Tag Archives: Australia

Eastern Australia with Annie

Reaching the end of my tour through Australia I have come from Darwin to Cairns, through Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney. Taking in the coast of Queensland I passed Annie in Brisbane, through the beautiful Whitsundays and up to Townsville were I spent longer than necessary due to hurricane Ita.

“Monday, August 8th – Weighed anchor at daybreak, and were pushed merrily forward by strong SE breezes. We sailed swiftly up the coast as far as Townsville – a pretty looking town of foreign appearance, with its wharves and business houses close down on the beach, whilst the villas and private residences stand on the little nooks and corners of a hill at the back. The officers of HMS ‘Myrmidon’, which was lying in harbour, soon came on board to see us. They had broken their rudder head outside the Barrier Reef, where they too were hard at work surveying, and had come into Townsville for repairs. The anchorage proved rolly, there being no protection whatsoever, and I had rather an uncomfortable night.” (Annie Brassey, 1887)

I didn’t make it as far north as I’d hoped. Cairns was as far as I got. Thursday Island and the Torres Straits had been my goal. It was always a long shot. Difficult and expensive flights and time constraints made this ultimately impossible. My reason for such plans a result of Thursday Island being the last place Annie set foot. While Darwin was the last place the Sunbeam docked, Thursday Island was the last place she visited.

Whitehaven Beach, Whitsundays, Queensland (Louise Kenward, 2015)

Replicating some of Annie’s photographs from East Australia to create postcards, the displays of work in progress has broadened. Our journeys becoming more entwined. I veer in and out of time frames, perspective shifts. The object from the archives only serves to create a greater sense of unreality and fantasty. Enter ‘Spike’ the platypus. Named Spike for his poisonous sharp protrusions on his rear feet for fending off attackers. Witnessing these in the wild near to Cairns I recall being hypnotised by this other world of make believe creatures. Swimming, diving and feeding, dozens of platypus having their supper.

Spike the platypus, Bexhill Museum (Louise Kenward, 2015)

“After landing and taking a walk through Townsville, the shore going people pronounced it to be quite as clean looking and prosperous as Bowen, but with more business going on. The town which has a population of 12,000 is built on a tongue of land between the sea and Ross Creek. It consists of one main street containing banks, public offices, counting houses, and well supplied stores and shops. The bustle in the streets and the flourishing and prosperous appearance everywhere were quite cheering. Townsville owes it’s prosperity to its railway, which is already opened to a distance of two hundred miles into the interior, and which has made it the port for a wide area of pastoral country and for several promising gold fields.” (Annie Brassey, 1887)

Post Office, Townsville (Louise Kenward, 2014)

The railway station has since moved and extended but remains vulnerable as heavy rains washed away track, leaving me stranded. Roads eventually cleared of flood water and the bus was my means of escape, north to Cairns.

Old train station, Townsville (Louise Kenward, 2014)

Returning to Australia & the Northern Territories with Annie

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While I travelled in one direction, more or less, the journeys of Annie’s that I tracked were multiple. This meant that mid way through my journey, and just as I arrived in Australia, Annie died. It was not unexpected, I knew the date, time and place, but it was still met with sadness and some pause for reflection. It didn’t mean the end of Annie as travel companion, but from here on in I was travelling backwards through time, as far as Annie was concerned at least.

The last place the Sunbeam docked before Annie’s demise, was Darwin. This was the point of arrival for me in Australia, making my reaching this new world full of mixed feelings. Losing Annie here was a blow, she had, by that stage almost completed an entire loop around the country, and I had grown quite used to my virtual companion. I’d become quite attached, the process of travelling, of writing, had led me to find a strengthening connection.

