Tuesday 29 July 2008

Elevator Music

We're back in Sydney after traveling right up the coast to cairns, 3,500 km all together. The greyhound was pretty good without too many delays.
So after travelling such a way I thought you would notice a big change in scenery, after all our flight back from Cairns was 3 hours which is how long it takes to get to Turkey which is a total change from England.
Well it was hotter, more humid, but apart from that there wasn't much of a change, I guess some of the trees were different too. But the houses and buildings are really plain, and I actually miss pretty, old buildings in England.

As for the culture thing....what culture, Australia could have been 'created' 50 years ago and you wouldn't know. The Aboriginal culture is ignored and denied as far as I can see.
In New Zealand we were always being told nice Maori stories, about the waves in the sea, being a giants heart beat and Maori women creating sand flies to keep the people away.
I learnt Maori songs at the school and colours. If we went to the pub, we'd get talking to Maori's and they loved talking about their culture.
The Aboriginals keep to themselves, someone said to me that the Maori's had been more naive when Cook came along and believed that they would get a fair deal, which they didn't but at least they dont get the sort of racism now that the Aboriginals do. The Aboriginals knew Cook was up to no good and stayed away, but maybe it's better that they can still have their tribes and keep away from the western culture now. Sure some of the Aboriginals you see are alcoholics or tramps but I dont know what the Australians expect, im sure they'd be alcoholics too if there babies had been taken away from them.

1 comment:

Jamie said...

Sounds like Patagonia in Argentina. You go to sleep on a bus to scrub land and wake up eight hours later to the same scrub land, the bus could have stopped over night for all you know.