Slim Dusty: “Send ‘er Down, Hughie”

I’m certain that Slim Dusty’s popularity is strongly anchored in shared experience, because his songs capture so much of what Australia is like. For those of us on that bus, it was being trapped by a flood that made this more than just an amusing song — it was what we were living (well, except for the truck full of beer part).

When we rescue an injured motorcyclist at one point, I quote a famous verse from the poem,”Ye Wearie Wayfarer.” That same poem contains an “allegorical interlude” that I have always quite liked, and which I have always viewed as a good response to those who think I should travel fewer places and do safer things. It is the section of the poem titled “Potter’s Clay.” (And for those unfamiliar with the allusion, it refers to the comment in the the book of Isaiah that we are the clay and God is the potter who forms us.)

Potter’s Clay
Though the pitcher that goes to the sparkling rill
Too oft gets broken at last,
There are scores of others its place to fill
When its earth to the earth is cast ;
Keep that pitcher at home, let it never roam,
But lie like a useless clod,
Yet sooner or later the hour will come
When its chips are thrown to the sod.

Is it wise, then, say, in the waning day,
When the vessel is crack’d and old,
To cherish the battered potter’s clay,
As though it were virgin gold ?
Take care of yourself, dull, boorish elf,
Though prudent and safe you seem,
Your pitcher will break on the musty shelf,
And mine by the dazzling stream.

Eric Bogle: And the Band Played “Waltzing Matilda”

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 27,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 10 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Some things have changed. I note in my book that we could see the markers in Kakadu showing that things were scheduled to be “improved.” They have been. There is a hotel now at Cooinda where I had slept so peacefully beneath the stars. Boardwalks have been added in a few of the places in the Red Centre where we had to scramble and climb. The cities are bigger. And yet the things I love about Australia remain unchanged — primarily, the ease with which one can escape into the wilderness. I have returned to the rainforests, to the rugged coasts, and, of course, to the outback. I’ve seen places I promised myself for “next time,” and returned to places I love. Soon, I’ll begin recording those return trips, with photos and tales gathered on each adventure. Before then, I want to share a few bits of Aussie culture that I found delightful — music, poetry, history.

Now, however, I’ll just mention a few more changes — ones not mentioned already in posts on this blog. The contents of the Geological and Mining Museum that I loved so much in Sydney have all been transferred to the Power House Museum. So if you look for the museum I named, you won’t find it, but you can still find the wonderful minerals and displays of gold history. The place in the Argyle Center where I bought the golden wattle perfume has closed. I have found other perfumes that call themselves golden wattle, but never again one that smelled so perfectly like the wattles blooming in the mountains. On the other side of the continent, in Fremantle, the convict-era prison was at long-last decommissioned, and it is now a museum.

The food scene, while great when I first visited, keeps on improving. Australia never had a shortage of great eating options, what with the ocean so close at hand for most of the country, the warm weather offering glorious year-round produce, proximity to Asia and a migrant population contributing to the wonderful variety, and wine regions just about everywhere one turns. But since that first trip, more and more up-scale places have opened, and Australia is now a major foodie destination, with truffles and wagyu beef, and cutting-edge chefs taking advantage of all that land and sea have to offer. In fact, my second trip back, it took a bit of effort to find a humble meat pie — but I did succeed.

The cities are still handsome, and most offer delights not available on my first trip. However, most of what I enjoyed is still there, from the historic buildings to the great zoos, museums, and galleries to the ethnic diversity to the open-air markets.

Leave the cities behind, however, and nothing has changed. The land is still huge and open and compelling. I got farther out with each subsequent trip, seeing more beauty and wildlife, and falling more in love with “back of beyond.” As I wrote near the end of Waltzing Australia, “I wondered again, as I have wondered before, why this place moves me so. I am drawn to the remoteness, to the vigor, the fierceness, and the unfettered innocence of this land, and its spirit whispers to my spirit, and its song sings in my veins. I don’t know if this is cause or effect, but I do not need to know. I simply surrender myself to the pleasure of feeling it one more time.”

And each time I leave, I hope there will be “one more time.”

One such tale is in regard to the name of the airport from which I was flying. Sydney’s Kingsford Smith Airport is named for one of Australia’s many aviation pioneers: Charles Kingsford Smith. Having served in the Royal Air Force during World War I, Kingsford Smith taught aviation after being wounded. However, it was after the war that Kingsford Smith gained international fame. Among his several remarkable feats of aviation, he was the first to cross the mid-Pacific Ocean by air.

In October 1933 Kingsford Smith completed a solo flight from England to Australia in seven days and five hours, and in 1934 he flew with P.G. Taylor from Brisbane to San Francisco. Sadly, in 1935, Kingsford Smith disappeared and a companion disappeared during a flight from London to Australia.