Early morning, Darwin waterfront (Louise Kenward, 2014)

Arriving at dawn to a whole new world, in every sense, I experienced the ‘reverse culture shock’ often cited by travellers returning home after long journeys, adding to my sense of disorientation. I hadn’t expected to experience it mid way through, but after travelling through so many poorer parts of the world, adapting and establishing routines of one kind or another, to arrive in (an apparently) squeaky clean, shiny and empty Darwin took me by surprise. I had arrived after four months of crowded streets, bustling markets, squat toilets, mopeds piled with everything and anything (including the kitchen sink, entire families and livestock), it was noisy, colourful, chaotic. I loved it. Darwin was silent. Its wide pothole free tarmac streets empty. When a car did appear on the street it spotted me and stopped, allowed me to cross the road. I was dumbfounded. The best travel advice I have ever read is about crossing roads in Vietnam “just walk, keep walking, keep a steady pace and everything will drive around you” and that’s how it happens. I was well practised by now at crossing apparently impenetrable roads. For something to stop for me to cross, especially when there was nothing else on the roads, captured a whole sense of being somewhere else, somewhere new, somewhere surreal and unexpected. It was unsettling. I walked to the waterfront. The sea is a constant. It soothes. The only people I saw at 6am were joggers. No taxi drivers, tuk tuks, men chasing me down the road wanting to mend my shoes. No market stalls, no one tried to sell me anything or get my attention. Just a couple of joggers. One of whom said ‘g’day mate’ and truly sent my head in a spin. Living up to stereotypes I had walked into the set of neighbours perhaps, a TV version of Australia. Finding public toilets was the next shock. They were open, they were clean, there was running water, it was hot, there was soap and somewhere to dry my hands. There was even toilet paper in the cubicles. I missed Asia terribly. I didn’t know what to do in all this brilliant white sparkling new place. It seemed unblemished and sanitised. I felt very much on my own. Added to that the stark reality (of sorts) that this was the last place Annie visited it made for a surreal experience where I questioned the ground under my feet.

Revisiting then, in the context of Bexhill Museum and the collection held, I am reminded of many of the things that I am continuing to grapple with and understand better. The Aboriginal culture was not evidenced in the Irish bars or the smart cafes of Darwins’ wide streets. Travelling to one of the National Parks, Lichfield, was my first taste of the incredible country and rich history of Australia. Arriving in the wet season, Kakadu and its examples of Aboriginal art were temporarily cut off. Roads flooded. Impressive termite mounds the area is famous for gave me some impression of this being a different land like no other. I chose not to visit crocodile ‘side shows’ designed for tourists, entertained by the proximity of wild and hungry animals. How tantalising it is to be in the presence of creatures with the power to kill you. And as you enter Australia you are told ‘everything can kill you’.

Oceania cabinet, Bexhill Museum (Louise Kenward 2015)

Alas, I digress, I will return. For now I will illustrate my day ‘In Conversation with Annie’ and some of the objects from Northern Australia held at Bexhill Museum. Spears with heads made of beer bottle glass, axe heads of granite and shell pendants decorated in geometric designs. Many artefacts refer to the early settlers arriving in Australia. Planning to run some workshops in the near future I decide to experiment with my own drawing practise and return to using charcoal, trying out some of the things I think might be interesting for others to try. Of some of the wonderful things on display it is a little disappointing the North Australian objects are not especially appealing to draw. An axe head of granite and spears…a challenge. Rolling out paper on the floor in front of the cases, kneeling with charcoal and putty rubber, it is nonetheless an interesting exercise. I consider how vast Australia is, how much variation there is likely to be in objects and designs and I enjoy a return to working with charcoal, the challenge of yet another new texture to attempt.

Working at Bexhill Museum, charcoal & pastels on lining paper (Louise Kenward, 2015)

The process is enjoyable. Working in another part of the museum, feeling more connected to the gallery spaces (literally and metaphorically as I sit on the floor), it feels as though there is at last some loosening up. Movement is key. Different positions of sitting, drawing, different materials. Working with things behind glass pose their own difficulties but with recent experience I imagine handling the spear heads, engaging sense of touch even on a virtual level. The sharpness of the tips, smoothness of the spearhead and consider the making of them, the person who had formed this one I select as my favourite in Northern Australia over a hundred years ago.

‘Bexhill to Bexhill’ meets TarpSpace

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In a development from my ‘trail of breadcrumbs’ (collecting, making and placing crochet pebbles along my journey), I made a piece in response to an arts group call out from TarpSpace. TarpSpace are an artists run initiative based in Adelaide, some of the artists from which spent much of last year on a road trip around Australia in ‘Henry’s Mobile Studio‘. It was this project I had hoped to have the chance to collaborate with. With dates of my trip not quite matching up with theirs, however, it was a shame not to have been a part of the HMS. Despite that, as an extension of the project (mine and theirs) I was commissioned to make a piece once I arrived in Bexhill, New South Wales. I was also very well looked after in Adelaide by the tarpy crew (arriving just in time to enjoy the fringe as well as Grid Festival) and had the great pleasure to meet Jessie, Jock and Brad.

