OZtralia.tv Blog

Relaxing With An Ol’ Pastime

Bullo River Station is a 1,600 square kilometre cattle station tucked away in a remote corner of the Northern Territory. Guests can ride horses, help muster cattle, view Aboriginal rock art, go fishing, and swim at the remarkably beautiful Cascades.

There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune…

Shakespeare must have been an amateur fisherman. How else could he have written those words in Julius Caesar? The scene is supposed to be about Brutus’ desire to seize the moment in a Roman war, but the words just as aptly describe a moment on the banks of the Northern Territory’s Bullo River when the tide turns and big fat barramundi are there for the catching.

In fact, if you happened to be fishing at Bullo River at just such a time, there’s a good chance that you’d hear local fishing expert Trevor Bennett utter words to that effect.

Bennet has a dream job. He’s a fishing fanatic and knows everything there is to know about catching ’barra, those delicious trophy fish that Northern Territorians spend a lifetime in pursuit of. He also works at Bullo River Station, a massive Northern Territory cattle station which welcomes a handful of guests who are keen to fish, muster cattle, swim in gorgeously remote waterholes and otherwise enjoy the trappings of Outback life.

Bennett’s job for today is to maximise the likelihood that we’ll catch a ’barra for dinner. We know we’re onto a good thing when he turns up with a selection of rods and bait, then drives us out to what he reckons is one of Bullo River’s best spots for fishing.

“When you hook one,” he says, “let it run. You have to let ’em tire before you start reeling ’em in.”

They’re promising words. But the truth is that when we first cast our lines into the Bullo we get nothing but a few nibbles. The fish seem to be toying with us mere mortals standing on the banks of the Bullo, ankle deep in mud, baking in the afternoon sun.

A pair of eagles watch us from their nest in an old gum tree on the other side of the river. They’ve seen it all before, and know they may get a free feed if they play their cards right. One of them launches a reconnaissance flight, circling and then swooping underneath our fishing lines as if to assert prior claim to whatever swims beneath.

Bullo is croc-infested tidal river, flanked by mudflats and allegedly thick with ’barra. But they’re still not biting. The tide is coming in at speed, though, and we watch as the river spills inexorably across the mudflats, turning our footprints into salty puddles and then, a few minutes later, converting these puddles into pools.

Watching the tide turn is surprisingly therapeutic. Bennett, however, is getting restless. There’s a spot further up river, he says, where we’re sure to do well. But we need to be there now, when the tide is just so. We reel in the fishing lines, scramble into the ute and speed off.

After ten minutes or so, hoots of excitement fill the air. One of our party, Christina, has hooked a fish. She lets it run as instructed and eventually reels in a lovely silver barramundi. It’s big and shiny and good enough to feed a family of four.

Bennett moves quickly to despatch the ’barra by knifing it in the guts. The joy of fishing is writ large on Christina’s face. Meanwhile, somewhere beyond the Outback, the soul of a long-dead English playwright is no doubt delighted to see that ancient Roman dramas are replayed in the simple act of fishing for ’barra on the Bullo River.

Friday Sea Tales

By: Phoenix Arrien

Welcome to the last of my tall ships series…and this is possibly the most exciting trip out of all the ones I experience.

The initial thought that strikes people when first seeing the Bark Endeavour Replica is how authentic she looks. I realized in a flash that there is a huge difference between a modern square-rigger and an 18^th Century one. Then it hit me - she looks so tiny!

In Australian history, the Endeavour takes on a magnitude that is disproportional to her actual size. The original Endeavour was the first European vessel to circumnavigate New Zealand and prove it was a group of islands and not part of a continent. It then sailed to New Holland and charted 2,600 miles of the eastern coast, proving that this southern land mass, later Australia, was a continent and claiming it for the British. The ensuing convict settlements would change the face of the region.

Yet, for a ship representing such historical clout, the replica is only 109 feet with a beam of 29 feet and carries 56 people for voyages of up to several weeks. The original, 106 feet, had 94 men aboard…plus live animals…cooped together for three years.

For me it was only to be an attempt to survive with fifty people for three weeks…and that was tricky enough. More next Friday…

Painting The Wonders of Australia

By: Phoenix Arrien

While I was visiting Central Australia, I met two amazing women, painters who spend part of each year, painting the glorious colours of the Outback. In a two-part series, here are their stories:

The paint dries on the brush even before hitting the canvas. At the height of summer heat baking central Australia, two unique international artists are seen at work in the Mulgara Gallery, surrounded by brilliant splashes of colour on swathes of textiles and palettes layered with of globs of colours that are an artist’s creed.

Based in Yulara, the tiny town near Uluru, it’s an artistic pilgrimage for Elisabeth (Liz) Sherras Clark and Helga Muschinski who faithfully return each year to see, absorb, paint and learn, interpreting the unique colours and textures, light and forms of the desert life and unique monuments of the arid landscapes.

