes, and they never returned. A few of us later found them in the toilet area; they were sitting on benches, and we noticed it was indeed cooler there than at camp. We brought our camping mattresses into the toilet and sat around the ladies side of the facility, even the men, playing a card game called Asshole with the gals from Barcelona. When we passed our turns, we said "paso," and when someone at the end of the round was the asshole, we called him the "culo." Asshole in Barcelona consists of an entire hierarchy of castes, including assholes, sub-assholes, the middle citizenry, queens, and sub-queens. We passed the time this way and occasionally skipped a round to shower off the heat in the stalls with the running water, cane toads, and giant crickets.
Here is what our campsite at Muirella Park looked like.
That night we camped near Gunlom Falls and walked out there for star-gazing. It's easy to see shooting stars, and I can find some of the Northern Hemisphere constellations, though they're backwards and upside-down, but I have trouble pointing out other constellations. Usually I first spot Orion, then Taurus, then the Pleiades. Also, the moon waxes and wanes untraditionally. I'm used to the cheshire cat moon (the smile) being a waning moon. Here it's a waxing moon. One of my professors told me many years ago at university that "Cum crescet decrescet, et cum decrescet crescet." With a crescent or a "C" moon, the moon decrescendos (wanes). And with a decrescent or a "D" moon, the moon crescendos (waxes). It's one of those cool Latin ironies. Here the crescents wax; it's odd.
Anyway, our tour guides were emotionally exhausted from Carl's possible snakebite emergency. (There were no puncture wounds, and it turned out to be dehydration, not helped by the night before's heavy drinking, poor bloke.) So, they left us to our devices, and we donned our bathers and climbed up the cliffs. Well, two of us did, I and my new friend Judith from Barcelona. The guides lay prone in the grass and didn't bother to tell the rest of the group. We had to wave at them from the top of the falls.
It was beautiful up there, a series of cascading pools.
I ended up climbing up even further and swam down a ravine to another waterfall (the third waterfall of Gunlom, if you're counting). Several Irish blokes from the group did the same. Later they sat atop the second waterfall and jokingly blocked the falls by sitting in a small enclosure and stopping the water.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Roos and Rocks
It's been ages since I've uploaded pictures. Fortunately, I'm at my friend Siall's house, and she has a PC, and she's at her office today, granting me precious access to her desktop and all the wonders it has inside. Siall was one of my housemates my last year of university, and she is also the woman who midwifed my cat Wishbone, who is now 13-years-old (the cat).
At any rate, we're going back to November 6th here. On my last day in Melbourne, I walked around the city's botanical gardens with my cousin Ruthie and her husband Gary. There we coincidentally ran into my cousin Steve and his wife Lisa and also Casey, the girlfriend of my cousin Jeremy, and their dogs. When we ate breakfast at the Canteen, we ran into them again, including Jeremy, no small feat in a city of over 3 million people. When Ruth and Gary dropped me off, I wandered around Federation Square during the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup is a huge event in Oz. Even the Prime Minister John Howard and his competitor Kevin Rudd (Australia will elect one of them on November 24) bet on the horses. Beyond the obvious fanfare of attending a gambling event, the women dress up in fancy prom-like outfits and don gigantic hats. It's a big deal. At Federation Square the races were projected onto a wall and here again on a big screen TV in the courtyard. Everyone and their mother bet on a horse. The horse who won was named Efficient, and he wasn't a favorite to win. I didn't bet on a horse, although Efficient is the type of name I might've bet on. While the racing horses are treated incredibly well and eat better than we do, there are many horses which are bred for racing and which don't become racing horses and which are treated horribly.
At the Federation Square I went inside the ACMI, which is something like the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and watched a few documentaries and animated shorts. One documentary was of Melburnian Yiddish women over 60 who do yoga; it's entitled Stand on Your Head. Also good for a laugh was Babs and Bob's Trip to New Zealand, a 6-minute documentary. Babs brought her video camera with her to New Zealand, and when she saw the red light was on, she thought the camera was off and vice versa. She gave the tapes to her Melburnian daughter to edit, and, appalled, she found the entirety of the footage was video of the ground. When Babs thought her camera was off, she carried it lens-down -- hours of footage of stones, gravel, shoes, toilets.
