Australia: News and Views

In a couple of days (21st July local time) it will the 40th anniversary of the Apollo moon landings. What is not as well known is that Australia was an important part of the NASA infrastructure that saw man walk on the moon. Being “down under” was critical because observatories in Australia could cover communications with the space missions while Florida was on the wrong side of the world to have line of sight contact.

Of the three original tracking stations in Australia: Carnavon, Honeysuckle Creek and Parkes - only Parkes radio telescope is still in operation, and well worth a visit if you are interested.

The other well known connection that Australia has with Nasa - is that Ausralia is where Skylab ended up-  parts of the space station broke up and hit earth in remote Western Australia - driving the Nullarbor you will see some of the remnants in roadhouse museums!

The clear air and wide open spaces still attract both amateur and professional astronomers to Australia - but he romance and excitement of the moon landings has long gone. What is sure though when man does land on the moon again - Australia will be part of the communications team!

A lot of people are confused about whether shops are going to be open this weekend given that the 25 April is ANZAC Day in Australia and New Zealand. The short answer of course is -that it depends.

In New Zealand shops cannot open until 1pm - most major shopping centres will be open Saturnday Afternoon. The same is probably the case in the eastern states of Australia: Tasmania, NSW, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. These states do not have Monday as a public holiday but do have deregulated shop trading hours so shops will close all day on Saturday 25 April but will be open if they normally are on Sunday.

Western Australia has stupid shop trading hours and it required an act  of parliament to allow shops to open on Monday 27 April. Not that could just open as a shop owner though - oh know you still had to apply! Regulation is alive and well in WA I can assure you. So in Perth and the rest of Western Australia shops are closed Saturday (ANZAC Day) and Sunday (because  WA has stupid laws ) but will be open Monday - yeah!

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I have found even more Koalas suffering in the extreme heat in South Australia and Victoria.

But first an explanation. I have not posted about the biggest story in Australia for years: the devastating bush fires in Victoria.

The fires have been burning since Saturday and as of today there are still fires out of country, 1000 homes have been lost and 181 Australian’s dead. If you want up to date, factual and non-hyped news go to the ABC official site - they are the government owned station - are doing a great job and you can hear live streaming radio from Melbourne for  the latest, the fires are still out of control as I write this on Wednesday morning.

The reason I haven’t posted about the fires is quite simple: I have an ethical problem with making money out of people’s misery. I am happy to post cute koala pictures but I can’t quite  write a filler post in the hope that I will hit page 1 of Google and get the traffic.

There is the beginning of a debate here in Australia about the role of media in such situations. I think I am not the only one being sickened by prime time TV shows taking people back to their destroyed homes while sticking a camera in their face and recording ever reaction, after previously watching a husband and wife who had been separated for days discovering that each other were alive and being reunited, while circled by no less than 6 big TV cameras.  That I think is a topic I will write about.

So in the same spirte that have seen entertainers showing up at the survivors camps and playing for free: here are some more of the cute Koala photos doing the rounds - and no none of them are from the bushfire areas - they are from the previous week’s heat wave in South Australia and Victoria: Koalas are HOT!

I must admit I saw this pic of a very hot Koala - before yesterday’s hot koala photos that I published looked more like real life hot Koalas asking for water - but still I wasn’t sure.

This is for real though this guy just wandered into an outhouse in a property in South Australia - and took himself a bath! Koalas are shy wild animals - they do not do this sort of thing normally.

Unluckily for the Koalas and other  hot Australians its looking like there’s a bit more hot weather on the way for Melbourne which is getting record hot temperatures again this weekend and Sydney is also looking to get hotter - with Bondi expecting 40,000 on the beach tomorrow.

While up in Queensland a full 60% of the state is a declared disaster zone - with flooding across the northern parts of the state. Some northern towns may be isolated for another 6 weeks  - though that will OK, and not unusual in the North in the wet, so long as the beer doesn’t run out.

But you have to admit the Koala is cute - and I’m sorry mate I thought you were a stuffed toy being posed!

At Australia News we try to avoid the cute animal stories but Koalas begging a drink from humans …- how cute is this,  but sad too - this is a desperate Koala! Highly unusual - I looked hard because I suspected photoshop- Koala’s just don’t do this - but as far as I can tell its for real! UPDATE Yes it is according to the ABC

The Eastern states have been sweltering in 40+ temperatures for weeks now - even notoriously fickle Melbourne weather has set  new records, Adelaide has been hotter than usual - and fatally so - the morgue is filled up with heat-related deaths “dying to get cold” is a bit bad taste I agree!

If you’ve never experenced such extreme weather take care of your domestic pets - birds die in the wild from heat exhaustion so keep pet birds in the shade and make sure dogs don’t burn their paws on hot pavements.

But the Koala photos - well they are extraordinary if true - Koala’s sleep around 23 hours a day - and seldom move very far  - so to see them on the road is amazing in the first place.

Well not actually Nicole and Huge but I had to look twice when  I saw an add for expensive classic style clothing to make sure it wasn’t the famous Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman. Instead the promoters of the clothing range had a couple of look-alikes dressed in the moleskin trousers and pretty dresses featured in the film.

