The Blue Mountains, and Canberra: some darned good ideas

Blogging has been slow, it appears.  In spite of threats and cajoling the students have not begun to share their two cents yet.  Perhaps the next quiz will have to be harder.

We had a wonderful day trip to the Blue Mountains on Friday, at least I think it was Friday.  My personal goal is to know what day of the week it is on at least three occasions before the course concludes.  Our guides from the Australian National Park Service shared a lot of information with us, especially regarding Aboriginal uses of the land and the role of fire in shaping the landscape.  Much like the American national parks, those in Australia have a long and complicated history that involves mining and other resource extractions, dispossession of natives, and the development of a taste for scenery.  But that is another class.  Here are some images from our trek into the rainforest:

 

Yesterday (which may well have been Saturday) we took a lovely and relaxing bus ride from Sydney to Canberra, Australia's Capital.  Perhaps the most notable event was what did not happen.  Good Charlie and I were sitting in the front of the bus when, about 75 kilometers short of our destination, a kangaroo hopped out of the bush directly into our path.  It was the first hopper we had seen outside of the zoo and, for a brief second or two it looked like his reward for showing himself to us would be the end of his days.  Somehow, the bus missed him and he hopped off into the bush on the other side.  I hope that is a good omen.

The story of how Canberra came to be the Capital City is fascinating in its own right.  You can find the relevant details on Wikipedia, of course, but here it is in brief:

Travel back in time to 1901:

"Hey, guys, let's be a country!"

"Sounds great.  Where should the capital be?"

"Sydney, of course."

"Dunh, Melbourne of course."

"Sydney."

"Melbourne."

"OK, OK, let's compromise.  We'll pick a place in the middle between Sydney and Melbourne, pretty much the middle of nowhere, and make the capital there."

"Excellent idea!"

And so, more or less, it went.

Like another nation's capital I once read about--I believe it is called Washington D.C.--Canberra is a planned city, though its planning continues into the present.  Think of Pierre L'Enfant crossed with Frederick Law Olmsted and you get something of the idea of  Walter Burley Griffin's plan for the Australian capital city. Like so many individuals in the Australian story (and the American story, if I may), Griffin--who worked with the well-known American architect Frank Lloyd Wright--is a fascinating character whose life story has a number of intriguing twists and turns.  Hint # 1: do not fall in love with your boss's sister, especially when your boss is Frank Lloyd Wright.  Hint # 2: when the going gets tough, go to Australia and design its new capital city.  Below is the view of the central axis, from Mt. Ainslee, linking the War Memorial with the Parliament building.

We learned a lot about the functioning of Australia's parliament from our host, who expressed great envy for the change of seasons he once observed on a trip to New England and upstate New York in the Autumn.  So there: they envy us in Australia.  Here we are filing in to the chamber for the House of Representatives.  Apparently they have no filibusters and the sound gets cut off after 15 minutes.  Anyone else think that is a good idea?

Final note for now: while I found today to be the most informative and, yes, fascinating day of the class--the view from Mount Ainslee, a tour of Parliament House, a tour of the U. S. Embassy grounds, and a visit to the Australian War Memorial and Anzac Parade--two pieces of our day stand out rather profoundly as indicators of a rather impressive national trait, if there are such things.  As something of an afterthought, our bus driver took us on a quick tour of the National Arboretum a relatively new public space in Canberra.  Responding to a severe bush fire that destroyed 500 homes and the better part of a pine plantation, the government, with much public support, decided to transform the area into a vast public tree museum dedicated to growing and displaying trees from around the world that  are on the United Nation's "Redlist" of trees with endangered conservation status.  The trees are mere saplings now, acres of saplings.  It will be decades before they achieve maturity and the impressive visual effect that the designers intended to be realized by one hundred forests of rare and endangered (and, by then perhaps, otherwise extinct) trees of the world.  The grandchildren of current citizens might enjoy the fruits of these labors.  And yet, the people of Canberra and Australia have dedicated the resources to this most admirable of long-term projects.  Pretty darn impressive.

And then there is the Attaturk Memorial on the Anzac Parade.  A leader of the Turkish army that opposed the Australian (and British and New Zealand) forces landing at Gallipoli in April of 1915--an engagement that was unspeakably deadly--Attaturk is not the first person to come to mind when thinking about who might be honored at Australia's War Memorial.  He was, after all, the leader of the enemy forces.  Yet he is given a place of honor on the walk, close to the museum itself, a measure I think of . . . well, you can work that out for yourself.  For a soundtrack, listen to The Pogues rendition of "And the Band Played Waltzing Mathilda."