Following that and an art exhibition of indigenous painters, I walked along South Bank and up to the tallest building in Melbourne, 3800 meters high. Up there it's easy to familiarize oneself with the layout of the town.
Fast-forwarding ahead, I then left for Alice Springs, the town nearest to Uluru, the large sandstone rock in almost the dead center of Australia and considered to be the cultural heart of the country. Before leaving for Uluru and other geological formations, I spent the day in Alice. My favorite place was the baby kangaroo rescue facility, where we were taught to save baby kangaroos, called "joeys," from their mothers' pouches were we to find them killed in the road. They also let us hold the joeys. Here is my German friend Andre with a joey. And, here I am too with a joey named Amy. Amy licked my hand and tried to kiss me.
In the evening I walked up to Anzac Hill and watched the sun set over Alice.
The next morning I rose early and went to Kata Tjuta, arguably more sacred than Uluru. The Aborigines keep many of the mythical stories related to Kata Tjuta secret because of this sacredness. Uluru, in contrast, is more accessible.
The campsite was rather kingly. Each tent contained a bed, mattress, and sleeping bag, a stark contrast to my Colorado camping trip, in which Kimberly and I bore our camping gear on our backs and slept in a megamid during an electrical storm.
While Uluru is one solid monolith, Kata Tjuta has five or six humps. Here is one of them.
The next morning I circumambulated Uluru, just beyond sunrise. Uluru is a peaceful rock. I didn't climb it, out of respect for the Aborigines and their requests.
Here is a waterhole on the side of Uluru.
Along certain faces of the rock are cave paintings. These paintings are important to the Aborigines, in that they represent sacred stories and are ways of teaching their descendants how to survive. Not only might the Aborigines, here called the Anangu, pass on creation stories, but they also might draw maps of how to survive in the vicinity. Included on the map are plants and animals. In this drawing, the concentric circles represent waterholes or towns. The U or C shape represents a person. The line next to the C represents a digging stick.
That evening I went on my first camel ride. The camels are adorable and friendly. They'd bow their heads low so that I might pet their noses. They also enjoyed being scritched behind the ears. As I rode on one camel, I'd pet the ears of a caravaning, neighboring camel.
The following morning I hiked through Kings Canyon and walked past several features called "The Lost City" and "The Garden of Eden."
The base of this canyon is entitled the Garden of Eden, because it resembles a tropical jungle. Gigantic cycads, ferns, and eucalypts thrive in the water at the bottom.
The sandstone, mudstone, and silica formed these stratified layers.
Before leaving the center of the country, I said goodbye to my new friends and walking companions. Here are Julia and Philip from Stuttgart, Germany, and Hitesh "H" from Birmingham, England.
At any rate, we're going back to November 6th here. On my last day in Melbourne, I walked around the city's botanical gardens with my cousin Ruthie and her husband Gary. There we coincidentally ran into my cousin Steve and his wife Lisa and also Casey, the girlfriend of my cousin Jeremy, and their dogs. When we ate breakfast at the Canteen, we ran into them again, including Jeremy, no small feat in a city of over 3 million people. When Ruth and Gary dropped me off, I wandered around Federation Square during the Melbourne Cup. The Melbourne Cup is a huge event in Oz. Even the Prime Minister John Howard and his competitor Kevin Rudd (Australia will elect one of them on November 24) bet on the horses. Beyond the obvious fanfare of attending a gambling event, the women dress up in fancy prom-like outfits and don gigantic hats. It's a big deal. At Federation Square the races were projected onto a wall and here again on a big screen TV in the courtyard. Everyone and their mother bet on a horse. The horse who won was named Efficient, and he wasn't a favorite to win. I didn't bet on a horse, although Efficient is the type of name I might've bet on. While the racing horses are treated incredibly well and eat better than we do, there are many horses which are bred for racing and which don't become racing horses and which are treated horribly.