Liz sees herself as a botanical illustrator and bird painter, painting the diverse wealth of flora and fauna around Uluru on canvas. She divides her time between a village in southern England and Australia, with Uluru being the highlight of her stay. “The rock is magnificent, as it stands over the flat landscape, its colour forever changing with the hours and weather,” she explains of her attraction to the area.

“I try to capture the brilliant stars and hanging clouds as well as the desert winds and plants, even the dry spinifex, using mixed mediums of water-based paint, dye and wax.” Visitors to the Mulgara gallery, to view its fascinating collection of hand-crafted glassware, pottery, textiles, metal and leather, stop and watch Liz work.

There is symmetry and form in her paintings, clarifying and transforming the mass of shapes, light and colour reflecting in the outside environment. Her pictures asks you to consider a tree’s bark in all its different colours, to watch a grass tree grow from the red soil and spiky leaves against an almost invisible sky or follow the changes Uluru presents as the day’s light waxes and wanes or the weather throws itself against the ageless faces of the rock.

Near Liz, works Helga Muschinksi who, painting on silk, responds to the organic forms of the desert environment. Helga’s work complements Liz’s during this annual pilgrimage to Uluru by bringing the irresistible textures of silks to the coarseness of the desert. Draped over frames, flattened on tables, bunched, hanging and wrapped, the smooth luxurious material beckons one to touch and in relation to Helga’s silks, to gaze.

Here are the animals one glimpsed before they scuttled away or the landscapes just travelled through. Here is the life and souls of the desert, ready to be picked up and worn, taken away and remembered. All the crazy reds and brilliant oranges; the yellows blazing through the greens and contrasting with the eggshell blues or stormy greys.

Across the materials fly cockatoos and galahs, a lizard grins from a rock, the sun shining on scaly skin; flowers, previously lost in the plethora of abstract desert forms, find a moment to shine on a scarf. Circles, lines and bold silhouettes capture the ruggedness of the desert and the way the environment - hot, intense and raw - grabs your attention. The silk paintings do the same thing, they are statements rather than backdrops, and they demand and hold the gaze instead of just existing quietly. One’s neck will never quite be the same again.

Helga uses the forms around the ‘Rock’ as the highlight of her year’s work. “I have spent the greater part of my life in Australia but I am still in a state of original surprise and wonder at the landscape, in particular the flora and fauna.” Both women are part of the monthly resident artists’ program at Mulgara Gallery, housed within the Ayer’s Rock Resort.

The resort is built using innovative artistic and architectural forms and is also a home for a number of plants and animals, so the women do not have to go far (though they often do). “I am constantly amazed at the insect life at Yulara. It is as if the resort is a magic carpet which had landed on an insect metropolis,” explains Liz.

Tomorrow: art forays into the desert

Returning From The Australian Outback

By: Phoenix Arrien

I am back in Alice and checking out other attractions including the Alice Springs Desert Park for close-ups with ghost bats, ostriches and big-eared bilbies; the spectacular cracks, holes, cliffs and desert plants of Kings Canyon, Stanley Chasm and Finke Gorge National Park.

Alice is not without its festivals. If you are here in June, don a beanie for the ‘Beanie Festival’ celebrating everything for the head that is woollen and beyond. Get into some high octane, low brain, insane on the desert plain (also in June) for the Tattersall’s Finke Desert Race where bikes, cars and buggies hurtle from the town of Finke to Alice. Then there is the Alice Springs Show in July or cheer Miss Camel on her Cup during the Voyages Lions Camel Cup also in July.

On normal days though, at the end of each fun-filled, sun-baked, dust-ridden attendance at attractions, I seem to end up, like everyone else, at Todd Mall located in the centre of town. It is a place to browse for goodies like books and camping equipment while being stalked by mangy camp dogs. Yup ya gotta be an animal lover out here.

Visit the Red Centre and get a new appreciation of a unique part of Australia.

The Australian Outback’s Alice Springs

By: Phonix Arrien

So anyway, having survived crocodiles in the north of Australia, then watched the Logies on TV in a pub in a tiny speck of a town called Humpty Doo (seriously), I turned south towards the centre of this vast continent.

There is a town sitting in the very centre of Australia and to visit is to appreciate the resilience and ability of people, animals and plants to adapt to harsh, desert conditions. This town is called Alice Springs - even though the woman it was named after never visited the place and there is no springs anywhere nearby.

You can get to Alice by coach - takes a long time from anywhere; travel on the train, a great trip on the Ghan, named after the Afghans who supplied the great stations with supplies before the railway was built; or you can fly. Or of course you can drive.