TarpSpace “aim to work outside of the constraints of traditional gallery spaces. Rather than having the artist fit the work to the space, we want to fit the space to the project. The only consistent factor is the use of a large blue tarpaulin – other than that, how the project develops and where it happens is entirely up to the artist involved…pushing the boundaries of what and where an art space can be.” Jessie Lumb. This worked really well with my own model of practice, often working in public spaces.

Once I arrived in Bexhill, my time was initially spent seeing as much of the area and talking to as many people as I could. While planning for this part of my trip I had anticipated making some work in connection to the train tracks which run through the village, the Open Air Cathedral and/or the disused brickworks, famed for their incredible blue waters. The train tracks and the brickworks won my greatest attention, drawn to things disused and abandoned.

I collected some stones from the train tracks. Along with a pebble from Tasmania that I had collected the previous week, I placed several crochet pebbles/stones on the railway tracks (also long abandoned). I spent time walking along the tracks, imagining what it would have been like when the trains were running. The presence/absence of a train service altering the community considerably.

Then, armed with a shiny new sheet of bright blue tarpaulin, not entirely dissimilar to the shade of water at the brickworks, I set about making a crochet pebble with it. Sited at the brickworks I found a lump of brick suited to the task. I needed to make a larger scale version of the previous ones in order for it to work. The tarp strips needed to be thin enough to crochet but wide enough not to split. This was a trial and error that took me much of my travels along the Queensland coastline to establish a working model. On my return to Bexhill a few weeks later I completed my task and placed the brick back at the brickworks, now covered in blue tarpaulin crochet. A frame was made from the edging of the tarpaulin sheeting, suspended at the boundary of the water. Liz, whom I stayed with, was an able and willing supporter, took photographs documenting the installation and placement of said brick. It, along with my other pebbles and stones have been placed and left. Liz said she would visit to see what happens to it.

Work in progress, fine tuning crochet hook sizes, ‘yarn’ width etc. in Queensland (Louise Kenward, 2014)

Installation of work at the waters edge, old brickworks, Bexhill, NSW (Liz Anderson, 2014)

‘Bexhill to Bexhill’ meets TarpSpace – crochet brick, old brickworks, Bexhill, NSW (Louise Kenward, 2014)

Shark! (Under the sea – part 2)

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The Great Barrier Reef is arguably THE destination in Australia. Learning to dive at the beginning of the year, this was firmly on my list of places to visit. I had my concerns though, The Great Barrier Reef is under threat, at risk from many directions: climate change, mining, tourism. It may not be all it’s cracked up to be, the parts visited from Cairns by mass tourist vessels, the enormous industry around it with fixed pontoons out at sea and 300 passenger catamarans shuttling back and forth fill me with sadness and fear about the impact that this is having on the very thing it is celebrating. I wonder how long this is sustainable (although it probably has more to fear from the mining industry at the moment, as it dumps waste out at sea). My hope is, however, that it is such a vast entity that at least these pontoons keep tourists in roughly the same place.

In Borneo, just after leaving Indonesia, I went diving, making sure I could still do it, and without my instructor. All went well, despite poor visibility. I saw a turtle for the first time, and a lobster. After a wobble in my confidence around New South Wales I booked a dive while sailing in the Whitsundays (not the best outfit to go with but I did see a reef shark for the first time), I haven’t looked back. Stuck in Townsville and uncertain if I would make it to Cairns, I booked another dive – officially on the Great Barrier Reef here – and it was (as they say) pristine. There was no plastic, no nappies, just sea life. It was a couple of hours off the coast and felt wonderfully remote, a bit of a secret spot. The corals were beautiful. I did, however, learn to dive in Bali. I fear this has, to some extent, ruined me, I cannot be as awe inspired by these wonders, my standards are high, but this was beautiful. A mixed blessing, I finally got to leave Townsville, but on the day I could have dived at the ship wreck Yongala, renowned to be a pretty special place. Arriving at Cairns Easter weekend, with just three days before my flight back to Brisbane, my only option was to book a trip on one of the enormous catamarans out to a pontoon. The weather was ropey, so to be on a small boat may not have been a good idea, as it was the boat I was on was carnage, almost everyone was seasick. The dive briefing was a thorough and professional affair, it turned out there were just three of us diving, this was some relief, at least once under the water it was peaceful. Despite all the commotion on the surface, there remains a good deal of life under the water, a particularly friendly Maori Wrasse, several feet across, greeted me and, ignoring the structural supports, the reef was being looked after and in what seemed like pretty good condition, Tour operators are also required to fulfil various ‘environmental’ checks and demands. The highlight was the turtle, having passed us by several times during the day, just before ascending back to the surface it started having its lunch. We were able to ‘sit’ and watch for some time as it ate algae from the coral, just the three of us within a few feet of each other. It felt a very special thing to be able to do.

