Pacific & Australia - part nine

My Australian explorations continue as we circle the continent counterclockwise. 

A Brisbane sign catches my eye and, of course, Canadians never, ever, ever misspell. Or perhaps vechicle's just another endearing Australian colloquialism. Like ‘arvo’ for afternoon; ‘bonzo’ for great and ‘ute’ for pickup truck. Thanks to http://www.koalanet.com.au/australian-slang.html for helping me understand Australian English. Invaluable. 

Dogs are different, too.  And not just the tail, note ears. 

The last ‘real’ house I lived in was my parents’ in the 1960s. But domestic architecture interests me. This delightful, slightly down-at heels abode is in Brisbane. 

As is this stunning 1938 deco house. It even has a World War Two air raid shelter.

(Shortly after I returned home, the house - Chateau Nous! - went on the market for $5,750,000 (AUS). Here’s the real estate listing, which I hope will still be accessible after the sale:

http://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-qld-ascot-124242574 )

Still with architecture, this is the Hamilton Island Yacht Club, work of Sydney architect Walter Barda. I’m reminded of Brazilian Oscar Niemeyer’s designs from the 1940s. See Niemeyer’s restaurant, casino and yacht club in Belo Horizonte. 

This curious - curious in that it’s Australia’s tropical north - classical building was Cairns’ city hall. Built in 1929 (presumably the part of the year when there was still money), it eventually became what, at a quick glance, looks to be a quite decent library.  On second thought, there are loads of classical structures in tropical settings. Perhaps it’s just the combination of a sizzling day and being a zillion miles from Greece or Italy. 

But I haven't come all this way to wonder whether a column’s Corinthian or Doric (turns out they’re Ionic). 

There are more saltwater crocodiles in this part of Australia than humans. 

And, given the chance, they eat people.

Which is why, when this one fancies me, my focus is suddenly lost. Hey! I wasn't scared. Just being cautious.

Lord knows why they’re called ‘salties’, almost an affectionate term.

We’re sailing from Cairns to Darwin. Virtually every recent report about the Great Barrier Reef has been gloomy. Aside from bleaching and crown-of-thorns starfish, which eat corals …

… ships like this have also added to the destruction. A Chinese shipping company’s just been fined $29 million (US) for ploughing into a reef.

Used to be said that the Great Barrier Reef was the largest living thing on earth, but apparently not. It’s a honey fungus in Oregon State. The BBC quotes an Italian chef as saying it goes well with spaghetti. 

Kathy and I have the day’s first coffee as we pass through the Torres Strait between Australia and Papua New Guinea.

Darwin brings more crocodiles and those willing to pay, $130 for one, $180 a couple, to frolic in the ‘cage of death’.

This strikes me as absolute lunacy until I realize that crocodiles aren’t stupid. 

Chopper's been through the act so often, he almost looks bored until a chunk of meat’s plopped in the water.

I have better ways of spending my money.

It’s so hot and humid in Darwin that, after a few minutes ashore, even my palms are sweating. 

The obvious solution is the Hotel Darwin and a pint of Victoria Bitter. 

Kathy looks on as sneaky Michael takes a picture of me.

My time in Northern Australia is drawing to a close. Not a moment too soon as the local newspaper today issued …

… its annual Cyclone Survival Guide. They should know. In 1974 Cyclone Tracy walloped Darwin. The city was levelled and dozens died.

This is all the cyclone left of the sturdy town hall.

As for the Anglican cathedral, well, at least the entrance survived and was incorporated into the new church.

Can’t resist finishing this post with a koala. Mind you, given the lethality of so much Australian wildlife (crocs, snakes, jellyfish), could this be the one koala in a hundred million to sink its claws into my jugular? I keep my distance. 

Brisbane to Darwin - 2114 nautical miles or slightly less than 4000 kilometres and twenty-six pictures. Next stop, Indonesia. 

Pacific & Australia - part eight

Jacaranda trees as we come up the river …

… into Brisbane. However, the view from an upper deck is as close as I’m getting to downtown.

Steps from where the ship’s docked is MacArthur Avenue. This may give those who know their history a clue to the background of my day’s activities.

While everyone else set off for botanic gardens, vineyards and koalas, I walk on my own to a quiet, very private, suburban street. It was here …

… that an extraordinary ‘Queenslander’ house was built in 1885. It was a home - an impressive one - until World War Two. When the Americans came into the war, General MacArthur, after escaping the Philippines, set up headquarters in Brisbane. Buildings all over the city were commandeered.

The house became one of the most secret locations in the Allied war effort. Even today, it's not widely known what occurred behind this hedge. I only stumbled on the story while researching ports on the trip. 

Central Bureau, a signals intelligence operation, established its nerve centre here. The house, once again a family home and not a tourist attraction, is sometimes called Australia’s Bletchley Park, an indication of just how important it was. 

In the garage out back - the original’s been torn down because of asbestos concerns - Central Bureau cracked Japanese communications. 

Intercept operators - here are three from the Women’s Auxiliary Australian Air Force - used the most modern equipment, IBM punch cards and British cipher machines. 

In 1943, Central Bureau is thought to have decoded a signal with Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto’s flight plan. Yamamoto, commander of the Japanese Fleet, had devised the attack on Pearl Harbour. American fighters intercepted Yamamoto’s plane, shooting it down and killing him.

The codebreakers work led to wartime headlines. 

The next year, in a recognition of Central Bureau’s vital role, the then commander of Australia’s military visited and posed at the main doorway.

Here’s the same place now and …

... just inside are Andree and Lawrence, who so kindly, long before I left Canada, invited me to visit their home. The warm Australian welcome, tea and conversation were memorable. Behind them two plaques commemorate what, seven decades after the war, few seem to know. And certainly not of Canada’s involvement.

