Dry, Old, Salty and Infertile

By Hanah Goldov

To our American families I can assure you that we are all enjoying our time with our new Australian families here in Brisbane. Melanie and I are happily settled in a small town house with our new mum and dad, a young couple who enjoy playing card games and touch football (or “footie”), which is a very different game from our American football, but that’s another story. As Katy previously mentioned, we are realizing that much of our time here has miraculously disappeared, but I feel that we still have many things yet to do before returning to our mundane American lives. With projects to prepare, papers to write and tests to study for, we are remembering that we are here first and foremost to go to school. This fact was easy to forget while hiking through the Blue Mountains, following kangaroo tracks in the bush, or swimming at Straddie’s subtropical beaches.

After a free day on Tuesday that was spent studying at the library—with a short break to dip into Allison’s pool—I found myself back in our classroom on Wednesday for a full day of lectures and student delivered presentations. Peter Kopittke, a soil expert from the University of Queensland, gave us a fascinating lecture on the formation and degradation of the Australian landscape. He began by telling us that the most important thing to know about Australia is that the landscape is dry, salty, infertile and old, four conditions that do not sound particularly inviting. The most rainfall that the center of the country got in the past year is just less than two inches. This lack of rain causes harsh living conditions for both plants and animals. The combination of low levels of rainfall and the fact that the water that is stored in the ground (or groundwater) and has high levels of salinity (or salt), adds up to a less than ideal situation for growing crops throughout Australia.

One way that salinity occurs in Australia is through dry land salinity. This takes place when the natural landscape is cleared, often for agricultural purposes, and salty groundwater rises because there are no longer any deep-rooted plants to drink the low-lying groundwater. Another type is irrigation salinity, which occurs when plants are overwatered, so much that the groundwater rises and the salty water kills all of the shallow rooted shrubs and plants. Both situations create a landscape that is impossible to live or grow crops on. In fact, some of the most fertile soil in Australia is in northern Queensland. But it is inhospitable to plants because it has some of the worst salinity in the country.

Professor Kopittke taught us that there are two ways of dealing with this salinity. The first is to re-plant all of the original vegetation back into the landscape so that the deep roots of native plants will drink the lower and less salty groundwater. The problem here is that you cannot ask a farmer to abandon his crops and re-plant the original, native landscape, especially when farming is most likely his sole livelihood. The other solution is to dig large trenches to drain the salty water. However, the problem then becomes, what do you do with all of the extra salt water? The conclusion being, once again, that Australia is an extremely inhospitable environment for any animal or plant that depends on water. Naturally, we have found it hard to believe that Australians have chosen to dedicate much of their land and economy to sheep, cattle, corn, sugar cane and wheat, investments that are extremely water intensive and foreign to this dry, salty, infertile and old country.

This is an example of how salinity made this landscape
in Western Australia inhospitable for its native vegetation.

This diagram shows how salty groundwater interrupts
access that plants have to fresh water.

As we have learned in previous lectures, the earth’s crust is made up of a number of continental plates, and the entire continent of Australia sits in the middle of one of these plates. As a result, continental Australia contains very few mountains because it sits on no plate boundaries where most geologic activity occurs. Most land formation changes have occurred on the eastern coast due to a process called rifting. Rifting occurs when an uplift of magma in the ground causes two continental plates to be pulled apart, which then causes a deep valley to form between the two plates. 95 million years ago, this process occurred between Australia and New Zealand and led to the formation of the Great Dividing Range along the eastern coast of the continent. The consequence of Australia having so few mountains and very little geologic activity is that the soil is very infertile; it no longer has the essential nutrients and minerals for most plants to survive.

Professor Kopittke also demonstrated that another problem that currently plagues the Australian landscape is erosion, which is the process by which soil, rock and water is transported in the natural environment from the source and deposited elsewhere. Erosion is a natural process but it has been increased dramatically by human land use in Australia. It can severely damage a landscape in a very short time. When the natural landscape of an area is destroyed, often by grazing animals, the barren soil is exposed and can easily be eroded by wind that carries the soil and deposits it somewhere else. The result is huge scale dust storms that engulf entire Australian cities.

Here is a dust storm that occurred in South Australia.

Following our very informative, yet slightly discouraging lecture on the harsh conditions of the Australian landscape, we took a short lunch break and then began our second round of neighborhood presentations. Remember way back to when we were in Sydney, we all split into groups to do an in-depth study of specific neighborhoods around the city. We have once again done the same project but this time in Brisbane. First and foremost you should know that the Turrbal people are the traditional Aboriginal owners of the land that we now call Brisbane. The Turrbal mob refers to their land as Mian-Jin, which means ‘place shaped like a spike,’ and they have lived here for tens of thousands of years. 

Our four neighborhoods, the CBD/Spring Hill, Fortitude Valley,
 Kangaroo Point and South Brisbane, are shown on this map.

My group studied the historic Central Business District (CBD) and Spring Hill, the original land that was settled by Europeans in 1823. The CBD/Spring Hill is home to the Queensland parliament house, which you might have learned about in a previous blog, as well as the Spring Hill Baths, the first swimming pool in all of Queensland, and the historic Old Windmill, which is only one of two convict built structures still standing in Brisbane.

