Australia is a young, contrastful, and ultimately vast place in time as well as space -- much like Texas. Like the Lone Star State, Australia was formed by a hardy, striving class of people. When I visited there a few years ago, Aussies (pronounced "ozzies") lived up to my image of forthright and open, balancing their earnest diligence with a hearty enjoyment of life -- much like Texans at their best.
Couldn't help myself -- I was humming "Waltzing Matilda" all the way through construction of this page. That brings up another Texas-Australia similarity: our most famous songs ("The Eyes of Texas" and "Waltzing Matilda") are not our official songs. That honor was bestowed on "Texas, Our Texas" and "Advance Australia Fair".
The Sydney Opera House is directly across from the Park Hyatt Sydney Hotel, which is itself at the foot of the equally famous Sydney Bridge. The area is known as Circular Quay.
Above: click for the larger image, and you may be able to see the hiding crocodile in the rainy Palm River, in north Queensland.
Very unfortunately, I lost all my digital pictures of Australia in a home computer crash. They were generally better than the film shots I made. That visit was my last use of the so-called "Seattle" film, which had gained fame from its stock of excess 35mm film from the movie industry. However, the Seattle Film Company abused the trust of its customers, and began substituting cheap, ordinary film that turned out to be quite highly contrasted, with glare spots and low shadows in the same prints. The company eventually was successfully sued in a class-action lawsuit, but the legal victory came too late for photographers like me. Still, the film pictures on this site should connote the sights I enjoyed in the Land Downunder.
Above: Melbourne Kangaroos Football Club give the visiting blokes the local welcome. The ambulances came on the field three times in the first period alone; a regular game, I was told. Players don't wear pads or helmets, of course.
Kuranda Rain Forest trip |
|
| From Cairns there is a spectacular day trip up to the Kuranda plateau through the rain forest. Going up, a 90-minute train ride is so scenically pleasant that it's easy to forget that building the railway cost many lives through that unforgiving terrain. The train stops for photography near the ferocious Kuranda Falls. On top of the plateau, Kuranda Village offers shopping and several outdoor eateries. Return is via aerial tramway, also 90 minutes over the rain forest. | |
 |
 |
On Australia's east coast, terrain ranges from the tropical oceanography of the Coral Sea in the north, featuring the Great Barrier Reef off the northeast coast of rain forest. Not far inland begins the vast Outback. Farther south is the Gold Coast, centered on Brisbane, a nice little city indeed. Sydney is on the southeast shore, and Melbourne is truly down under, across the Tasman Sea from Tasmania.
I was fortunate to be able to enjoy the east coast from Melbourne to Cairns and back again.
Primeval Rain Forest |
||
 |
 |
 |
Australia's east coast is home to more than half its population of about 20 million. Sydney, the largest city with four million inhabitants, enjoys a light-hearted rivalry with second city Melbourne. As a presumably objective Yank who visited both cities, I was asked repeatedly which I preferred. I couldn't quite identify my preference, only partly out of visitor's tact. I felt that I liked Melbourne a bit more, but couldn't articulate why. (click the thumbnail below to see two shots of downtown Melbourne.)
It wasn't until the end of my visit when a truly cosmopolitan woman, the world-class concierge at the world-class Park Hyatt Hotel in Melbourne, finally gave me another Texas-type analogy: "You date Sydney, but you marry Melbourne." (Dallas-Houston!)
The astounding strangler fig treeNot far from the outposts of Malanda, Yungaburra, and Peeramon, in far North Queensland State up past Cairns, there's a spectacular specimen of a strangler fig tree. This species is also known as banyan trees, and are a kind of ficus. But these aren't your grandma's room-sized ficus! One particular tree of the species of Ficus bengalensis in India is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records (1985) as the world's largest tree, with 1,000 prop roots and covering an area of four acres. The Hindus regard them as sacred because it is said that Buddha once meditated beneath one. Ficus religiosa is the sacred tree of Burma, Ceylon and India. |
|
 |
 |
| Strangler figs enter into an ultimately parasitic symbiosis with a host tree. After seeds are deposited in the host tree's branches by animal and bird droppings, the strangler fig extends roots all the way down to the rainforest soil. Over years, the host tree is killed so that only a hollow trunk remains. | |
Below: the Arbour Walk along the river in Brisbane, Queensland, changes with the seasons.
Below: this archtypical example of Victorian architecture is in Darling Harbour, Sydney.
Above: this is a not-great picture of a lizard perched vertically on the trunk of a bush, waiting for insects to visit the foliage. He was motionless for as long as I could see him.
Below: the root system in this Kuranda-area cavern must have taken decades or even centuries to grow.
The mystical cavern shown above must have inspired legends and awe among the natives -- it certainly awed me.
Awe-Inspiring Trees of the Rain Forest |
||
 |
 |
 |
Here's a great story about these trees, and us humans: on this particular tour, I was traveling with a group of Texans (from Garland, ranking not far above West Texas on the cultural scale.) Charitably put, they were good ol' boys (and gals). More precisely, they were just one bumper sticker away from rednecks; classic blokes, as the Aussies put it. In the midst of their loud braggadocio, I'm keeping my own sixth-generation Texanhood incognito so as to avoid being drawn in. I hate it when I have to do that.
Anyway, when we spread out to enjoy the spread of these massive, centuries-old, prehistoric-style trees, I was awed speechless by these giant entities. Dreading the loud prattle on the way back from my fellow Texans, I was swayed into speechlessness again when the loudest, blokiest good ol' boy of them all confided quietly to me: "Y'know, I almost busted out crying at these trees. That line from the hymn really is true: 'How great thou art...' " And danged if he wasn't a bit misty-eyed! Certainly, they were all subdued, deep under that red neck and the crass manner...all of us humans feel the same tugs on our hearts.
You can only imagine, and I can only remember, how intriguingly three-dimensional was the the digital version of this shot, without that pesky glare circle on the left.
Here's a profound Texas-Australia similarity:
"Pluralist nations like Australia, with no shared ethnicity and no deep historical traditions, need a strong sense of national identity to bind the people together," write the authors of "Imagining Australia" (2004). The authors suggest building that identity around shared values including egalitarianism, mateship, and giving everyone a "fair go."
And ain't that Texan?!
Chinese Garden of Friendship, Darling Harbour, Sydney |
||
 |
 |
 |
The good news is that I'll be back.