At the Federation Square I went inside the ACMI, which is something like the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, and watched a few documentaries and animated shorts. One documentary was of Melburnian Yiddish women over 60 who do yoga; it's entitled Stand on Your Head. Also good for a laugh was Babs and Bob's Trip to New Zealand, a 6-minute documentary. Babs brought her video camera with her to New Zealand, and when she saw the red light was on, she thought the camera was off and vice versa. She gave the tapes to her Melburnian daughter to edit, and, appalled, she found the entirety of the footage was video of the ground. When Babs thought her camera was off, she carried it lens-down -- hours of footage of stones, gravel, shoes, toilets.
Following that and an art exhibition of indigenous painters, I walked along South Bank and up to the tallest building in Melbourne, 3800 meters high. Up there it's easy to familiarize oneself with the layout of the town.
Fast-forwarding ahead, I then left for Alice Springs, the town nearest to Uluru, the large sandstone rock in almost the dead center of Australia and considered to be the cultural heart of the country. Before leaving for Uluru and other geological formations, I spent the day in Alice. My favorite place was the baby kangaroo rescue facility, where we were taught to save baby kangaroos, called "joeys," from their mothers' pouches were we to find them killed in the road. They also let us hold the joeys. Here is my German friend Andre with a joey. And, here I am too with a joey named Amy. Amy licked my hand and tried to kiss me.
In the evening I walked up to Anzac Hill and watched the sun set over Alice.
The next morning I rose early and went to Kata Tjuta, arguably more sacred than Uluru. The Aborigines keep many of the mythical stories related to Kata Tjuta secret because of this sacredness. Uluru, in contrast, is more accessible.
The campsite was rather kingly. Each tent contained a bed, mattress, and sleeping bag, a stark contrast to my Colorado camping trip, in which Kimberly and I bore our camping gear on our backs and slept in a megamid during an electrical storm.
While Uluru is one solid monolith, Kata Tjuta has five or six humps. Here is one of them.
The next morning I circumambulated Uluru, just beyond sunrise. Uluru is a peaceful rock. I didn't climb it, out of respect for the Aborigines and their requests.
Here is a waterhole on the side of Uluru.
Along certain faces of the rock are cave paintings. These paintings are important to the Aborigines, in that they represent sacred stories and are ways of teaching their descendants how to survive. Not only might the Aborigines, here called the Anangu, pass on creation stories, but they also might draw maps of how to survive in the vicinity. Included on the map are plants and animals. In this drawing, the concentric circles represent waterholes or towns. The U or C shape represents a person. The line next to the C represents a digging stick.
That evening I went on my first camel ride. The camels are adorable and friendly. They'd bow their heads low so that I might pet their noses. They also enjoyed being scritched behind the ears. As I rode on one camel, I'd pet the ears of a caravaning, neighboring camel.
The following morning I hiked through Kings Canyon and walked past several features called "The Lost City" and "The Garden of Eden."
The base of this canyon is entitled the Garden of Eden, because it resembles a tropical jungle. Gigantic cycads, ferns, and eucalypts thrive in the water at the bottom.
The sandstone, mudstone, and silica formed these stratified layers.
Before leaving the center of the country, I said goodbye to my new friends and walking companions. Here are Julia and Philip from Stuttgart, Germany, and Hitesh "H" from Birmingham, England.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Pajama Party in the Toilet
A few days ago I went on a tour to Kakadu, a forested area near Darwin (Northern Territory, Australia) which is something like the size of Sweden. On the way back from one of the many waterfalls and plunge pools, one guy on our tour started screaming in agony. He had to be helicoptered out.
Meanwhile back at camp, while the guide was away, we dragged our camping mattresses into the toilet to play cards.
More on all that later....
Meanwhile back at camp, while the guide was away, we dragged our camping mattresses into the toilet to play cards.
More on all that later....