The Old Windmill sits on a hill and overlooks the Brisbane CBD.

Adjacent to Spring Hill is a neighborhood called Fortitude Valley (or just The Valley), which is named after a boat called the SS Fortitude that arrived in the area in 1849 with 249 Scottish Presbyterian migrants. This suburb is known through the city as the center for entertainment, arts and high-end commerce. Due to its Presbyterian past, it is filled with churches, some of which have been converted into bars and nightclubs. It also has less savory venues such as strip clubs. In 1999 residents of The Valley started complaining about the level of noise that had developed and began a campaign called “Save The Music” to stop the residents from shutting down all of the music venues. The police have now created an entertainment precinct so that venues within the precinct are exempt from strict loud noise laws and residents outside the precinct can happily live noise free.

An old Presbyterian church that has now been
 converted into a bar called ‘The Church.’

Just across the river is Kangaroo Point, which is cleverly named because it historically had many kangaroos and is shaped like a point. Pretty original. After Brisbane’s discovery, the area of Kangaroo Point was cleared and used for cultivation of crops. By 1843 the first land sale took place and the area became an urbanized suburb with about 80 houses, a wharf, a ferry service to north Brisbane, a sawmill, a brick-works, and a postal receiving box. When large-scale immigration to Brisbane began in the late 1880’s, Kangaroo point became the Ellis Island of the city. An immigration depot called the Yungaba, an Aboriginal word meaning ‘welcome’ or ‘resting place’, provided immigrants with temporary housing. It received its first group of 299 immigrants from England.

South Brisbane, which includes the neighborhood of West End, is the last neighborhood that we learned about and is the home to the GED office. West End, named for its similarity to West End London, was a hub of industry in the early 20^th century. Thomas Dixon’s tannery and shoe and boot factory (1908), Tristram’s soft drink factory (1928) and Hume Pipes Co. (1932) are some examples of the industry that took over the neighborhood. Later in 1988 the world expo came to Brisbane and led to the revival of South Brisbane. Many buildings and attractions were erected, including the noticeable Ferris wheel and Sky Needle, which we can see from the GED office, where we attend class everyday. The needle has a bit of an interesting history. It was originally going to be moved to Tokyo Disneyland following the expo. However, it was bought instead by a local hairstylist named Stefan, painted in rainbow colors towards the top as a sign of gay pride, and moved to Stefan’s corporate headquarters in South Brisbane.

The sky needle reminds me of the Space Needle
 in Seattle, Washington, where I grew up.

For each of our neighborhoods we also studied the effects of the 2011 Queensland floods and previous floods that have affected the area. The general consensus was that the recent floods were detrimental to all of our neighborhoods in some way and hard work was done to transition the city back to a normal state. Here are some photos of the effects of past and present flooding in Brisbane. I am sure that you will agree that these photos touch a full range of emotions:

An arial shot of the 2011 flooding in the CBD

Flooding in the streets of the CBD

Someone diving into the water during the
 1974 flooding of the CBD

Jared, Sarah and Katy demonstrating where
 the water level was in the West End

On Thursday we received a lecture on woman’s suffrage in Australian history from Shirleen Robinson, a senior lecturer at the University of Queensland.  She reminded us that Australia was the second country in the world, after New Zealand, to allow women to vote. We were then introduced to the two waves of feminism in Australia. The increasing level of female education and employment prompted the first wave from the 1880’s to 1910’s. The second wave, in the 1960’s and 70’s, was partly sparked by the American feminist movement in addition to an incident that happened in a local Brisbane bar. On the 31^st of March 1966, three determined women walked into the Regatta Hotel, and when they were refused service, because women were not allowed to be public bars, they chained themselves to the bar and threw the key in the Brisbane River across the street.

Thanks for sticking with us throughout the last two days; I hope you have enjoyed learning about this fascinating and historically rich, yet dry continent as much as we have.

-Hanah Goldov

What's it like to be an Australian?

By Melanie Frank

The crowd roared higher with excitement as the Broncos tackled one of the Cowboys. Broncos? Cowboys? Are we back in the States? No my friends and family members, we are not. We are in a much better place. A place where athletes tackle each other with zero padding, a place where the game never stops so teams can realign or strategize, a place where the players are able to pull the opponents off the field by their shirt collars and not have a penalty called... if you haven’t guessed it by now we were at a rugby game.

It was a National Rugby League game to be exact. It was great and it was exciting, and it was definitely a fast paced sport.  Up in the nosebleed section of the Suncorp Stadium, we watch the massacre happen below. From so high up we could not really get the full range of emotions that one might feel when down close by the field. From up above our view of accidental head bashing and neck crunching moments was diluted. Yet even close to the back row of the stadium we were able to see as every so often the game would pause for moment as an unconscious or injured player lay on the field. 

As I cheered on the Brisbane Broncos (an obvious choice, as they so happen to have the same colors as my favorite Quiditch team- Maroon and Gold), I tried to remember what I had learned that day in school so I could keep up with what was going on during the game.

