Australia: Alice Springs

Travel Date: 17 August 2013

Note: I am well beyond an outsider in Australia and there is a lot to learn about the Aboriginal cultures and ways of life. It is and can be a very sensitive topic in many Australian communities and if my wording or interpretation of what I learned is incorrect or offensive, please let me know. I am trying to be as truthful and as historically and culturally accurate as possible. Thanks!

Over the last few months, I've been watching the airline sales in Australia like a hawk. I was about halfway through my time in Australia for my PhD and was feeling a bit of a mid-Aussie-crisis and realised I might not get to see everything I wanted to if I didn't hurry. I'd planned to visit Australia's Red Centre in the southern Northern Territories in January when I have a bit more time, but then it dawned on me that the weather in the outback in January can be brutally hot! Then, a sale came in from Tiger Airways, from Sydney to Alice Springs and I just decided to book it. Now that I'm sitting in the airport waiting to head back home to Sydney, it was well worth the time off.

Alice Springs from ANZAC Hill and the western MacDonnell Ranges

Alice Springs is not a large town by Australian standards, though it is no tiny burb either. Because of its relative proximity to some of the outback's most famous sites, notably Uluru (the largest rock in the world), Kata Tjuta (aka The Olgas), and Kings Canyon, Alice receives a lot of tourism traffic by air as Aussies and backpackers alike flock here from all over the coastal towns and cities. Alice Springs has a more important place in modern Australian history, however, as being a telegraph relay station between Darwin on the northern coast of the Northern Territories and Adelaide on the southern shores of South Australia. The town even gets is Aussie name from a small pool of water seen near the Telegraph Station a few kilometres north of the present city, a rarity in the dry centre. In fact the pool of water was a temporary puddle, really - a result of previous rains which flooded the Todd River (which is otherwise a dry riverbed). For a short period of time in Australian history, there was a 9th territory - Central Australia - of which Alice Springs was its capital city. Eventually Central Australia merged with the Northern Territories and ceased to exist, but that didn't stop Alice Springs from remaining an important town in the otherwise desolate Ausralian Outback.

To the local Arrernte communities the land around Alice Springs was created by ancestral beings that created the landscape. Specifically, the MacDonnell Ranges were formed by three caterpillars moving across the country, digging their way through the land as they passed Alice Springs. Red river gums, found growing in the dry Todd River bed are sacred and believed to be ancient ancestor caterpillars as well. Another story involves a fight between an ancestral dingo and an anonymous adversary who both fought over a woman and in the midst of their fights created parts of the surrounding mountains including Mt. Gillen, a prominent point on the nearest mountain. The Aboriginal Australians have a deep connection with their surroundings because these ancestral beings formed every part of the landscape as they moved around and so these creation stories, or Dreamtime stories, form the foundation for all rules of social, political, and religious life in Aboriginal communities.

When I arrived in Alice Springs Saturday mid-day, I wasn't expecting much to be going on and thought I'd spend some time at the Natural History Museum, a few kilometres west of the town centre. After chatting to the receptionist at the YHA Hostel (a very nice hostel and in a great location) suggested a few other ideas and I settled on walking out of the city to the north where the original Telegraph Station was located. It was a beautiful walk through rocky sandstone and granite outcrops, red river gums, desert oaks, and beautiful wildflowers along the dry and dusty riverbed of the Todd River. The sun was roasting at midday but I finally reached the Telegraph Station after about an hour of walking only to find that there was a $9 fee to get in to the historic site. The very friendly lady (please note copious amounts of sarcasm here) working the small shop scoffed when I asked if there were student discounts and when I asked if there was anything to see without paying, she just pointed to the exit. So I walked around the fence enclosing the historic compound and then up a hill on which one of the Australian trig points, used as reference points for geographic mapping, was located and snapped a few photos of the MacDonnell Ranges to the west.