Sunday, November 11, 2007
They Are Biting Me
The mosquitos bit me yesterday, first in the morning before hiking Kings Canyon and second while out fossil-hunting. I found some shells imbedded in a rock in the dead-center of Australia. I left the rock at the hostel though, because customs would never let me bring a rock into New Zealand. Who knows where that rock's been (over the past few million years)!
My little battery-operated mosquito repellant which I'm convinced works purely when you believe that it does was off at the time. I still might convert to Deet (tm).
I'm in Darwin now (named after the evolutionist) and it feels like 30 degrees out! That's 90 degrees for you Farenheiters.
My little battery-operated mosquito repellant which I'm convinced works purely when you believe that it does was off at the time. I still might convert to Deet (tm).
I'm in Darwin now (named after the evolutionist) and it feels like 30 degrees out! That's 90 degrees for you Farenheiters.
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Sanctuary in the Dandenongs
Yesterday I went to the Rickett's Sanctuary. At the Dandenongs, a mountain range outside of Melbourne covered in huge stands of eucalyptus trees, is a natural reserve where William Rickett used to live. Although he wasn't an Aborigine, he experienced kinship with the Aborigines and incorporated much of the Aboriginal iconography and symbology into his carvings and sculptures. Around the forest area near his house he carved stumps into faces and people. He also employed a gigantic kiln for the use of making giant clay sculptures -- self-portraits, aboriginal children and old men, and strange and absurd displays of people sometimes with possums and sometimes with guns or crosses or swirls. He would blend Christian symbology with Aboriginal symbology and, in one instance, a sculpture featured a white man with a hat of bullets and bearing rifles. Below the war-like man were two crosses etched in aboriginal swirls; on one cross was an aboriginal man crucified, and on the other was William Rickett himself. William Rickett was a strange and unique man, and I was alternately awestruck by his use of poetry and dumbfounded by his use of absurdity.
In each corner and cranny, you could see a sculpture or engraving. Here's a sampling, including my trite picture of a furled fern.
To melt and become
As the living waters
Running and singing
A flow of life in
My Dreaming
This collection of children's faces reminds me of a sculpture I gave my mom after attending university.
Trite picture of a furled fern:
A gum tree is a eucalyptus tree. The website Aboriginal Art Online describes the Dreaming: "The Dreaming is a term used by Aborigines to describe the relations and balance between the spiritual, natural and moral elements of the world. It is an English word but its meaning goes beyond any suggestion of a spiritual or dream-related state. Rather, the Dreaming relates to a period from the origin of the universe to a time before living memory or experience -- a time of creator ancestors and supernatural beings."
I raise my eyes to the gums overhead
They filter the sun's golden gleaming
And I think once again of a friend
I once had
Who's part of my Bushland
Dreaming
In each corner and cranny, you could see a sculpture or engraving. Here's a sampling, including my trite picture of a furled fern.
To melt and become
As the living waters
Running and singing
A flow of life in
My Dreaming
This collection of children's faces reminds me of a sculpture I gave my mom after attending university.
Trite picture of a furled fern:
A gum tree is a eucalyptus tree. The website Aboriginal Art Online describes the Dreaming: "The Dreaming is a term used by Aborigines to describe the relations and balance between the spiritual, natural and moral elements of the world. It is an English word but its meaning goes beyond any suggestion of a spiritual or dream-related state. Rather, the Dreaming relates to a period from the origin of the universe to a time before living memory or experience -- a time of creator ancestors and supernatural beings."
I raise my eyes to the gums overhead
They filter the sun's golden gleaming
And I think once again of a friend
I once had
Who's part of my Bushland
Dreaming
Sunday, November 4, 2007
Food and Family
On the 31st, after returning to Christchurch, Michele and I went to the Buddhist Centre for lunch. This would be my fourth time there. I ordered the laksa, which is a Singporean dish.
Michele then got hold of the camera. Spicy food, yes, is good. My nose is long enough to reach the soup. The law of foreshortening did not work to my advantage here.
That evening the sky turned pink and orange and we biked to Misceo's for dinner. We toasted over Monteith's award-winning amber and Old Dark. The following morning I flew to Melbourne, Australia.