One of other great things you can do in Cairns is to go to the Reef Teach talk and adopt your very own marine biologist. From the tiny things to the giants of the sea, it gives a great over view. The extent of the reef is incredible, one of the wonders of the world you can see from space and filled with such variety of living things. One of the parting words for this talk is also about sharks, and it is something that has preoccupied me during my time here, following the Western Australia shark culling programme.

My first go with a Go-Pro…this is where the white tipped reef shark was a split second before (admittedly the visibility wasn’t brilliant)

‘Jaws’ has a lot to answer for, it certainly holds a good deal of responsibility for my own fear of the open water. But with more information and understanding fear is reduced. What is alarming is that much of Australia (and the rest of the world) seems to be acting on the basis of these fears, killing sharks in enormous numbers (that and shark fin soup, which is tasteless admit it China, where sharks fins are cut off and the creature is left to drown). The majority are of no risk to people. When my dive guide at the Whitsundays made the sign for ‘shark’ I have to admit several things ran through my mind, but seeing it was breathtaking. The white tipped reef shark, just a few feet long and with no interest in us, was sleeping on the sea bed. As we approached it swam off, and as it did there was something incredibly tangible about its history and time that it has been here (more than 450 million years). Something so elegant and graceful and a feeling of another time and another world.

I can’t say I’m a fan of sharks now, but I am certainly in awe. They are also at the top of the food chain out there so we need them. Unfortunately too many are being killed, some are near extinction. This is senseless. Sadly around 10 people die each year from shark attacks in the world. In response to this however, 100 million sharks are being killed every year, 100 million!. To put this in context, the most dangerous creature in the world, is the mosquito, responsible for 725,000 deaths each year. In Australia, you are more likely to be killed by a eucalyptus tree than you are a shark. With all the bravado of how dangerous Australia is, it seems to have swallowed its own story, nothing there actually wants to kill you. Cancer, diabetes and heart disease are still responsible for most deaths. Something seems to be getting lost in communication. We need the sharks. We need to be careful venturing into their habitat (as you would with lions and tigers) but killing them all is not the answer. So this is my parting plea, to raise awareness in what small way I can and to be someone who will talk and learn more about sharks. The Western Australian cull has come to an end for now, I only hope that some sense is seen and that the devastation that has been done to many endangered species can have time for repair.

For a beautifully illustrated film of the plight of sharks watch this.

“It’s complicated”

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Alice Springs: a homeless day service run by the Salvation Army entirely occupied by people of aboriginal descent, others are ever present, wandering the streets trying to sell their paintings and get their bus fare home. Large expensive shops selling ‘original aboriginal art’ seem to be just about the only place I didn’t see any actual aborigines. Much is made of the ‘Dreamtime’ and the art work and the sacred sites of the aborigines, almost as if they weren’t there anymore. I have tried to be balanced in my approach here and am conscious of how recent some of the atrocities have been, many in living memory still. These are things that cannot be changed now, but again and again I have encountered this inequality of what tourists are taken to visit and who is taking them. Many projects are much better than others at listening and engaging with the aboriginal communities, and many of the tours I went on were very good at discussing this, others were dreadful and some simply refused to discuss it at all. It is clearly a complex issue and one that Australia is struggling to get to grips with.