It’s not a stretch to suggest the Allied intelligence effort here led, in part, to the super secret, post-war ‘five eyes’ agreement. The - it could be said controversial - intelligence gathering organization consists of Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and United States. This leafy Brisbane neighbourhood has been the setting for history. 

Pacific & Australia - part seven

Welcome to Australia!

Most are up before dawn for our Sydney arrival. They're on the other side snapping the over snapped Opera House. I, however, want the face at the historic, harbour side amusement park. 

Long before the face, a 19th Century writer extolled the attractions of Australia and New Zealand in contrast with Canada:

“Australasia is the natural resort of emigrants from the British Isles, and ... it will continue to attract thence a steady flow of population. Canada for the emigrant presents not a moiety of the inducements of these South Sea lands” 

(Under the Southern Cross Maturin Murray Ballou 1888)

Having had Canadian, rather than Australian, nationality bestowed on me, I await the wonders of the 'Lucky Country'. It better be good. 

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Bar Luna Park’s manic face and a jolly immigration officer, what does one take away from Sydney? In my case, random, often disconnected impressions. Having been here before, I enjoyably wander without particular purpose. No Mrs. Macquarie’s Chair or surfing beaches for me. But good coffee, cafes and oddities, yes.

Our obsession with being connected is now - except for ‘lost’ tribes in the Amazon - universal. This young man, oblivious of commuters passing his window, is absorbed in communication of a kind. 

Don't ask. Don't know. On the window of a dry cleaner that's closed. Perhaps someone more creative than me could turn it into a short story.

(January, 2017 - Since this was posted, my friend Richard in Melbourne (see part thirteen) has kindly done some sterling sleuthing. The dry cleaner’s owner explained that both Boris and Napoleon were cats. Boris, since passed on, lived with the previous owner for seventeen years. Napoleon is the current owner’s pet. When the business was sold, the former owner made the little poster and, as a joke, gave it to the new owner. I suspect the message from feline heaven to the new cat is - ‘Be careful about treading on my territory!’)

I have a particular peeve - standardized signs, instantly recognizable from Toronto to Tokyo, Sydney to Santiago. A depressing blight, although admittedly useful when there’s not an independent coffee shop or decent hamburger otherwise to be found.

So ‘Shark Hotel’ in all its glorious distinctiveness gets my seal of approval.

Sadly, this unusual chemist’s sign, which looks to be of the 1970s or 80s, has seen better days. The store’s days are over.

Who could resist a sign advertising corsets? This is on the side of a venerable department store, Mark Foy’s, which closed in 1980 and has become a court complex.

At a subway station entrance, a beautifully preserved, 1930s neon advertisement. 

No messing about, no hiding facts. No 'collision' or worse that wishy-washy term 'accident repairs'. Aussies get straight to the point. A smash is a crash is a smash. 

I pause at a pub. Polite Canadians would sooner give up Saturday night hockey on TV before they'd admonish litter bugs who toss their butts without a thought. Australians bring humour to the disgusting remains.

Australia has a history of union militancy and, in 1891, at a Sydney pub … 

… the country’s labor movement was born.  

The original pub was replaced by the 1919 building above, a popular watering hole in one of Sydney’s trendiest areas, Balmain.

An easy commute to Sydney centre, Balmain was once working class. Now, says a promotional leaflet, it’s an ‘eclectic waterside enclave’ with ‘a thriving culinary and cultural artisan scene’. This includes shops offering ‘directional Australian fashion’, whatever that is. What we do know is that where you trip over meditation classes is no longer home to factory workers, miners and dockers. Nor for humble, retired scribes who watch every penny. However, Australians are democratic lot and I’m allowed to stroll as long as I behave myself and don't sing ‘The Red Flag’ or ‘Internationale’. 

As in Britain, homes often have names. In Balmain, I find 'Clarinda'. Who was Clarinda, I wonder. What memory, what long dead romance, consummated or otherwise, led to the name on a 19th Century house?

For that matter, what would possess someone to name their home after a Muppet? This worries me until inquiries reveal it was named Elmo more than a hundred years ago.

On a posh Balmain side street, I find a ‘Rover 75’, the poor man’s Rolls, produced a few years after the War. I had a ‘Rover 105’, bought used in the 1970s. Unfortunately, parking in Hampstead, where I lived in London, was impossible and I sold the car, complete with its original tool kit in a handcrafted, sliding wooden tray. The smell of the seat leather is with me yet. 

Near the Harbour Bridge, another working class community under assault. Gentrification is a worldwide, some would say, plague, others improvement.

This iron stairway is in a threatened block of early 20th Century ‘workmen’s dwellings’.

Clicking on the link takes you a community group opposing redevelopment and shows pictures and an architect’s plan of the workers’ flats. 

http://millerspointcommunity.com.au/the-place/lower-fort-street/

Ironically, on a crumbling building, a poster for an exhibition about a vanished Sydney.

However, on the plus side, in a splendid state, is this handsome 1880s pissoir. 

I am intrigued, as obviously the gentleman is, by the unexpected sight under, of all places, the Harbour Bridge. It is - I checked - still in working order.

As we depart after two days, Luna Park's busier than it was at six in the morning.

Those prepared to pay $288 (AUS) to climb the bridge watch as we sail out.

Just to be contrary, I had thought about a post devoid of the Opera House …

... but, to keep people happy, include the shot. See? There it is in the distance. Satisfied?

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To say I have hardly done justice to a remarkable city is, of course, true. And, as we circle, how can one cover a continent in four or five posts? Impossible. Coming up will be but a few photos of, and inadequate comments on, Australia with a Bali temple or two tossed in.