The US military personnel from nearby Pine Gap racing the ANZAC
servicemen in the hotly contested annual competition. The US
regained the winning title after last year's loss

Heading back into town along the River Walk I was in for a surprise. Contrary to my Lonely Planet Australia Guide (whose Alice Springs information urgently needs to be completely revamped!), one of the small city's most well-known and exciting events was happening on my arrival day: the Henley-on-Todd Regatta. Even though there is rarely any water flowing along the Todd River through Alice Springs, it is the site of one of Australia's most famous sailing races. Instead of actually sailing on water, the boats used in this regatta are just metal framed, canvas-wrapped "boats" that are picked up by the sailors and run along the race course on the dry river bed and back to the starting point. Hosted by the Mayor of Alice Springs and a number of other emcees, the boats are sponsored by local businesses and anyone in town, or from anywhere in Australia (or the world), can compete in various events including kayak, mini-yacht, and big-yacht races, hampster wheel relays, and tug-o-war for various age groups.

One of the main highlights of the event is a big-yacht race between the Australians and the Americans (military personnel from a nearby station). Apparently last year the Australians were the victors, but the Americans, racing in the USS Mayflower, prevailed this year and were quickly riddled by tongue-in-cheeck humour from the emcees but to great applause from the crowd who are just there for a good time. (The Americans also won the tug-o-war competition, as well, I might add!)

The Navy (left), The Vikings (centre), and The Pirates (right)

But the day's events culminate in the largest gunship battle to occur on Australian soil every year. Right at 4:30 three "ships" built onto the back of large trucks representing the Vikings, the Navy, and the Pirates enter the arena and drive around battling each other. The ships launch water balloons, fire coloured saw-dust canons, and hose each other down with high-pressure water guns all while trying to evade attacks from the other ships as the crowd cheers them on. Even though the Vikings were the first to run out of water and most-bullied by the Navy and Pirates, they seemed to be a long-time crowd favourite though it was the Pirates who came away victorious this year. The poor Navy lost despite their high-energy attacks and subsequently endured a host of adult-humoured, Village People, seamen-themed jokes from the announcers.

Interestingly enough, the Henley-on-Todd is probably the only regatta in the world to be cancelled due to wet weather as the usually dry riverbed surges with flash-flood waters flowing through the city (and this has happened at least once!).

After the Henley-on-Todd finished, I made my way up Alice Springs ANZAC hill where their memorial honouring fallen, former, and current armed service men and women dominates the town's skyline for a beautiful sunset over the western MacDonnell Ranges. It was my first taste for an outback sundown and what a sunset it was! The ever-present dust in the air in central Australia makes for beautiful red and blue sunsets and the silhouettes of the denuded mountains to the west made for a spectacular end to a great day.

Once the sun went down I found some quick take-away and went to bed since I was getting picked up the next morning for my 3-day outback tour.

New Zealand: Waitangi Treaty Grounds

Trip Date: 04 January 2013

Hi everyone. It's become the time in my PhD where I really cannot afford to provide you with the long posts of the past. I noticed there was a lot of repetition between the blog text and the photo captions and so I am going to try and minimise redundancy by giving a brief overview of where I went, what I did, and how I got there with more detail of what I saw and learned in the Flikr photo captions. I don't really know how many people read this thing through and through, so I hope you can appreciate my changes.

So, back to my trip to New Zealand waaayy back in January...

...I left off at the end of a harrowing day of near-death experiences and kiwi encounters and by the next morning, I felt I was due some rest and relaxation. I drove in to the town of Keri Keri for some breakfast at the little Cafe Zest which had some of the best blueberry muffins I've had in a very long time and then on to Paihia, the entrance to New Zealand's famed Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands was my main destination, ever since seeing ads for it in my local rail station in Sydney. I'd read that it is useless to visit the Bay of Islands if you don't actually go on the water, so I found myself a YHA hostel on a houseboat called, Rock the Boat, but more on that in the next post. Rock didn't leave until 5pm later that day so I had all morning and afternoon to myself.

Waitangi Flagpole at the site where the Treaty of
Waitangi was signed between the British and
the Maori peoples in 1840.

The town over from Paihia is Waitangi and is famous for being the site where the British colonists and many Maori tribes came together to sign a treaty, giving the Maori recognition of their right to the land, provided the Maori with the status of British citizens, but gave the British Crown control and governance of New Zealand. Not everything was really fully agreed upon and many Maori chiefs refused to sign. Nevertheless, the treaty became a symbol for New Zealand independence, much like the Declaration of Independence in the US. The grounds include the site where the treaty was signed, where the first Governor of New Zealand had his house (a very modest one), a traditional Maori meeting house, and one of the largest canoes (waka in Maori) in the world.