I have a few reflections to make about New Zealand. Remind me if I forget. Of course, it would be possible to make the reflections in December, upon returning there. Meantime, I'm realizing it's not so easy to have this journal keep up with my thoughts on things. For the most part, I've been enjoying myself, although I've alternately been overwhelmed and a bit too clearly gaining perspective on my life back home. A couple of "no longers" have surfaced in my invisible commitment list. And, many of my "no longers," or Nevers, have surpassed Maybe and entered the realm of Definitely. In other words, I'm shifting my personal vows, committing to a healthier work schedule, to a life of adventure, and--on the other side of the spectrum--relaxing my views on marriage, which I used to think was stupid.
It also seems to me that Israelis (and Jews in general) are an adaptable, adventurous group. If it were up to me, I'd allocate the money used for nuclear warheads and military research for Israeli resettlement. I don't want to weigh in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all -- just to say that Israelis like money and moving around, so why not give Israelis gobs of money to go travel or buy houses in France, the U.S., Australia, and the like? Israel is a huge desert anyway. The Bible, if I remember correctly, called it a "highway." Who wants to live on a dark, desert highway? Imagine if the U.S. government said to the Israelis, "We're not passing judgment, don't think anyone should win this land, but we know you're adaptable, so here's gobs of money. We were going to spend it on warheads, but instead we're spending it on you. Go find a lush, beautiful place. Call it paradise."
OK, crazy theories aside, I'm now in Melbourne, Australia! Before a couple weeks ago, I thought I had only one cousin here, but from thinking there was a Helen here, there grew a Nathan and a Linda, and then there grew a Ruth and a Henry, and some of them had kids and some of their kids had kids. So, the family grew exponentially from there. Many of the following photos are for my family, whom I probably just upset with my presumptious and wild ideas about creating peace in the Mideast, so feel free to read on or not. When I was in high school, I was the only kid in class who read all of our assigned Moby Dick readings, including the part about who was the son of whom. What I mean is, I won't blame anyone for skimming the part about who begat whomever -- or for skimming in general. By all means, look at pictures.
While Nathan was at work, one of the first things Linda and I did on Friday morning was run errands. First we dropped off the kids at their school, and then we stopped by three different food places. This is why I love my family, and this is why I love Melbourne. My family loves food. This town is positively dripping with food. It doesn't matter that Linda has a fully stocked pantry; we had to buy bread and cookies and a variety of prepared salads. Even then we weren't going to sit and eat our purchases. We took our grocery bags to Louie's, owned by a South African Jew, and bought breakfast. Louie's, as the guy who sat next to me on the plane said, is the best deli in Melbourne (and probably anywhere). I've never seen a lunch place like this. The tables had to be shoved in the back to make room for the display cases of stacked quiches, lasagnas, breads, meats. Foccacia breads were hanging on racks. Stored foods, as in olive oils, jams, olives, biscuits, and coffees, were lined on shelves. Paninis, sandwiches, cakes, cheeses, all fresh and beautiful and good -- the room was slathered in food.
That night I met more family members and together we had a Friday night ritual supper, where I met George, who would've been contemporary of my grandmother, and his descendants. I was still on New Zealand time and tired by 8, but I drank wine and answered all sorts of questions, though my relationship to everyone is probably considered distant by most. We're all second and third cousins. But, for us, descendants of holocaust survivors and others who were lucky, we all have to stick together. I did feel as if they were family, beyond just the label that they are. Many of them looked like me or like others of my close relatives. Beyond that, they had certain expressions and interests and ways of communicating that just reminded me of home. That type of familiarity is strange and instinctual. I'm not saying I had more than polite conversation with everyone; I didn't. As with all social gatherings, I only immediately connected with a small fraction. But, even were there one connection, it would be enough.
On Saturday Nathan and Linda took me to the Healesville Sanctuary, where we could see native Australian animals (wallabies, koalas, bilbies, platypuses). As you all know, I love animals and love places like this, nothing like zoos. Here the animals are well taken care of and given proper habitats. There is even a wildlife hospital, which is also an educational center, on sight.