The classic Aussie Akrubra hat is looking like it might make it more upmarket too. The hat is the Australia version of the cowboy hat and is in fact comfortable and works well for both keeping the sun off and, with the addition of a veil, keeping the flies out of your mouth - a point somewhat glossed over in the movie.  The hats are traditionally made of suede but can be bought in anything from snakeskin to leather these days  I’ve even seen straw versions - strickly light weight.

The knee high boots that look so good on both of the stars are in fact very pracitcal. Australian snakes are highly venemous but they dont have a a strong bite and a decent knee length leather boot will protect you in the snake prone northern country where the Australia film was set.

Nicole’s pretty dresses aren’t really suitable for the bush but her tight riding trousers are commonly used by jackaroos and jillaroos to this day -though personally I prefer something a bit looser fitting.

The long sleeves shirts featured in the movie are really practical too - the reality is that the lady Nicole Kidman plays, living on a cattle station before the invention of suntan lotion would have burnt to a crisp and have acquired at the very least red, wrinkled skin before she was 40, or at worst skin cancer, long sleeves are much more practical than wearing suntan lotion the entire time.

Danish architect Joern Utzon died this week at age 90 - without ever having seen his completed masterpiece. The controversial architect was fired, or was in dispute over unpaid bills,  from the job in 1966 7 years into a project which was supposed to take three and ten times over the already outrageous budget of £7 million.

Although the famous sillouette of the sails on Sydney Harbour are his design the interior were completed by NSW architects.

I guess neither side knew what they were getting into - Utzon was  a dreamer who struggled with the mathematics to make the sails of the Sydney Opera House a reality which wouldn’t collapse under their own weight.  He was never a great project manager. The government had no experience of dealing with a visionary and a genius.

The Opera House is surely one of the most photographed buildings in the world, not just  Australia - in fact there are no less than 4,2777 photos on flickr - here are some of the more interesting.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

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Photo Credit

Sorry a couple of day’s late this week because of Thanksgiving and Andre Rieu but we might as well continue on with the compass points of Australia having done the eastern most point of Australia the sourthern most point is in fact called South-East cape in the far south of Tasmania.

This one doesn’t have a convenient car park - its several hour’s walk along a well-marked, and in places board walked trail to get this rather spectacular spot on the south coast of Tasmania. The walk continues on for another 7 days but we didn’t go the whole way - although the rain forest is dense and looked a more like New Zealand than Australia! Even in the summer the weather is unpredictable so take wet-weather gear and be preparred for wind - it really isn’t the image that most people have of Australia but Tasmania and particular the southern parts are spectacular.

Apparently Baz Luhrmann has done the unthinkable in Australia the Movie and digially enhanced some of the Kimberleys:combining the Cockburn range with the Bungle Bungles. According to the outraged local paper’s Australia movie review its OK to enhance cattle stampedes and war scenes but not the pristine beautiful country of Kimberley, in the north-west of Australia!

Well I am little cynical - lets be fair: how many Australians have actually been to Kununurra , the Cockburn Range or the Bungle Bungles? I have so I am interested to see the movie and see how Luhrmann has made the area of the country look like the “grand canyon” - and more importantly why would you bother?

I’ve been to all of these locations: Kimberleys, Bungles, Kununura not to mention the Grand Canyon and they are really completely different: to start with the Grand Canyon, is in fact, a canyon, a gash in the ground, a negative feature, you go DOWN into the canyon. The Bungles and the Cockburn Ranges of the Kimberleys are what the locals call hills - they aren’t very high hills, but in contrast to the dead flat landscape as you drive from the Northern Territoy I can confirm these are in fact hills and not a canyon to be seen - though there are lots of gorges which are a whole different thing!

I can’t imagine that an American would for one instant believe that any part of Australia resembled the American deserts - they are so different its like saying the Sydney looks like LA! So I doubt Baz Luhrmann was trying to do that. So as soon as the Australia movie opens in the cinemas I am off to see what he’s up to. In the meanwhile here are some authentic photos of the Bungle Bungles and the Cockburn Ranges and I think you will agree they are a beautiful part of Australia

The Ord River irrigation scheme is the reason that small town of Kununurra exists. It was a development of the “think big” era of the 1950’s and 1960’s and a reflection of the frustration of Western Australian government who was plagued by water shortages in south of the state - where the vast majority of Western Australia’s sparse population lives.

Kununurra is on the edge of the Kimberleys and is in the climate zone known as the “Wet Tropics” That means from November to March, it rains, a lot. Unfortunately it doesnt rain the rest of the year so agriculture really isn’t an option. That’s why the land is traditionally developed as large, very large, cattle stations (or ranches as the American’s would call them).

By damming the Ord and creating the enormous Lake Argyle the irrigation scheme literally turned the desert to green overnight. Huge swathes of crops are grown with large irrigation channels flowing through the land.

Unfortunately the Ord Irrigation Scheme hasn’t been developed as quickly as might be: the politics are crazy - the shops in Kununurra can’t sell local vegetables: they have to be shipped over 3200 kilometer to Perth and back again (another 3200 kilometers)! Meanwhile the Murray Darling Basin in NSW/Victoria is basically destroyed from idiotic farming practices such as growing rice in an area of light rainfall!

Its a stunningly beautiful region, and this man-made oasis is really a pleasant change if you have driven from Darwin or Perth.