This will make all you sports fans jealous: one of our school lectures that day was all about Australian sports. We talked about cricket, rugby, and the Olympics. We learned that Australians often strongly identify with their brutal but talented sport events and players.

So what I learned in school that day is that the rules of the game go something like this:

There are 2 teams on a rectangular grass field each with thirteen players. The game is played in two 40-minute halves. The objective is to get the rugby ball (shaped kind of like an American football) to the opposing team’s goal line, where placing the ball down with distinct force in the “touch down” area scores the points.  It reminds me of American football in the way that it has the same type of long opened goal line that extends across the field, but unlike football you can not just run into the area for the goal to count. The ball must actually be placed on the ground with purpose for the team to gain 4 points; this is called a try, what we would call a goal or a touchdown. If a team has made a try then it is allowed to kick the ball through the funny looking goal post located at either ends of the field, near where it scored the original try. A successful kick can gain the team an extra 2 points. So that is scoring…. The way in which you actually get the ball to the other end is where the brutality comes into play. A player is allowed to either carry or kick the ball forwards or pass it sideways or backwards towards their fellow teammates. Along the way the opposing team will tackle the player with the ball until there is either a turnover or steal. A turnover happens when there have been six attempts for the defensive team to try and make a try. HA! - Confusing, I know! If the defensive team is unable to make a goal before 6 tackles have been made then the guy with the ball must turn it over to the other team and the battle starts all over again.

The game quickly came to an end. The final score came down to North Queensland Cowboys 16, the Brisbane Broncos 14. I was sad to see the excitement end but I was also happy that there would be no more injuries for the rugged rugby players for the rest of the night.

Over the past few days our lectures have dealt not only with sport but also Australian families, national identity, welfare, crime/violence, and the ethics of anthropology/archeology. For the most part, what I have picked up from these classes is Australia is not much different from home. Their family dynamics are much the same as in the United States. The same holds true for their welfare system and crime/violence statistics. However, in Australia the welfare state offers more universal benefits such as healthcare and affordable education than in the US. Other benefits also include income support and housing assistance. Much like the United States, Australia’s welfare system tries as much as possible to rely on market solutions. However, the Australia welfare system is a little more socialized.

When I first came here I had a sense that in general Australia was a safer and nicer nation compared to the intimidating streets of many cities in the United States. What I found out in class the other day was that yes, Australia does have a slightly lower crime and violence rate than America. What I learned is that in an international comparison of country crime rates the percentage of citizens victimized in Australia is at 16.3% whereas in the US the rate is 17.3%. It turns out that England & Wales have it way worse than both Australia and the US, with 21.8%. The US, as it turns out, has a higher assault and sexual assault rate in comparison with Australia but for motor vehicle crimes and burglary we have the same percentage. I guess it seems that American men have something to learn from these Australian chaps on how to treat a lady properly.

This gets me to the topic of national identity. Despite the fact that Australians celebrate their unique endemic species, they still face the problem of how to define themselves as Australians.

Australia’s identity crisis stems from being a white western nation isolated from other western nations.  Because of this fact a segment of the population can come off a bit xenophobic. Some fear that a mass migration from their neighboring nations could disrupt their vision of a white westernized Australia.  They fear Asian people migrating in from above and Pacific Islanders all wanting to claim some of the pristine shorelines of the country. From 1901 to 1973 Australia went so far as to have an actual White Australian Policy. This policy aimed to exclude all non-European immigrants from entering into their country. While the discriminatory policy no longer exists, 40 years since its termination Australians’ historical fear of being overtaken by the East still somewhat persists today. However, with the current globalization of the world and Australia’s strong import and export relationship with Asia, they are beginning to embrace a fair amount of immigration from the north as they try to deal with new issues of multiculturalism. 

Even though Australians seem to be going through an identity crisis there is a persistent image of Australians being relaxed, friendly, laidback, rugged outdoorsmen with a strong passion for sports. Just the other day as information of the Japanese Earthquake spread all over the Australian news channels, they still seemed to find time to slip in a few minutes to talk about soccer and rugby highlights.

A day in the life of an Australian requires a hot sun, a giant huntsman spider chilling in the corner of your room, and drinking a cold refreshing beer as you cheer on your favorite rugby team. Yes my friends and family members, for the most part we are starting to lower our loud American voices and blend in. It took some time but I think we are getting the hang of it.

Everyone taking a break in between our classes at GED.

View of the rugby game at the SunCorp Stadium

Everyone watching the game in the nosebleed section

Me and Marni at the rugby match

The Times They Are a-Changing

By Katy Erlich

Hello family and friends,

It’s mid-March, and we’re getting into that scary part in the semester where there’s so much behind us that we are baffled at what happened to the time. It’s a mixture of thrilling (when we recall everything that we’ve done) and horrifying (we have to return to our mundane American lives in about a month and a half), and most horrifying is that it’s now technically autumn here. Alas, the days of sweltering heat and suffocating humidity are no more.

In case my dry excuse for sarcasm was lost on you, that last one was absolutely a joke; no one should ever miss that heat. What is left in its wake are pleasant days and cool nights. I assure you, we will have a lot less to complain about.