Here is a koala who was supposed to be mating with any of three other female koalas. According to the Keeper (that's what they call the caretaker), though, he hasn't been interested. Koalas sleep about 20 hours a day and eat and groom for the rest, so there may not have been time for him to be seduced.
This koala was extraordinarily placid. His mom had been hit by a car, and someone had turned in this koala when he was a baby. The Keeper mentioned that most koalas don't let you hold them in this way.
Here is Eva, Nathan's daughter, in front of a kangaroo.
This morning the whole family met for brunch at Brighton Beach. (Yes, this one is called Brighton, too.) It's probably a good time to mention how we're all related. My dad's mother, whose name was Miriam, had a first cousin named Eva. Eva had two siblings, Leon and Etka. They were, of course, also first cousins to Miriam. Eva first moved to Paris and then to Melbourne to be with the rest of her siblings. Nathan was the child of Eva and George. Nathan married Linda, who is from Mozambique and Portugal. They're my hosts and have two kids, Phillip and Eva.
Etka had two daughters, Helen and Ruth. Leon had several kids, whom I haven't met, but one is named Henry. Ruth married Gary. They have three sons (David, Michael, and Ben) and one daughter, Sarah, whom I haven't met. Henry has three sons (Jeremy, Steve, and Antony) and one daughter, Cara. Cara, who looks like my first cousin (also named Miriam), married an Israeli named Zac. Together they have a daughter named Mika. Steve married a woman named Lisa; they have a son named Luka. Jeremy brought his girlfriend Casey. Antony brought his girlfriend Amanda. Zac brought his sister Shani.
We had to spread out to two tables. Here they are, beginning from the lower left-hand corner and going clockwise: Steve, Ben, Phillip, Eva's arm, Linda, Gary, Ruthie, Jeremy, Me, Casey, Amanda, Antony, Lisa, and the back of Luka.
From another angle, here they are beginning with the smiling guy on the left and going clockwise: Ben, Phillip, Eva, Linda, Gary, Ruthie, Jeremy, my eyes, the top of Casey's head, Amanda, Antony, the back of Luka, and Lisa.
At the other table, here is another group, beginning in the lower left-hand corner and going clockwise: David, Zac, Nathan, go across to the white pillar to leave off the three people in the back, Shani, Mika, Cara, and me.
In this picture you see Mika, Zac, and Nathan.
Here are Lisa and Luka, a bit too backlit but cute.
Here are the sisters, Ruth and Helen, daughters of Etka. Helen is about to turn 50 and Ruth is in her 50s. Wow is all I can say to that. Beyond witnessing how young-looking these gals are, I was glad to hear that the three siblings (Leon, Etka, and Eva) who were my grandmother Miriam's cousins all lived to a fairly old age.
Here Phillip (Nathan's son) plays with Ben (Ruthie's son).
Nathan, Linda, Phillip, Eva, Ruth, and Gary then took me on a drive along the beach (Brighton and Sandy). Australia is experiencing a terrible drought, and it hadn't rained hard since May, but today it poured. Whereas most people would consider today to be horrible weather, everyone was delighted about the rain. We saw the Cerberus, a purposefully sunk iron warship, which was used around the turn of the 19th century and then sunk to break the tide. We saw the Melbourne skyline, too. Here is Phillip who, as he passed me, said "Missed." I don't think I missed. What a cute boy he is!
Here are Linda and her daughter Eva.
These are the famous bathing boxes along the shore. People paint them so as to personalize them, and they cost an exorbitant amount to have. They sit low on the cabana scale -- don't you think so? But, they're cool-looking!
Tomorrow we plan to go to Rickett's Point or something like that, and I have to figure out where to go after Melbourne. Eva, the three-year-old girl, asked me if I would live with them forever. I told her that she'd have to find me a job first. She nodded her head in earnest, said OK, and walked away as if to go find me one.
Michele then got hold of the camera. Spicy food, yes, is good. My nose is long enough to reach the soup. The law of foreshortening did not work to my advantage here.