Uluru (Louise Kenward, 2014)

Since Alice I have seen hardly any aborigines, a few travelling on the trains but none in the cities of Melbourne or Sydney, even fewer on the eastern coast as I journey from one town to another through Queensland. Except for Townsville, I saw several in Townsville (I also had a lot of time in Townsville so saw more of it than was entirely necessary – stranded by cyclone Ita). Even the Lonely Planet cites Townsville as having an underlying level of racism. I have also encountered many who were not begging or selling paintings on the streets, going about their day to day lives, families play in parks and people go to work, just like anyone else. There remains a significant disparity however, generally speaking, and this is what I have been trying to get more of an understanding of.

A tour of the Blue Mountains introduced me to a great tour guide who, at the end of the trip shared that his grandfather had been one of the ‘stolen generation’. Taken for adventures where they navigated their way by the stars, his grandfather never spoke of his childhood. His grandfather had been taken from his family in one of many attempts to ‘assimilate’ the indigenous people. Placed with an Irish farming family he was taken as a slave, not young enough to be put into an orphanage and not old enough to be killed. They think he must have been about 15 years old to have been ‘saved’, not yet a man, but a boy who would have gone through many of the teachings and ceremonies on his way to manhood.

Blue Mountains, Sydney (Louise Kenward, 2014)

While there seems to be some progress made in re establishing land rights to the aborigines, now acknowledged as the ‘traditional caretakers’ of the land, and this is cited in all the National Parks, it seems that a great deal of inequality remains and a good deal of trauma still to recover from. In many parts of the country the aboriginal tribes were completely wiped out. With those that survived this atrocity, the introduction of Europeans and their wayward ways of alcohol and sugar have been too much for some to cope with, impacting detrimentally on many communities. For others they are, despite everything, surviving and surviving well.

Tasmania: a plaque marks the spot of the last death of an aborigine. Treated particularly harshly in Tasmania, aborigines were systematically killed, and appauling treatment meted out.

Fraser Island: one of the key tourist destinations along the east coast of Queensland, where aboriginal tribes have been completely wiped out, no direct descendants remain. In some attempt to hold a vestige of the history there are sites which remain notionally sacred, where aboriginal men cannot visit because it was a ‘woman’s place’, like the creek which was a site for giving birth. This information is still told but it does rather have a hollow sound to it, and a feel of stable doors being shut long after there is a horse.

Whitehaven Beach, Whitsundays QLD (Louise Kenward, 2014)

I take a trip, sailing around the Whitsundays and to the infamous Whitehaven beach. The most beautiful beach it seems impossible to exist, with swirling pale turquoise waters of multiple shades, changing as the tide comes in and goes out, painting an ever changing scene over white almost pure silica sands, the softest I have ever walked on, they don’t even burn your feet. Beautiful white sands, like the ones you see in the photographs of distant exotic lands. Yet this is set in such tragic history. The Ngaro tribe were the previous inhabitants of the area, signs at look out spots mark their occupation with small plaques saying things like ‘can you imagine the children of the Ngaro people playing and running on the beach?’ and you look down again at the sands and think yes, yes I can imagine the children running and playing there, what a wonderful place that would be to live, to be able to play in the sea and the sands. But there aren’t any Ngaro children running and playing in the sand. It is filled with sightseers over for a few hours at most, trailing through the sites and taking photographs of themselves and each other in well rehearsed poses and group pictures before moving on to the next stop. And it feels terribly terribly sad. Many of the tribe were killed by European settlers, and many settlers killed by the Nguro. In seeking to establish a truce a meeting was called at this very beach. Alas the Nguru people did not stand a chance, they were surrounded and killed on the spot. It is said that a curse was placed upon the site and a hollow deep sadness sits heavily in this beautiful place behind the facade of tranquility.

Maybe it’s a no win situation, if there are no such markers or reference to the previous inhabitants of the land then they are wiped out entirely. If there is, it looks insincere. Perhaps I am expecting too much, but perhaps it is the slightly clumsy way with which things are done that leaves it feeling like the original people to live in these places are again being taken advantage of.

Considered to be the oldest living community to walk the earth, carbon dating has found evidence of aboriginal existence in Australia for some 70,000 years. This bears such significance it questions the ‘out of Africa’ theory of evolution. Living with their environment, through two ice ages, surviving in some of the most inhospitable places that exist, there are probably one or two things we could learn from them.