It so happens that last Tuesday the 8^th of March was International Women’s Day, a fitting segue into our lectures for that day (centering around issues of gender in Australia). Our cushy bubble of twenty-first century Portland, full of left-leaning zeal, can induce the regrettable condition of forgetfulness on many social issues both past and present. My own generation should consider itself quite fortunate, I now realize. Battles for things like suffrage, equal (or nearly-equal) pay, and basic respect were fought by activists of previous generations. Ladies, I tip my hat to you.

Our lecturer for the day, Jenny Kaighin, introduced us to the women’s movement in Australia, which has many similarities with the US equivalent as well as its own distinguishing features. Let’s start off with a basic citizen’s right: the right to vote. I think it’s relevant to point out that Australia was the first country to legislate women’s suffrage, a right that become universal shortly after federation for all states. In fact, the Northern Territory allowed women to vote before Australia was federated in 1901.

At the same time, Australia is still very much a patriarchal country. When we think about the iconic stereotyped “Australian”, we tend to picture someone who approximates Crocodile Dundee. That, or a tan surfer. However, the idea of the “Australian woman” is somewhat lost on us. I would say that this is a remnant of the overt sexism (which has morphed into a quiet, subdued sexism) that once pervaded Australian culture. Consider the origins of White Australia: shiploads of convicts forced from their homeland to toil in a continent they might have likened to hell. Now take this image, throw in a bit of bushranger, and turn it into a mythology. It’s a recipe for machismo if I ever saw one.

From what we’ve learned, it’s safe to say that women in Australia were for many decades seen as accessories rather than integral, productive members of a growing nation. The language of the 1950’s that we’re all so familiar with encouraged women to forfeit their independence in exchange for a family-based lifestyle. For some women today, that is truly where their goals lie. But let’s be honest – options are nice.

The idea that women (endearingly called ‘the gentler sex’ by certain individuals whom I would like to have a word with) must be protected from the world by men is slowly becoming an Australian value of the past. Nevertheless, we see sexism rear its ghastly head in crafty ways, namely in Australian politics.

The current Prime Minister of Australia is Julia Gillard of the Labor Party, which is the Australian equivalent to the Democratic Party (a side note – is it not confusing that the Australian Liberal Party is the equivalent of the American Republican Party?). In order to be a successful Prime Minister, you need to have a great deal of socio-politico-economic knowledge, or at least that is what most people would say. Apparently, all of us logical beings are wrong. It turns out that in order to be a successful Prime Minister, your kitchen’s decorative fruit bowl must actually be filled with fruit.

Prime Minister Gillard apparently made the mistake of leaving her fruit bowl empty during an interview at her home, leading the insightful media to conclude that she is a poor homemaker and therefore unfit to lead a national government.

Yeah, I don’t get it either.

But let’s not judge the Aussies just yet. Think back to the 2008 US presidential elections. Remember those two ladies we heard so much about? Palin and Clinton? The attention they got for their suits, hairstyles, and cadence of speaking seemed at times to overwhelm the details on their political platforms. There is a very sneaky game being played out in the realm of politics; whether we admit it or not, social norms dictate how women are seen in politics.

The matter of Aboriginal women’s struggle is a whole different story altogether. Take the 1950’s housewife scenario, which I posited in a somewhat negative light: a rather sheltered life rich in amenities where the principal concern is taking care of your husband and children. It sounds like a prison for many of us, but to an impoverished, overwhelmed Aboriginal woman living in a racist country, it could sound like paradise. Rather than fighting for their independence from this protectionist mindset towards women, Aboriginal women often found themselves longing for any kind of home stability. As you can imagine, this thrusts a wedge in the women’s movement because not every Australian woman wants the same thing. It means that the outcomes of the women’s movement are not necessarily representative of the desires of all women, just those with the loudest voices and the greatest numbers. In many ways, Aboriginal women have historically been (and to a degree still are) the most disadvantaged group of Australian citizens. From one front, they faced the glaring racism against their people and culture, and from another, sexism further stunted their independence and livelihood. It almost makes the white women’s movement seem whiney by comparison.

Even progressive social reforms present in the twenty-first century can’t hide the undercurrents of antiquated values when it comes to gender. Despite these concealed setbacks, women in Australia have made great strides since their initial rights were endowed upon federation. One example close to the Australian heart is the right to drink at bars (yes, now we too can drink too much Victoria Bitter and regret it the next day). On a more serious note, self-reliance and independence amongst Australian women are as strong as ever, the next step being mandatory equal pay between the sexes.

Phew. I didn’t know I had such a soapbox feminist in me.

The issue of women’s rights in 2011 is not nearly as volatile as it was in decades past, making it somewhat of a backburner issue in the grand scheme of things today. A much younger point of controversy in Australia centers around homosexuality. Many of the questions are similar to those being fiercely debated in the US at both the dinner table as well as Congress. Again, our Portland bubble makes us forget that the US still has a great deal of homophobia to deal with. Australia as well is, and I quote from Jenny Kaighin, “still a very homophobic country.”