That evening the sky turned pink and orange and we biked to Misceo's for dinner. We toasted over Monteith's award-winning amber and Old Dark. The following morning I flew to Melbourne, Australia.
I have a few reflections to make about New Zealand. Remind me if I forget. Of course, it would be possible to make the reflections in December, upon returning there. Meantime, I'm realizing it's not so easy to have this journal keep up with my thoughts on things. For the most part, I've been enjoying myself, although I've alternately been overwhelmed and a bit too clearly gaining perspective on my life back home. A couple of "no longers" have surfaced in my invisible commitment list. And, many of my "no longers," or Nevers, have surpassed Maybe and entered the realm of Definitely. In other words, I'm shifting my personal vows, committing to a healthier work schedule, to a life of adventure, and--on the other side of the spectrum--relaxing my views on marriage, which I used to think was stupid.
It also seems to me that Israelis (and Jews in general) are an adaptable, adventurous group. If it were up to me, I'd allocate the money used for nuclear warheads and military research for Israeli resettlement. I don't want to weigh in on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at all -- just to say that Israelis like money and moving around, so why not give Israelis gobs of money to go travel or buy houses in France, the U.S., Australia, and the like? Israel is a huge desert anyway. The Bible, if I remember correctly, called it a "highway." Who wants to live on a dark, desert highway? Imagine if the U.S. government said to the Israelis, "We're not passing judgment, don't think anyone should win this land, but we know you're adaptable, so here's gobs of money. We were going to spend it on warheads, but instead we're spending it on you. Go find a lush, beautiful place. Call it paradise."
OK, crazy theories aside, I'm now in Melbourne, Australia! Before a couple weeks ago, I thought I had only one cousin here, but from thinking there was a Helen here, there grew a Nathan and a Linda, and then there grew a Ruth and a Henry, and some of them had kids and some of their kids had kids. So, the family grew exponentially from there. Many of the following photos are for my family, whom I probably just upset with my presumptious and wild ideas about creating peace in the Mideast, so feel free to read on or not. When I was in high school, I was the only kid in class who read all of our assigned Moby Dick readings, including the part about who was the son of whom. What I mean is, I won't blame anyone for skimming the part about who begat whomever -- or for skimming in general. By all means, look at pictures.
While Nathan was at work, one of the first things Linda and I did on Friday morning was run errands. First we dropped off the kids at their school, and then we stopped by three different food places. This is why I love my family, and this is why I love Melbourne. My family loves food. This town is positively dripping with food. It doesn't matter that Linda has a fully stocked pantry; we had to buy bread and cookies and a variety of prepared salads. Even then we weren't going to sit and eat our purchases. We took our grocery bags to Louie's, owned by a South African Jew, and bought breakfast. Louie's, as the guy who sat next to me on the plane said, is the best deli in Melbourne (and probably anywhere). I've never seen a lunch place like this. The tables had to be shoved in the back to make room for the display cases of stacked quiches, lasagnas, breads, meats. Foccacia breads were hanging on racks. Stored foods, as in olive oils, jams, olives, biscuits, and coffees, were lined on shelves. Paninis, sandwiches, cakes, cheeses, all fresh and beautiful and good -- the room was slathered in food.
That night I met more family members and together we had a Friday night ritual supper, where I met George, who would've been contemporary of my grandmother, and his descendants. I was still on New Zealand time and tired by 8, but I drank wine and answered all sorts of questions, though my relationship to everyone is probably considered distant by most. We're all second and third cousins. But, for us, descendants of holocaust survivors and others who were lucky, we all have to stick together. I did feel as if they were family, beyond just the label that they are. Many of them looked like me or like others of my close relatives. Beyond that, they had certain expressions and interests and ways of communicating that just reminded me of home. That type of familiarity is strange and instinctual. I'm not saying I had more than polite conversation with everyone; I didn't. As with all social gatherings, I only immediately connected with a small fraction. But, even were there one connection, it would be enough.
