FORWARD:
A New York Times review of Bill Bryson’s 2000 book, Down Under, says about Australia (and about Bryson) [i]:
It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life — a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. Ignoring such dangers — and yet curiously obsessed by them — Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging; their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn’t get much better than this…
I don’t know about the “deadly” part and I wasn’t there long enough or traveled sufficiently to comment on the climate. However, the as-far-as-the-eye-can-see vineyards, the rich undulating farm lands and wheat fields, lush grasslands packed with happy, grazing sheep and cattle and abundant eucalyptus (all 800 species of them) forests teeming with koalas, kangaroos, wallabies, cockatoos and other exotic wildlife we saw certainly were not “infertile.” But the review is dead-right on the part about promptly falling in love with the country — as we did.
In his introduction to the same excellent book, Bryson muses about Australia being “such a difficult country to keep track of and, referring to the “startling fact” that back in 1967 Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt “plunged into the surf and vanished” while strolling along a beach in Victoria,” Bryson writes:
No trace of the poor man was ever seen again. This seemed doubly astounding to me — first that Australia could just lose a Prime Minister [I mean, come on] and second that news of this had never reached me.
I share this tidbit — as does Bryson — to illustrate how little attention we pay to “our cousins Down Under” (as Bryson calls the Australians) and to rationalize how little I knew about that magnificent continent, its history and its people.
To the fortunate ones who are more knowledgeable about Australia, to those who “have been there and done that,” my apologies for every gasp, gobsmack, and excitement I express in what probably will be for them and endlessly boring set of impressions and experiences.
Finally, and in order to forestall the kind of criticism I received a few years ago from one or two when I jotted down some of my impressions on a visit to France, I want to make it clear that I am not writing these recollections as a historian or as an “instant expert” on Australia, but rather as a visitor who admits how little he knew — and knows — about this magnificent island, continent and nation and how much he has learned from conversations with our gracious hosts, friends we made, people we met and from reading and research.
Having dispensed with the caveats and explanations, here is Part 2 of “Tidbits from Down Under.”
As mentioned in the first “Tidbits from Down Under,” there is so much to do, see and write about this wonderful country and so little time to do it in. Add to that the numerous questions and comments — all five of them — on the first installment and it becomes a daunting task, but we will give it the good ole try.
One of the readers of the first installment had his priorities straight and asked for a “pub report.”
As so happens, as a result of tours of duty in England, I love pubs and I am happy to oblige. Our first pub visit in Sydney happened as we were walking up a quiet, steep street in The Rocks (Sydney’s historic old town quarter close to where the first British settlers — mostly convicts and their guards — stepped ashore back in 1788)* and we stumbled upon a nice, old pub right on the corner of Lower First Street and Ferry Lane.
The name of the pub is “The Hero of Waterloo.” A plaque on the wall, designating the pub an Australian historical landmark, informed us that the pub was built in 1843 and is the oldest existing pub in Sydney. The inside of the pub was warm and cosy, reminiscent of those charming Irish pubs.
I was soon enjoying a “midi” of that delicious amber liquid poured by a real Irish bartender, Joanna.
There are several other delightful pubs in The Rocks area. The early settlers and their descendants had their priorities right, too — for a while.
For a while, because Australia’s love for beer is on the decline (beer consumption is at a 66-year low) as Australians are opting for a “more sophisticated approach to drinking.” They are drinking, for example, more wine. The reason? According to Australia’s CommSec chief economist Craig James: “Random breath testing, immigration, greater variety in leisure pursuits, increases in income and wealth, diet, lifestyle – all these factors and more explain why Aussies are drinking less beer, more wine and drinking less alcohol more generally.”
(More about Australia’s impressive and growing wine industry later.)
Still, there is an “unprecedented demand” for premium and craft beer. To quench this demand, Carlton & United Brewery recently announced its $AUS99 (approx. $US95), 750 ml. bottle of beer, the Crown Ambassador. Quite a step-up from my $5 midi at the Hero of Waterloo.
It is quite a jump from pubs and beer to Australia’s fascinating Aboriginal art, but for us it was a mere five-minute walk from the Hero of Waterloo to the “Spirit Gallery” at The Rocks — one of Sydney’s better galleries for Aboriginal and tribal art and crafts.
Australian Aboriginal art is a unique and fascinating form of art that has been evolving since the first Aborigines stepped foot on the Australian continent some 40 to 50,000 years ago and started etching, drawing, carving and painting on cave walls and rocks, tree bark, sand, the body, etc., generally depicting nature scenes, aerial-like bird’s-eye views of desert landscape, animals, handed-down stories — “Dreaming” stories of the distant past — reflecting their struggles, their beliefs and myths.
Jeannie Petyarre’s beautiful Bush Medicine Dreaming painting as displayed at the Spirit Gallery, Sydney, Australia. Jeannie is a well-known artist in Utopia, Central Australia. In 1990, her work was chosen to be part of the Robert Holmes à Court Collection, which toured extensively and was featured in their book “Utopia – A Picture Story” (Photo with permission of the Spirit Gallery.)
Depending on time and region, major Aboriginal art styles generally consist of geometric figures using dots (“dot art”) or cross-hatched designs, simple symbols and figures, human and animal silhouettes and more complex paintings showing internal organs, such as in “x-ray art.” In the 1970s, acrylic paint, canvas and new techniques were introduced to the indigenous community and its artists began to adapt their styles accordingly and, for the first time, Aboriginal art began to receive widespread Australian and international recognition and began to be acknowledged as true contemporary art by international art critics. The result, “a flourishing art movement throughout the Western Desert which saw individuals and communities committing their intricate and interesting stories and unique iconography to canvas. This stimulated an arts industry that now generates around $200 million a year nationally.”
Although this fascinating art form is not without its occasional (misguided) critics, the national and international interest in and praise for this stunning and unique art movement has been overwhelming and it is now recognized as one of the most significant art movements in twentieth century art.
No discussion of Aboriginal arts and crafts is complete without at least a photographic mention of another uniquely Australian Aboriginal culture “heirloom,” the didgeridoo (didjeridu).
The Spirit Gallery claims to have the largest collection of musical didgeridoos in Sydney (Photo by the Spirit Gallery, with permission)
The writer’s fascination with Aboriginal art should not be seen as downplaying all other great Australian art. There is plenty of it as we saw a few days later at the Art Gallery of South Australia in Adelaide and as can be gleaned from this “Introduction to the Collection of Australian Art at the National Gallery of Australia.”
And now, belatedly, I realize that I have spent so much time and words on pubs, beer and Aboriginal art that I have run out of my “allotted space” without even touching upon Aboriginal Australians themselves and upon the many similarities in experiences that exist between the Aborigines and our own Native Americans and, to a certain extent, African-Americans; without talking about the descendants of those first “unwilling” settlers and without mentioning so many other fascinating aspects, contrasts and opposites Down Under, where up is down, left is right, summer is winter, “liberals” are conservatives, etc. Hang in there if you can, mate. More to come.
*The first 11 British ships (The “First Fleet”) commanded by Arthur Phillip, a captain in the Royal Navy, and loaded with soldiers, convicts and supplies left the Isle of Wight in May 1787 and sailed into Botany Bay eight months later with an estimated 1500 people, including 750 convicts.
Captain Arthur Phillip subsequently moved the ships into what is now Sydney Harbor and raised the British flag on 26 January 1788 (now commemorated as Australia Day) at Sydney Cove.
[i] Bryson, Bill. Down Under. London: Black Swan Books, 2001. Print.
Lead image: Sydney’s Opera House
The author is a retired U.S. Air Force officer and a writer.