The legality surrounding families of same-sex couples is multi-faceted and incorporates questions of the meaning of marriage and childcare. Gay marriage is not legal in Australia, but there is a rule that any couple living together for several years in a committed relationship becomes a de facto couple, and legally they have many of the same rights as a married couple. Although this might seem a suitable alternative to a formal marriage, the symbolism behind this law underlines that homosexuality is merely tolerated, not accepted. The actual ceremony of marriage is also greatly desired by many same-sex couples, especially by those of a religious creed that wish to be seen as married in the eyes of their religion.

Although Australia is not as religiously charged as the US, there is still a desire from a certain demographic to keep marriage a heterosexual right. Whether for religious or other, more nebulous feelings, factions of political leaders and citizens fiercely hold onto the institution. Prime Minister John Howard of the Liberal Party (which takes a conservative stand, mind you) was the first Australian leader to explicitly stipulate that marriage must be between a man and a woman with the Marriage Amendment Act of 2004.

Not long after, our dear President George W. Bush followed suit and made similar statements regarding same-sex marriage in the US. After seven years and dozens of lawsuits, propositions and over-turnings, the matter is still inconclusive.

De facto same-sex couples also find it more difficult than heterosexual couples to raise a family. Same-sex couples find the adoption process more rigorous, and guardianship in the event of a divorce is plagued with myriad pitfalls. Take the scenario where one of the parents is a birth parent by way of artificial insemination. Does that give them more of a “right” to the child than the non-biological parent? Every dissolved family has its own struggles to sort out, and the unconventional nature of same-sex marriages makes the legal entanglements even more heinous.

These matters should sound familiar, as similar discussions are active in the US. Another hot-button issue that is uniquely able to polarize people is the matter of abortion. As it stands right now in Australia, abortion is only legal if the pregnancy will have a negative impact on the mother’s mental health. Don’t worry – rape victims fall into that category. Abortion is definitely an ardently contested topic in Australia, although not nearly as violently fought over as in the US.

But enough controversy and tension for one blog post.

Later that afternoon, we watched The Castle, a 1997 Australian movie about a Melbourne family fighting the federal government for rights to their property and home. Although the legal questions posed are presumably of academic significance, our interest in the movie lay in its caricature of an Australian family based on stereotypes. It was also pretty darn funny, complete with satire somewhere between Spinal Tap and Monty Python.

After a free day on Wednesday, we reconvened on Thursday and picked up with a short discussion of The Castle. Our ensuing lecture then detailed the conceptualization and actuality of the Australian family. The country has seen major social and economic changes in the last 30 years, leading to a notable upheaval of the former “typical” family lifestyle. The 1990’s can be considered the milestone in Australian family reorganization, as the decade brought a striking set of new trends. Like the US, Australian divorce rates are increasing and fertility rates are decreasing, the latter being true of many other Western countries. Australia is also experiencing an increase in single-parent households (most of them headed by mothers) and labor force of women of a child-bearing age.

However, when we look at the trends of Australian families, the data do not necessarily reflect the minorities. Australia’s population is overwhelmingly white, causing many cultures to become engulfed in the statistics of the majority.

The story of migrant families has taken its own path in recent years, as there is often a strong desire among immigrants to hold onto one’s culture of origin. Many of these families come from a more traditionally-minded culture, and thus uphold social norms that might be viewed as retrograde from a twenty-first century Western mindset. Higher fertility rates and a greater utility of the patriarchal family structure, for example, are more common in migrant families than in native Australian families. This distinction in cultural values can create “bubbles”, or physical divisions between communities that we understand as pockets with a disproportionally high population of one ethnicity or another. The Australian government has always had a history of encouraging assimilation to form a more homogenous country, and it is only in the last few decades that retaining one’s culture of origin has become acceptable.

Due to the weight of historical events and current socio-economic restraints, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families tend to be the most fiscally disadvantaged out of any demographic. They are more likely to have single-parent households with younger parents and larger families. In addition, rates of education fall far below those of white Australians, leading to lower average incomes. Despite the end of the White Australia policy, Indigenous Australians have been unable to get a solid foothold on the socio-economic ladder.

Another factor that creates a schism between Australian lawmakers and Indigenous Australian families is that the understanding of parenthood has the potential to be wildly different between white and Indigenous families. Westerners typically understand the “parents” to be the biological mother and father, but Aboriginal Law often dictates that multiple men and women in a tribe participate equally in the joint raising of children. This Law is often realized by contemporary Indigenous Australian families, making the interface between the Australian government and Indigenous families a complex one.

See? We’re learning! And our Neighborhood Projects and Independent Projects are coming along steadily. Parents, don’t worry: you didn’t just sink thousands of dollars into a three-month vacation for your bright-eyed children.

The program also provides us with entertainment unique to Australia. On Friday we will be attending a rugby game, the Broncos vs. the Cowboys. Seriously. You can’t make stuff like that up. Based on the Youtube videos Nat has shown us, this looks to be the most savage sporting event I have ever attended. I twitch with anticipation.

(Also, congratulations for making it to the end of this little novel. You deserve a gold star for such dedication.)