On Saturday Nathan and Linda took me to the Healesville Sanctuary, where we could see native Australian animals (wallabies, koalas, bilbies, platypuses). As you all know, I love animals and love places like this, nothing like zoos. Here the animals are well taken care of and given proper habitats. There is even a wildlife hospital, which is also an educational center, on sight.
Here is a koala who was supposed to be mating with any of three other female koalas. According to the Keeper (that's what they call the caretaker), though, he hasn't been interested. Koalas sleep about 20 hours a day and eat and groom for the rest, so there may not have been time for him to be seduced.
This koala was extraordinarily placid. His mom had been hit by a car, and someone had turned in this koala when he was a baby. The Keeper mentioned that most koalas don't let you hold them in this way.
Here is Eva, Nathan's daughter, in front of a kangaroo.
This morning the whole family met for brunch at Brighton Beach. (Yes, this one is called Brighton, too.) It's probably a good time to mention how we're all related. My dad's mother, whose name was Miriam, had a first cousin named Eva. Eva had two siblings, Leon and Etka. They were, of course, also first cousins to Miriam. Eva first moved to Paris and then to Melbourne to be with the rest of her siblings. Nathan was the child of Eva and George. Nathan married Linda, who is from Mozambique and Portugal. They're my hosts and have two kids, Phillip and Eva.
Etka had two daughters, Helen and Ruth. Leon had several kids, whom I haven't met, but one is named Henry. Ruth married Gary. They have three sons (David, Michael, and Ben) and one daughter, Sarah, whom I haven't met. Henry has three sons (Jeremy, Steve, and Antony) and one daughter, Cara. Cara, who looks like my first cousin (also named Miriam), married an Israeli named Zac. Together they have a daughter named Mika. Steve married a woman named Lisa; they have a son named Luka. Jeremy brought his girlfriend Casey. Antony brought his girlfriend Amanda. Zac brought his sister Shani.
We had to spread out to two tables. Here they are, beginning from the lower left-hand corner and going clockwise: Steve, Ben, Phillip, Eva's arm, Linda, Gary, Ruthie, Jeremy, Me, Casey, Amanda, Antony, Lisa, and the back of Luka.
From another angle, here they are beginning with the smiling guy on the left and going clockwise: Ben, Phillip, Eva, Linda, Gary, Ruthie, Jeremy, my eyes, the top of Casey's head, Amanda, Antony, the back of Luka, and Lisa.
At the other table, here is another group, beginning in the lower left-hand corner and going clockwise: David, Zac, Nathan, go across to the white pillar to leave off the three people in the back, Shani, Mika, Cara, and me.
In this picture you see Mika, Zac, and Nathan.
Here are Lisa and Luka, a bit too backlit but cute.
Here are the sisters, Ruth and Helen, daughters of Etka. Helen is about to turn 50 and Ruth is in her 50s. Wow is all I can say to that. Beyond witnessing how young-looking these gals are, I was glad to hear that the three siblings (Leon, Etka, and Eva) who were my grandmother Miriam's cousins all lived to a fairly old age.
Here Phillip (Nathan's son) plays with Ben (Ruthie's son).
Nathan, Linda, Phillip, Eva, Ruth, and Gary then took me on a drive along the beach (Brighton and Sandy). Australia is experiencing a terrible drought, and it hadn't rained hard since May, but today it poured. Whereas most people would consider today to be horrible weather, everyone was delighted about the rain. We saw the Cerberus, a purposefully sunk iron warship, which was used around the turn of the 19th century and then sunk to break the tide. We saw the Melbourne skyline, too. Here is Phillip who, as he passed me, said "Missed." I don't think I missed. What a cute boy he is!
Here are Linda and her daughter Eva.
These are the famous bathing boxes along the shore. People paint them so as to personalize them, and they cost an exorbitant amount to have. They sit low on the cabana scale -- don't you think so? But, they're cool-looking!
Tomorrow we plan to go to Rickett's Point or something like that, and I have to figure out where to go after Melbourne. Eva, the three-year-old girl, asked me if I would live with them forever. I told her that she'd have to find me a job first. She nodded her head in earnest, said OK, and walked away as if to go find me one.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