Bexhill Revisited

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Returning early to New South Wales for my flight on to Canada, I spent my last few days in Bexhill. Spending it in the village with Liz, Denver and Reece made it all the more special and was an opportunity to see Bexhill from another perspective.

Bexhill 4, Lismore 10, Louise Kenward (2014)

Positioned ‘on the edge’ at the border of Bexhill, Cosy Camp farm is the name of a place found only in story books or nursery rhymes. Overlooking idyllic countryside the dairy farm has been in Selwin’s family for several generations. Not for the first time the longevity of a place and a family’s history is described to me in terms of its cow occupancy.

Coopers Creek, Cosy Camp Farm, Bexhill (Louise Kenward, 2014)

People have been very generous with their time and hospitality and I have come away with new friends and rich resources for further perusal and research when I return to the UK. Books on local history, the school, and also the aboriginal tribes who lived in the area before European settlers ever arrived – and who wisely lived at the top of the hills rather than in the valleys where all the ‘new comers’ settled, and promptly got flooded. These along with family stories and anecdotes I shall keep safe until time allows that I can write and (I hope) do these precious stories justice on my return home.

One of the trips I made with Liz and Reece was to Protesters Falls, Nightcap National Park, just outside of Bexhill (and can be seen from the Open-Air Cathedral). This stunning site was preserved after what was the first organised protest in Australia to protect this beautiful place from the logging industry. The first organised protest and a successful one at that, as the area, now preserved for future generations as a National Park, it seems amazing that it would have ever been under threat. Lismore has seen a variety of incomers over the years, and this is one of the things that makes the area of Lismore and it’s surrounding villages (including Bexhill and Nimbin) such an interesting place. An area predominantly of cedar cutters and dairy farmers since the nineteenth century, the influx of people to multi occupancy residences following the Aquarius festival in 1973, has led to a more diverse population and cultural environment with a rich mix of attitudes and beliefs. It is widely agreed and accepted now that Protesters Falls is an area of beauty that should be preserved and looked after.

Protesters Falls, Louise Kenward (2014)

I am awoken, however, my first morning in Bexhill to travel to the Bentley site for a sunrise start to support protectors in what is the most recent threat to the local environment. Coal Seam Gas and the fracking industry it seems is the modern day equivalent of the logging industry. Bentley is the site that Metgasco plans to mine for gas with potential detrimental impact on the community and environment surrounding, including Bexhill water supply. Having left the UK not long after protests in West Sussex at Balcome, this becomes a new link that connects us across the world. Community is not so different and nor are local issues or concerns. The current one is CSG and as I write I understand that police involvement is getting ever closer. If Metgasco can be kept from Bentley there is chance that New South Wales can protect itself where Queensland could not, and they will provide hope that once again it is possible to protect the environment in ways that perhaps others can learn from, and which will in the future be seen as a generally good idea. This seems like a much better idea than using unconventional mining techniques that remain untested as to the potential they will have to undermine the foundation of local environment, leaving scars across the landscape, and (as I understand) all for a company to be able to quick freeze their yoghurt. It is possible to find out much more here in this recent local article. I have been particularly struck by the influence of the wonderful Knitting Nannas and local farmers who are taking a stand together and showing that this is not a protest of the ‘extremists’ or the ‘activists’, but a local community coming together to protect the land.

Bentley protectors, Louise Kenward (2014)

Bentley, Louise Kenward (2014)

Bentley protectors, Louise Kenward (2014)

The ‘Lock the Gate’ campaign also has the support of the local Mayor, Jenny Dowell – which also goes to show the strength of community here. During our conversation over tea and custard creams, Jenny shared with me some of the stories and context within which I find Bexhill and Lismore today. The history of the festival, the cedar cutters and the way the community adapts to challenge and new comers was a fascinating insight that helped to put things into a more rounded perspective for me. This was not just a small village with pretty countryside, but something with more depth and contrast that could be easily overlooked on first sight.

Tea with Jenny Dowell, Mayor of Lismore and villages, Louise Kenward (2014)

Mayor Jenny Dowell, Chambers, Lismore (Louise Kenward, 2014)

I am now leaving Bexhill, New South Wales for Bexhill, Saskatchewan (Canada). Themes of humanity and community have been strong throughout my journey and to have spent more time in this small village has confirmed that our links and connections are far greater than the fact we share a name.