--Katy

Above is a photograph taken of a 1970’s International

 Women’s Day march in Australia.

Julia Gillard, the current Prime Minister of Australia and head of

 the Labor Party. She doesn’t let a fruit bowl run her life.

Poster for The Castle (1997). It reads, “The Government wants this
 house torn down. But he’s not giving up his home,
his memories, or his view without a fight.”

Indigenous Australian families can be quite large, and the

 role of parenthood is not restricted to a child’s birth parents.

 This creates an intricate network of “aunties” and “uncles” that

 all partake in raising children, producing a larger 

family built of community.

A preview for the next blog post. Trust me when I say the game was nuts.

Of Wind and Waves

By Jared Delahaye

Even having spent the majority of our time thus far traversing the beautiful coastline of this island continent, there was something about rising slowly to the clear sunshine on Straddie this Sunday that felt even more exotic than usual.  I think much of this came from our accommodation's location right on a long, sandy beach.  The sun was a welcomed newcomer compared to the overcast skies of Saturday; a second and more prevalent weather guest was the wind.  As appropriate as I found the slightly gloomy weather in the marshes the previous day, the sun and gusts figured in just as perfectly.

We set out on a daylong excursion to explore Straddie firsthand with our lecturer from Saturday: Shane.  With the previous day's lecture fresh in our heads, he was able to guide us through many facets of the island's ecology with ease.  The morning started with a stroll down to the water where Shane pointed out a thin strip of wetland forest just before the sand started.  The most prominent figure here was the paperbark tree with its thin, peeling bark that made the name choice obvious.  The bark does serve a practical purpose because the many layers of bark provide resistance to fire.  On the beach we observed sparse vegetation on the exposed bluff due to direct exposure to wind and the salt that comes with it.  This was made all the clearer as we scrambled up some rocks to a more lush and diverse area of plants sheltered from the harsh winds by the boulders. As we bounded down the far side of the bluff to a second beach, I was puzzled after seeing what I thought were a few upturned frog legs buried in the sand, but approaching a small pond it all became clear.  The pond was teeming with what must have been thousands of tiny tadpoles, but not just any tadpoles: cane toad tadpoles.  Australia is a country known for many things: kangaroos, the outback, barbies, Crocodile Dundee.  But it's also home to numerous examples of invasive species introductions gone awry.  One of the more ridiculous of these examples is the cane toad, which was originally brought to the country in the hopes of eradicating the cane beetle, a pest in its own right.  I cannot imagine the number of scientists who must have been fired once it was discovered through introduction that the little buggers prefer just about every other possible food choice over the cane beetle.  Aside from the large litter size which we saw, the toads have persisted problematically due in part to poison glands, which make them troublesome to potential native predators.  Getting back to the cane toad leg cemetery, Shane explained that some of the local birds have learned to flip over the toads before enjoying their meal, which allows them to eat around the poison; sweet!  

Our next stop was a large eroding sand dune that rose high above our heads with channels and ridges of multicolored sand all around.  The main artists in this natural work of art are wind and rain.  Most interesting were numerous tiny sand spires that donned the surfaces of much of the elevated sand.  These structures are created by small rocks (visible in the photo below) that protect the sand beneath it from rain that washes away all the sand around the rock over time.  It is this same type of process that created, on a much larger and longer timescale, Lamington Plateau, which we will be visiting next month.

Soon after, we found ourselves battling the wind as we traced the shape of Straddie via the headlands.  Standing on the rocks above the crashing waves with the wind and salty spray in my face, I felt truly overpowered by nature.  The buildup of the land, occurring over many years, with the headlands providing a bookend for sand to compact against, was overtly clear.  Continuing our ocean side walk we saw two cool tricks of nature in quick succession.  The first was a cove of sea foam which formed at the end of a long channel of ocean water cutting into the cliffs.  I know most people have seen foam form in the ocean before so I would go so far as to classify this as sea whipped cream.  It was so thick that it was hard to tell there was water underneath and periodically a gust of wind would pick up some of the foam and float it past our heads.  It's simple in principle; (much like whipping cream) the seawater and organic material get mixed and aerated so much so that they form a bubbly foam.  The next trick the island had in store was a whale rock.  This rock, sitting amongst the waves, had been eroded in such a way that when water bashed against it just right, ocean water, accompanied by a whoosh, would spray from a hole.  As far as impressions of whales breathing through their blowholes, it was spot on.

Following a lunch break, we drove to an area of inland forest that had undergone a planned burn 6 months earlier.  It was easy to spot where the fire had been by looking at the surrounding trees and shrubs.  Shane showed us different examples of how the plants deal with fire.  It is often thought that most of the trees are dependent on fire but it is probably safer to say that they are nearly all take advantage of it.  Some of them release seeds after a fire to get a jump start on growing in newly open space while others sprout leaves at spots where their bark burns.  We went further up the road to see a second forest that had also been affected by a much larger fire, but much longer ago (15-20 years).  The differences between the two burned forests were stark.  Where the first forest had open space and plenty of bushes, the second forest was much more crowded and dominated by two main tree species, both tall and thin.

