Hello, and welcome to my new Substack newsletter. Mike and I are currently in New Zealand, achieving his long-held bucket list dream. I plan to write about our bucket list adventures, both here and elsewhere, approximately weekly. This will be writing from my heart, about whatever we find on our travels.
Here’s a taster from our stopover in Sydney on the way here.
A Parallel Universe
The purple trees were the first things we noticed that were slightly out of kilter. Purple. No leaves, just blossom. We first saw them from the plane – pillows of deep mauve flowers scattered through the city. So we asked someone – what are they? ‘Oh, you must be talking about the jacaranda trees.’ From ground level, the flowers look heavenly against a deep blue sky. The scent? A little cloying for my taste, enough to make me speed by.
Sydney’s soundscape was similar but different, too – full of squawks and squeals, unlike the songs of our native birds, interspersed with the familiar cawing of crows. A scruffy white bird the size of a rugby ball with a dark head and tail and a long, curved beak wandered over, as fearless as a feral pigeon. It thrust its beak deep into the grass, as we’ve seen oystercatchers do at home, but this was no oystercatcher.
‘Excuse me, could you tell me what that bird is, please?’ ‘Oh, that? That’s an ibis.’ An ibis? Aren’t they from Egypt? And on it went, some birds familiar, some exotically different.
And not just the birds. ‘What is that smell?’ Mike noticed the aroma just as I noticed the noise and looked up.
The trees were full of roosting bats, chattering to each other. The smell was not unpleasant, just a little pungent. The bats here are enormous compared to those we are used to. Luckily, they fly in straight lines rather than flitting around catching insects, only inches above your head, as they can do at home. I can see how they get their name, ‘flying foxes’ (AKA fruit bats).
In the Royal Botanic Garden, one grove of trees in particular caught our attention. The trees had a similar form to the holm oak at Great Malvern Priory (low spreading branches; great to climb if you’re ever in the area), and their leaves were similar, but they were not holm oaks. Our jet-lagged brains were confused. We walked closer and peered at the label pinned to the tree. Ficus. Fig trees, but nothing like the figs we are used to in Europe, with fingered leaves.
If it wasn’t for the Englishness of the place, all of this might just have felt like an exotic destination. There are, of course, people speaking English all around. The signs are in English, and many buildings are Victorian or Art Deco. They could have been lifted from any British city, except for subtle differences – again. And the weather was distinctly British, too – who would have expected days of drizzle in Sydney?
Those mixed messages – of exoticism and home – made it feel like we had entered a parallel universe. Have you ever had that sensation?
Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House
One thing I was sure I would enjoy seeing in Sydney is the opera house.
I was not expecting my reaction to be visceral, though.
We first spied the clamshell roofs peeking above the exotic vegetation of the botanic gardens. My heart raced, and my feet slowed to a stop. Where the sun caught the roof, it seemed to radiate energy. The creamy elegance of its curves contrasted with the dark, brutalist Meccano of Sydney Harbour Bridge behind. I wanted to see more; sped to Mrs Macquarie’s Point. I stood and stared. The clouds were dark, and the sun had gone, but the opera house continued to effuse radiance across the grey water of Farm Cove (AKA Wahganmuggalee).
It was time to move closer. Our attention was drawn from incredible tree to opera house and back again as we followed the path between the Royal Botanic Garden and the bay. As we neared, a different view emerged. Up close, the clamshells (commonly described as ‘sails’) look more like upended boats, with the prow reaching skywards. The creamy exterior is created with a veneer of square tiles. From here, you can see that they are not just white. A darker tile forms radiating lines, crossed by zigzags. Inside, the concrete beams also radiate from one point, meeting burnished wood-clad interior walls. This is a serious feat of engineering, as well as architectural beauty.
On the far side, a gallery provides an indoor viewpoint over the bridge and harbour. The glass leans out towards the view, giving the impression of being a part of it.
Below, a series of posts stand tall, threaded with oyster shells. These tell a different story about this place. For thousands of years before the white colonists arrived, Gadigal people of the Eora nation met here for feasts and ceremonies, leaving oyster shells and bones behind in middens. When the first colonists arrived, they simply saw the piles of shells and bones as a resource, with no consideration of the cultural importance of the site. Rather ironically, the shells remain in Sydney – as the lime component of the mortar used to construct the first Government House.
No One Wins a War
‘Let’s just pop up to the war memorial on the way to the museum. It’ll only take a few minutes.’ Famous last words! I was expecting to see a cross. Or maybe a cenotaph.
We approached through Hyde Park, along an avenue of fig trees, sheltered from the rain by the tunnel of branches. A shallow rectangular pool sits at the end of the avenue, dotted with raindrop ripples and memories. Beyond that, steps lead up to an imposing stone structure. This war memorial is no cross or cenotaph.
This is a building, the epitome of Art Deco style and minimalist elegance. The walls are adorned with stylized stone statues of those who served in World War I. These are, of course, mainly men, but also remember the women who served, particularly nurses.
Inside, a circular chamber (the Hall of Silence) has a gallery (the Hall of Memory) surrounding the space above. In the chamber, a dark statue portrays the impact of war on both those who fight and those who are left behind. Above, a domed roof is crowded with gold stars, one for each New South Wales resident who served Australia in World War I.
I stood on the gallery, holding another gold star. This star was dedicated to Sidney Pearson, who died in service on 7th May 17. I thought of Sidney and his loved ones. My thoughts expanded to the gold stars above, all those service personnel who served with him, and their loved ones. To all the Allied forces in WWI and WWII. To everyone else who was caught up in those conflicts and others before and since; to those who are caught in conflict and its wide-ranging implications today. Tears escape, unbidden, as I think of the futility (and sometimes, necessity) of war. I drop the gold star to float down to the others in the Hall of Silence. Each week, these stars are collected and burnt, the ashes saved to scatter on battlefields where Australians once fought.
In the 1980s, the memorial was extended to include all local people who have served in conflicts across time and the globe. Soil samples from each battlefield are embedded in the ground, and soil samples from each village and town in New South Wales are embedded in the walls. Above the extension, water from another pool cascades down a series of steps to the level of the park.
As I left the memorial, I spotted something else through the trees. Four enormous bullet rounds point to the sky, while three shells lie spent on the ground. This memorial takes a different approach. It is graphic, shocking. After war, some remain standing. Some have fallen. The colonists did not officially allow Aboriginals to join the army. But Aboriginals wanted to protect their country as much as the colonists did, so they worked out how to join up anyway. This memorial is to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders who have served in the colonial forces despite the inequalities they suffer from living in a colonized land.
Through my silent remembrance, one phrase kept circulating in my head:
No one wins a war.
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