When I drove up I was greeted at the entrance by some young men and women dressed in traditional Maori clothes inviting me in. It made me very skeptical at how kitchy this site was going to be - I though cheesy reenactments and a badly presented tour were in store, especially at the price of $45 to gain entrance to the Treaty Grounds, a tour, and a ticket to a cultural performance. I thought to myself, I'm only here once so I'd better see what it's about, and in the end I could not have been proven more wrong or found a better way to spend $45 in a day!

I had about half an hour to explore the Treaty Grounds on my own but then I made my way over to the Meeting House where we were greeted by the young woman who was out front. She had a very cheery demeanor as she explained the significance of the cultural performance we were about to witness. We were told that we, as visitors, were a tribe and she selected a tribal leader for us. We were then going to be tested as a tribe by the hosting tribe (the performers) to determine whether we came in peace or in war. And then the show started with the hosting tribal leader stepping out in front of us swinging a piece of wood on a string around him, making whooshing noises in the air, snarling with his tongue stuck out and his eyes bulged so you could see as much white of them as was possible. He was shortly joined by two other men in their intimidation dance and a small group of women came out on the veranda and started to chant. Finally, the host tribal chief laid down a leaf (or feather or flower?) on the ground and our chief picked it up. We were seen as friends and welcomed into the Meeting House.

The Maori tribal chief beginning the welcoming ceremony to Whare
Runanga, the Meeting House. Through intimidating dance, snarls,
facial expressions, and weaponry, his goal is to see if we came in peace.

While we were instructed to treat the outside ceremony very seriously, the attitude of the show changed immediately once we were inside. We were introduced through song and dance to traditional Maori customs, stories, weapons, and history for the next 45 minutes. The music was enchanting, the performers amazingly talented, and I was in awe for the entire show, sitting there with a big smile on my face, thinking how much the rest of my family would enjoy this! The Meeting House itself was just as incredible as the performance with wooden tikis carved into panels and geometric murals painted on the walls.

After the show, the performers greeted us outside in the courtyard and those of us who have no shame were allowed to hold some of the Maori weapons for a photo op, giving our try at intimidation... Let's just say I didn't quite play the part as well as the performers!

I then joined up with a tour group and we walked the grounds, led by a colourful storyteller of a tour guide to the different sites, including the large, 117-foot long waka (canoe), traditionally carved in one piece from the felled trunk of a totara tree in a sacred ceremony in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi in 1940. The 3-meter wide stump of the tree used for its construction is housed at the end of the waka's canopy and is just massive! The waka itself was built as a war canoe that could carry 135 people! It actually floats and is taken out onto the bay from time to time for special celebrations.

If you ever find yourself in the Bay of Islands area, do not miss this site!!!! It is well worth the $45 and well worth an afternoon of your time!

Sydney: Sculptures by the Sea

28 October 2012

Every year, in the middle of Spring - the Southern Hemisphere's Spring, that is - a festival out along the coastal walk between Bondi and Tamarama Beaches draws thousands of Sydney-siders and tourists alike! It is called, Sculptures by the Sea, and it is a very interesting festival. Now, I am no art critic by any means, nor do I know even the slightest about art, but sculpture art is my favorite. My all-time favorites are the big, geometric sculptures made from metal, stone, and wood. Something about the simple clean lines that tend to follow an unwritten set of rules just seems to please me. With that said, I also like abstract sculpture art, as long as it feel natural, not forced, and not overly symbolic, political, or preachy.

My friend Caitlyn (a fellow Michigan Wolverine) and I decided to see what all the fuss was about and spend a few hours one Sunday afternoon weaving our way through the throng of crowds of amateur photographers and tourists with their  DSLR cameras trying to get the most abstract angle of each sculpture in the best light possible. I don't look down on these people, nor can I get frustrated by them, because let's face it, I am one of them!