From there, we drove up to a higher area of the island.  This landscape was dominated by dry heath plants, distinguishable by their small, tough leaves and short stature.  The sand here was also different, being completely white as opposed to the yellows, reds, and browns seen in the lower dunes.  The color is a result of the sand being completely leeched of all nutrients and is a target for mining as the white sand is used to make glass and solar panels.

Our afternoon wound down with a visit to a large lake where many of us took the opportunity to swim and look for the tallest thing to jump off of, in this case a tree.  Finally, we drove down to the beach.  Walking along the sand, with the waves crashing softly and the sun coming down, its rays shimmering almost religiously through the clouds, I was struck by a full range of emotions.

The following morning I felt it was all too soon to be packing up our things to leave Straddie.  I took the time to sit on the pristine beach one last time before loading into the van for the ferry trip back.  After a failed attempt to look for koalas back on the mainland, everybody parted ways downtown for a much deserved afternoon off.  For me this entailed a haircut, a trip to a nearby skatepark and burritos with my host family.  Despite having to leave Straddie behind, there was no better place to return to than the house where Dick and I are staying, complete with a cute dog, an adorable toddler, a smart tween and our caring, hilarious hosts.  

The miniature pinnacles at the inland dune.

The group taking in the wind and spray of the headlands.

Ryan making a picturesque leap into the lake.

The beautiful scene on the beach at the end of the day

Muddy Mangrove Madness

I figured that the mention of “rain jacket“ on our Australian packing list was just a friendly suggestion, but recently the weather gods seem to have decided that the group was in need of a shower. Rain jackets are great in Portland because they keep you both dry and warm, but when it’s 85 degrees and humid they quickly become a personal sauna. Although the bad weather has me feeling meteorologically connected with everyone back at school, I still prefer the sunburnt country we’ve been treated to otherwise.

Despite the rain on Friday everyone showed up to class on time and relatively dry. to learn about the organization of biological communities and inter-species interactions. Our lecturer told us that ecology just takes what everyone already knows about animals and makes it sound complicated, so any non-science blog-readers should be able to follow along just fine. We learned that a biological community is just any group of organisms in a particular place and time that have the potential to interact. See? Not too different from a regular community, just with organisms instead of college students or neighbors. There are a lot of influences on the structure of biological communities, from geographic isolation of the area to disturbances such as fires and floods. After learning the numerous influencing factors we broke off into groups to compare two environments and deduce which would have greater species diversity. I was most surprised to learn that deep ocean mud was much more diverse than intertidal mud, and that 25 of the 36 phyla are exclusively marine. With so many of the phyla being marine based, its no wonder we know more about outer space than our oceans.

We also learned some more about interactions between species, which strongly influence the structure of biological communities. It is a bit complex but basically an organism can harm another by preying on it or competing with it for resources, or it can help by having a mutual relationship, or it can benefit from an organism without harming it. A common example of mutualism is between birds and fruit bearing trees; when the birds eat the fruit they end up transporting and fertilizing the seeds. The birds get a tasty meal while the tree spreads its genetic material far from its branches. I assume you’re familiar with predation by seeing videos of lions chasing down zebras, and if you have seen two dogs fight over a bone then you know about competition too. The lectures went into much greater depth and detail, but reciting them in full wouldn’t leave enough time for the excitement of our next day at North Stradbroke Island.

So now you’re probably wondering, what is this amazing island? Well, 40km off the coast of Brisbane is a chain of sand islands created by the mass movement of sand up the eastern coast of Australia. Five hundred thousand cubic meters of sand pass by a single point each year! The sand builds up around rocky outcroppings and gets pushed around by wind and waves over thousands of years to create islands. To get to “Straddie”, as the locals call it, we took a giant car-carrying ferry. The whole scene of riding in a car on a boat reminded me of the ferries around the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest. As soon as we got out of the bus we ran down to the beach and swam in the warm waters, forced to come back to the hostel only by another rainstorm and impending lecture. A local scientist gave us a lecture about the geology, hydrology, and ecology of Stradbroke. The island has a lens of freshwater underneath it, creating a wide range of environments from harsh dunes along the edge to eucalyptus forests in the interior, with some patches of rainforest and swamps in between. The island is home to 17 ecotypes, 599 native plant species, and even a species of frog that only reproduces in the acidic water of low-flowing wetlands. Unfortunately, the island is a popular tourist destination, and is also home to a large sand mining industry. These anthropogenic forces threaten the island’s beauty and unique flora and fauna.

