Sunny Sydney day 1

 Lots of things going on back here in the UK, sources of sorrows, so I am trying to reflect on how wonderful my trip was and Sydney really was wonderful. 

It started the moment I got on the train.  Miles and miles of wonderful landscapes and the occasional fortunate view of a speeding Kanger, or a stock still Wallaby, plus a suprisingly good hot meal all at a reasonable price.  The only problem was the lack of internet, so whilst I had checked getting to the Youth Hostel on arrival, I was lost the minute I walked out the wrong door.  I knew the hostel was more or less over the road, but which road.  It took an hour to find something that was only five minutes from the station. I was still staggered that a modern train service and station neither had wifi or a map even to help travellers.   

Astonishing fields of rape seed I guess, often with lone trees poking through.  No where for Wallabies to hide, but towards dusk, in the small pockets of woodland, I did see them. 

So at first Sydney really annoyed me, a real wobble but then I remembered I had booked a special Aboriginal experiences tour at the Botanic Gardens.  It was not till midday,  it was really sunny and warm, so that gave me the chance to slowly wend my way down through parks basking in the heat, stopping to read my book in a park, dipping into museums till got to the gardens, where I went all Aussie and ordered a pie with my coffee.  On my way through the Gardens I had spotted a white guy doing a talk, and to my eternal shame and had thought on no I hope he is not doing  our talk as I wanted an authentic Aboriginal tour, but of course what he taught me, and I should have known it, is that because of their very complex history, people of aboriginal decent come will also often have a lot of white heritage too, in this case I think it was mostly Irish, but the guy and I apologise I have forgotten his name, absolutely knew both his native plants and the history of his people and he responded so well to our small group, four well informed white Australians, and two Europeans, that he spent and hour and a half with us rather than the hour we had paid for.  He even showed us how Bomerangs really work and possum pelts, all sorts of things which were not officially on the tour. 

The art gallery reflecting the juxtaposition of cultures, the convict artist for example made a good living for example painting the new middle classes, whilst aboriginal creations were at that point almost universally misunderstood. 

I wish I could have recorded everything he told us both of the history and the plants, he was astonishing.  Every part of a plant was known and is known by the First nation people.  For example there is a spike on one of the plants, which is perfect for spearing small fish, or there are plants which are deadlly if harvested in the day, but not at night or something like that.   The Botanic Gardens which are lovely were instituted almost immediately the white people landed and they wanted international, especially European plants, so the indigenous plants in situ are not the bulk of the plants found there, ironically though if the Europeans had left well alone and learned from the people they were trampling all over and killing, they would have discovered how well they could survive in this new land, instead of which when farming failed they sent word all the way to the UK for food.  It is probably a shame that food arrived as of course the Europeans almost wiped out First Nation culture.  We are in a climate emergency,  if more countries had followed indigenous practices we would not be in this situation.    There is still time to benefit from their knowledge, but we are already in a crisis, not helped by people like me flying, however, it was a privilege to mentally go back in time on this tour and understand more about what has been lost.  To that effect I would also recommend the novel Edenglassie, but Hungarian, Abororiginal writer, Melissa Lucashenko which I read whilst in Australia, and the factual book, Sand Talk.  

Plant with the spear spike

It is hard to return to the 21st century after such a talk, but I wondered on through the Botanic Gardens and was confronted full on by modern day Sydney, the opera house, the hordes drinking and enjoying life in the harbour, the huge range of tourists.  It was beautiful exciting, but....However, I virtually wiped this out of my mind the following day as I joined more of the hordes on Bondi beach.  

Sydney enjoys the spring afternoon