A Fire, Panguni Uthiram, and an Abba Dance Party

We woke up late this morning (Ruth, Matt, and I) and though we were pretty lazy early in the day, excitement picked up in the afternoon when we heard Jacob, Ruth's little brother, saying there's a fire in the trash chute. All of the flats in the HDB (Housing and Development Building) dump their trash down these chutes into a bin on the main floor. If someone, say, throws a lit cigarette down the chute, it can start smoking the rest of the trash in the bin. Since Ruth's flat is on the second floor, we are the first to get smoke rising up out of the bin. This also happened this past Christmas Day and both times they called the Fire Department. The Civil Defense (firemen) arrive packed into a little car called, The Red Rhino.

The Red Rhino. I'm pretty sure I made a Lego Fire Truck that looked like this one!

The Civil Defense putting out the trash fire while laundry hangs from bamboo poles above

The trash fire

With the fire out, Ruth, Matt and I started a few games of Sequence while life returned to normal in the kitchen. Only two games later (which don't take too long), we came out to the dining room for lunch and in that short period of time, Ruth's mom, put together this huge spread!

Not long after lunch was eaten, we had to start getting ready to go support Ruth's cousin as he participated in Panguni Uthiram, a Tamil Hindu festival. It was a completely new experience. Most participants are commemorating prayers of either joy, sorrow, or frustration and do so by piercing their bodies and carrying kavadis, attaching fruit, or pulling a ratham from one Hindu temple to another. During the set-up, there are prayers and blessings bestowed upon the participants and their rathams and a lot of singing, drumming, and chanting. Often, the participants' chests, backs, and sides are pierced by often thick metal spears and sometimes the face, arms, or legs are also pierced. Some attach fruit to their piercings. Those carrying kavadis (see below) will usually have upwards of 100+ thin spears poke into their skin. They are usually harnessed into their kavadis, but sometimes even their stomachs are pierced with the supports of these large metal displays. Anyone pulling a ratham will have their back pierced with large metal hooks. Ropes connect the ratham to the walker's back. The idea of the piercing is to show a type of bodily sacrifice to the gods. Each participant walks a route from one temple to another carrying milk, which is sacred, and upon reaching their destination the milk is poured over the walker as a type of anointment. 

Here's a video of some of the walkers getting ready to start their procession.

Someone getting ready to start their walk. Ropes are attached to a ratham.

Man with oranges attached to the piercings in his body

Man carrying a kavadi. Each tip of the metal spears is pierced into his skin. The kavadis are typically elaborately decorated and often adorned with peacock feathers, which are sacred. All walkers go barefoot.

Ruth's cousin preparing for his walk. They will usually participate in this event one, three, or five times, though some continue each year of their life. This is her cousin's third, and last time, so his ratham (the shrine) was very elaborate.

Getting hooks pierced into his back.

All walkers will have their tongue and cheeks pierced with spears, as well, so during their walk they are totally focused on their thoughts and prayers and their sacrifice.

During the walk, Ruth's mom sings songs in Tamil, the Indian language spoken in southern India, where this festival originates.

Ruth's cousin on his walk, pulling his ratham.

A view along the route from one temple to the other - a distance of over a mile

 Here are some other photos from the festival:

This man went all out. He not only carried the kavadi and had all of the spears pierced into him, but he had the four vertical poles supporting the kavadi pierced into the skin around his stomach and lower back. AND he had hooks pierced into his back and also attached and pulled a ratham during his walk. In this photo he is facing his ratham, which is lit up. His party was nice enough to let our pass them on the route because he was taking his time and had a very festive group of supporters with drums, cymbals, and singing.

...I really hope I did not fall too far from understanding Panguni Uthiram, but if I did, please do not think of me as ignorant. It was a lot to take in!

After Panguni Uthiram, we quickly headed back to Ruth's flat to change our clothes and put on some party ones because it was time to go to her Uncle Patrick's 50th Birthday Celebration. And a party, indeed! We arrived late so there was already a lot of dancing going on - mostly to 80s/90s music, the majority of which was Abba! Ruth has a very large family and everyone there was so friendly and welcoming. One of her cousins is an Elvis impersonator and even performed a few songs for us (no photos of that, sadly). We had a good time dancing and didn't get home until 3am! Talk about a packed day!

The obligatory conga line

Dancing with Ruth's mom

Dancing with this woman. I think her name is Barb?

Ruth and Matt giving their feet a rest

Back at it!

Photo bomb.....GO!