After learning about the island we walked through a mangrove forest. Mangroves grow along sheltered tidal shores. The lack of wind and waves allows for fine sediments to be deposited, which create a low-oxygen soil. Mangrove trees have adapted to these peculiar conditions in a variety of ways; they have little parts of their roots that stick above the ground for oxygen. They also grow not just seeds but also stalks of new plants from their branches, making it easier for new trees to take root when dropped into the mud. While the ecology of these forests is fascinating and they are extremely productive, they aren’t the most pleasant places to visit. The anaerobic soil is home to bacteria which process sulfur, releasing a smell of rotten eggs into the air.  Also, the fine sediment mixes with tidal water, creating a mud slurry that will take your shoes off faster than a mother with a new white carpet. After we had slogged through the forest to the coastline Nat showed us how we could stomp into the mud and be held securely in place while bending backwards in our best Matrix impressions. This was fantastic fun until we tried to get out; the mud held our legs a little bit too securely, in fact extremely securely because we were stuck. After a little bit of unwarranted freaking out about tides and a lot of furious digging we all managed to free ourselves, but I can say I experienced a full range of emotions in the process. The mud may have washed off our shoes, but it was definitely an experience we’ll look back on with fond memories.

Message to the Homefront

By Marnie Bates

Hey everyone!

You may have read this before (and doubtless will read it again) but it needs to be said: this program has touched a full range of emotions. Sure, our blog entries focus on the exciting, happy times but that doesn’t mean we don’t miss home. Eating apples and peanut butter does not normally make me tear up with nostalgia. But no one here eats that as an after school snack. They have apples. They eat peanut butter on occasion. But put the two together? Doesn’t happen. Which might explain why all of us have gone through an obscene amount of the goopy substance. John even suggested that we buy a huge communal vat to cut down on the expense. But back to my point. I wanted to seize this moment to tell everyone on the home front: you are missed. We look forward to our triumphant return. And in the meantime we are enjoying our home-stay families in Brisbane.

As I write this, a small tropical storm lingers outside my house and between lightning flashes I can’t help thinking how bizarre it is that I’m even here. Let’s ignore the fact that I’m currently on a freaking island in a completely different hemisphere and zoom in on the detail of my city: Brisbane. A city I saw for the first time on a television screen a little over two months ago. But back then it was utter chaos as stupid people tried to drive their cars through muddy brown depths of liquid. At the time this begged the question, why do people wait until the water is waist high before trying to drive to safety? Seriously! And now as I ride the crowded 333 bus each morning (Public transit! This small-town girl is learning how to handle life in the city!) I keep trying to spot the damage. Except I have a hard time locating it. There’s some construction but it’s pretty minimal—the type of roadwork you might see anywhere. Nothing that indicates 9 weeks ago the city was underwater.

As I said: bizarre.

But all of us are having a pretty great time and the past two lectures have been particularly interesting. The first was on the demographics of Australia, which may sound dull but . . . okay, it was better than I anticipated. I learned some interesting factoids. Like did you know that in 2010 the estimated population of Australia was 22,342,000 people? Or that that long string o’ numbers is roughly the population in New York alone?

I’m betting that you didn’t.

Here’s another pearl: Australia is the 51^st most populated nation. And they have a large number of migrants in relation to the overall population (second only to Israel!). I could continue spewing statistics but I think that those mean far more in the context of a lecture than individually. I will say that we learned a lot about multiculturalism and the White Australian Policy of 1901, which is exactly what it sounds like.

It’s stupid of me to be disappointed that this country has a history of racism every bit as long and intense as my own but . . . I expected better. I was particularly miffed when I heard in our next lecture that Australia wasn’t keen on accepting Jews who had just gone through the Holocaust.

Not cool.

But I think it was the second lecture that really connected with me. We discussed Australia’s war history, which frankly I knew absolutely nothing about. I had heard of ANZAC but it was pretty much limited to its association with the brand name of a biscuit. However, for everyone back home, ANZAC stands for Australian New Zealand Army Corps, which has a far more interesting history than even the most delicious biscuit.

Turns out that Australia was brutalized in World War I. 417,000 Australians served. 58,132 died. 156,000 were wounded. My problem with statistics is that they tend to feel impersonal. What relationship can you form with these strings of numbers? What got to me were some of the chilling headstones that fill the battlefield graveyards of Europe. You see, only two bodies from WWI were returned to Australia—a general’s body and that of an unknown soldier. The families who had lost husbands, fathers and brothers were left creating last words for a distant headstone with fewer characters than a tweet on twitter. Here are a few of my personal favorites:

       Far from those who loved him in a hero’s grave he lies, our son.

       Another life lost. Hearts broken for what?

       Where’s our daddy?

The pictures of memorials with name after name inscribed upon them left us feeling awed and humbled. Especially when it was pointed out that most of those men who died were our age. The great potential that was lost . . . tragic.

Yet out of this horror has come a sense of nationhood. This war shaped Australia. There is a sense that this island nation was put to the test and it pulled through. But at the end of the day war is about killing. It’s a justification for the most horrific acts imaginable. And the lecture made it impossible to ignore the fact that the U.S. has been mired in military strife for the past 8 years. I’m not proud of myself for ignoring the troops. For willingly pushing that out of my mind because I don’t want to consider the great sacrifice our men and women in uniform are making. It’s too discomforting to consider. That’s my weak justification at any rate.

But we keep running across memorials that phrase it concisely: lest we forget.

We owe it to the dead to personalize the lists and statistics. Something I hope I’ll do when I open the newspaper instead of skipping straight to the comics.

Garfield can wait.

The following photos were taken at the World War I Memorial in Canberra.