It has been 2 weeks since my last post and quite a great deal has happened since. The most important event, or events really, have been the adventures of myself and my brother around the Australian east coast. My brother, who you may recall is studying in New Zealand to be a teacher, reciprocated my earlier visit to his country with one to my own. We had a full agenda and I shall do my best to report on them in subsequent posts. However, I will leave the details of our escapades for a day or two and give a quick snippet of life in Australia.
Firstly, despite nature's best efforts the country remains standing. There have been several days of high temperatures (it was 40C in Sydney today) with many capital cities baking. This has brought Australians to their homes away from home --- the beaches. The vast majority, I would guess about 80%, of Australians live within coo-ee of a beach. Every capital city, except for Canberra, is on a coast and to put that into perspective, Canberra, with a population of about 350 000, is Australia's largest inland city. The warm sun and sheer multitude of sand has created a vibrant beach culture in Australia. Surfing is like biking, just something to do on a summer's day. However, too much of something can be very detrimental, and this is certainly the case with sunlight. Australians are now being told that "There's nothing healthy about a tan", which is the exact opposite of what baby boomers were told when they were growing up. Australia has high rates of skin cancer and is now trying to combat this consequence of too much sun, along with the drought. And in case anyone was wondering, the domestication of the dog has continued unabated.
There was also an important personal milestone reached on recently while I was vacationing with my brother. On January 20th, I turned 26 years old, which means I'm that much closer to 30, he said with a shudder. A summer birthday where usually there is a winter birthday has proved an experience, though not as stark as one might imagine. I did wonder though when was my birthday, though, really? According to my mother, I was born at 16:20 EST 20/01/1983 in Ottawa and I'll have to trust her on that as I have no recollection of the day me-sen; I was pretty young. That being the case, that would have been 08:20 AEDT 21/01/1983 in Canberra so does that mean my birthday in Australia is January 21st? Should you celebrate your birthday adjusted to time zones? Come to think of it, a year is 365.2422 days long so every year your birthday is later by about 6 hours, until a leap year more or less corrects the problem. I doubt anyone has ever really given thought to this problem and I figure I'll just keep celebrating my birthday on January 20th; it's less confusing, or is it?
Another important birthday is coming up on January 26th, and that is the birth of Australia itself, though I must qualify that. On January 26th, 1788, the First Fleet commanded by Arthur Phillip arrived in Port Jackson Harbour and founded a city called Sydney. This was a collection of 11 vessels carrying mostly convicts who were forcibly resettled as punishment. For the first few years things were very inauspicious but after some time, the British managed to establish a thriving settlement, and later on an independent country. Australia Day (January 26th) is Australia's version of Canada Day, though the 2 celebrate slightly different events. Australia became a country on January 1st, 1901, though that event is not really celebrated, while Canada Day (July 1st), of course, celebrates the creation of the Dominion of Canada in 1867.
The qualification of Australia Day I must give though, is that it heralded a very different life for this continent's aboriginal inhabitants. Although no one can say for certain, it seems that the Aborigines first arrived some 60 000 years ago, though the date of first arrival has been pushed back before and this is only the most recent date. Australia Day, by some, has come to be seen as a celebration of the start of the oppression of this Australia's indigenous inhabitants or an invasion by foreign conquerors. Aborigines, like Canada's aboriginals, face significant health, social and economic problems today. Perhaps, with the apology issued on Sorry Day last February, this can be the first real Australia Day. Knowing how Ottawa celebrates Australia Day, I look forward to seeing how Canberra measures up but I suspect it will be a comparatively subdued affair. Most Canberrans have gone down to the coast and although there was a free concert today, my brother and I couldn't make it down. I hope there are fireworks tomorrow, though.
That's all I'll write for now. I'll begin posting the adventures my brother and I had in Sydney, Brisbane, Surfers Paradise and Canberra in a few days. Keep your eyes open for the new posts and accompanying photographs.
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