If you’re keen on aviation history or biographies of people who lead dramatic lives and helped change the world, you can go here to read more of Kingsford Smith.

Sydney from the Airport

Both the print version and Kindle version will still be available for sale, if you aren’t an Amazon Prime member — or if you simply prefer to own the books you read. But for anyone with Amazon Prime, you can now read Waltzing Australia for free, as one of your membership benefits.

I hope this leads to many more people sharing my adventures, and that more people will find out what a dandy travel destination Australia is.

For anyone who has a different ebook device, I hope to have the book available on Smashwords soon, which means it would be available for most other ebook readers (including iPhones).

So if you’ve got a Kindle, I’m ready for you now: here. (And be aware — even if you don’t own a Kindle device, you can download the Kindle software for free on your computer, and then just read Kindle books there.) For other devices — stay tuned.

That is until 1813, when Gregory Blaxland, William Lawson, and William Charles Wentworth decided to give it a try.

I had not written about these three previously, as one cannot include everyone, but a comment left on my previous post about the Blue Mountains reminded me that these three were worth noting, if for no other reason than so visitors to New South Wales understand why these names appear so often in areas near Sydney.

All three men were well educated and fairly successful at the time of their exploration. Blaxland and Lawson were born in Britain but had come to Australia voluntarily. Wentworth was born at sea, en route to Australia. Blaxland’s family had known the botanist Joseph Banks, who had explored Australia’s coast with Captain James Cook. Stories of the new land, combined with the government’s promises of abundant property for “settlers of responsibility and Capital” had made Australia seem an ideal destination for the ambitious Blaxland. Lawson was in the military and arrived in Australia as part of the New South Wales Corps. Wentworth arrived as an infant, in the arms of his mother, who had been convicted of stealing “wearing apparel.”

Blaxland had hit upon the idea of climbing a series of ridges, rather than trying another foray up a dead-end valley. He invited Lawson and Wentworth to join him, and the three men set off in May 1813 from Blaxland’s farm, to try to learn what might lie on the other side of the mountains.

It was slow going, as the brush was dense and the men had to hack their way through the undergrowth. However, Blaxland’s idea worked. The ridges carried the men up to the top of the plateau, where they were impressed by the abundant trees and vistas of grassy plains that, as Blaxland noted in his journal, offered “enough grass to support the stock of the colony for thirty years.” More importantly, as Wentworth wrote in his journal, “we have at all events proved that they [the mountains] are traversable.”

It may not seem like it, but crossing the Blue Mountains was a very big deal for the colony. The narrow strip of flat land to the east of the mountains was already proving inadequate for supporting the growing colony of New South Wales. Crossing the Blue Mountains opened up the continent. It was the beginning of the colony becoming a new country.

Blaxland, Wentworth, and Lawson all had interesting lives after this important accomplishment, though Blaxland did not end as well as the other two. However, before his decline, Blaxland had one other important impact on Australia. He imported grape vines, made wine, took 136 liters of his wine to London, and was awarded a silver medal. Five years later, a larger shipment of Blaxland’s wines earned a gold medal in London. Though grape vines had been brought to Australia by the first European settlers in 1788, Blaxland’s wine was the first wine to be produced for anything other than local consumption, and it is viewed as essentially the beginning of Australia’s international reputation as a wine producer.

Lawson went on to be the first person to take cattle over the mountains in 1815, and he became a key figure in developing the colony. Wentworth became a lawyer and a poet, and worked tirelessly and effectively at obtaining a representative government for the young country.

If you’re interested in knowing more, the Australian Dictionary of Biography offers more detailed information on each of the men and their accomplishments. In addition, you can read the exploration journals of all three men on the Internet.
Biographies:
Blaxland
Lawson
Wentworth

Journals:
Wentworth’s
Lawson’s
Blaxland’s

The dampness highlighted the beauty of the mountains and the lush foliage, as you can see in the photo below, left.

Coming down the mountain, we stopped at an old, sandstone bridge. It is hard to identify things simply from photos, but searching for old bridges in the Blue Mountains, and comparing the photos online to the one I took (below, right), it seems that we had stopped to explore Lennox Bridge, the oldest bridge on the Australian mainland. (An older bridge exists in Tasmania — in Richmond — which I had seen earlier.) Built in the early 1800s of sandstone blocks, this bridge was for a long time the only way into Sydney for those traveling over the mountains. Today, it is still in use, though more modern bridges now serve busier highways. It has been designated a Heritage Site. But that first day, all I knew was that it was old and charming and looked oddly out of place, wedged between steep mountain walls.