Once there the best ways to see the sights is on a ‘get-on-get-off’ bus and my first stop is theTelegraph Station, built in 1872 as a relay for the single telegraph wire that crossed the continent from Adelaide to Darwin. The restored building contains rustic gizmos and gadgets: the ancestors of wireless internet, blackberries and strawberry coloured mobiles.

The town is actually three kilometres south of the Telegraph Station which is next to a waterhole (though hardly a ‘spring’). Alice used to be called Stuart but in 1933 was officially named the more popular title everyone had been calling it anyway: Alice Springs.

Time to tuck into a motel for the night, yawn. More tomorrow.

They call “college” here “Uni.” At first, I did not get it. Soon, I was fast enough to derive the conclusion. School does not start for a couple more weeks. Next week is “0″ week followed by week one. During 0 week, we have get-to-know-ya games and the like. I am going on a surfing adventure that the college offers and a wet and wild adventure.

The Australians are a nice bunch. I live about 10 minutes, by car, away from Surfer’s Paradise. Do I have a car? No, but I have bicycle! A jolly ride on a bike to Surfer’s is over an hour.

If I receive nothing else from my time in Australia, it is respect for bicyclists. A friend in New York was the one to propose the idea to buy a bike. “Gunnar, you should really get a bike and explore,” he said.

I remember in Idaho, mother and I would be driving the van in some place like Lewiston, and I would poke fun at the bicyclists peddling their heart out alongside the road. I would try to sing the instrumental part of the Wizard of Oz hit, when the witch is riding her bicycle. “Dundantan dundantun da dun, Dundantan dundantun da dun, Dundantan dundantun da dun…”

Now, I am the proud owner of a bike. “One, and two, and three, and four,” I count to myself as I trudge up a hill. It is always best to have rhythm, right? “One, and two, and three, and four” and then some person thinks they are a barrel of laughs and passes me going 120 kph on their motor bike, and I am left to watch them cruise up the hill. Still, there is no better feeling of accomplishment than when I pass over the crest and am greeted with a cool breeze.

One could really get himself hurt here riding a bike. They have things called “roundabouts.” We have them back in the states, but they are few and far between. Here, you cannot go more than a half mile before coming to a darn roundabout. Riding a bike through a roundabout is hard.

Traffic is coming and going, and then horns honk because you are in the way…but I have managed to get the horn honking down to a minimum as I figure the system out.

It is very interesting to be watching the news in the U.S. right now. It makes me feel proud to be from there, but also very dismayed. Namely, the talk of gas prices gets me. Sure gas prices are bad back home, but here they are a lot worse, equivalent to over four dollars a gallon. Australians just go with the flow and are not complaining about prices too much, because gas here has always been expensive.

Maybe if they got rid of some of the roundabouts though, they could save on gas, as a straight line is the fastest way to any given destination, but that is not the point.

By: Priscilla Fox

I don’t know about you but I feel like taking a big break from the world as life gets very hectic in the 21^st century. There are constant emails, cell calls, appointments, time for the family, friends, dog, cat, bird, goldfish, pet hamster and oh, somewhere in there one needs to work too.

As I take a big breath after assessing the long to-do list that constantly haunts me, I think about finding a place to visit in Australia that can give me a different perspective on things; a place that will give me the ‘bigger’ picture.

While searching I realised that with only 21,251,958 us friendly folk, Australia tends to be a big place, but when it comes down to it, we do adopt a lot from our USA neighbors. How can I put it, it is just too ‘big’ to describe.

What I am really suggesting is that we have many big places to visit such as the Big Pineapple, Big Banana, Big Cow, Big Egg, Big Koala, Big Lobster, Big Orange and the Big Prawn (shrimp is the translation). For those who are partial to some Aussie beer, the Big VB (Victoria Bitter) can sits at our northern city Darwin and one can not forget the natural phenomenon that all tourists visit, the biggest rock in the world, Ayers Rock at Uluru.

Australia is just full of ‘big’ landmarks and I am sure the astronauts from NASA have no trouble locating our continent by these ‘big’ eye-catchers that are scattered across our soils.

After that thought I’m more relaxed so I’ll sign off as I am about to sit down with my favourite, a big cup of coffee and pancakes…maybe a trip to the USA will help me locate those.

-By Priscilla Fox

To ensure my list of writings cover all things Australian it would be seen as a pure criminal offence if I did not make a special mention of Barbie.

Barbie is quiet, very good looking, smells divine, generates great conversation, well maintained, makes a great meal and is described as smoking hot!

I’m sorry for those in the USA, the Barbie I am talking about is not that hot little plastic blonde number with every accessory known to woman and all fashion-kind who has a lifestyle and partner envied by millions of girls the world over.

The Barbie I am referring to is the Australian term of endearment for the word barbeque. Most of us know it as that wonderful apparatus which cooks meat and seafood with charcoal heat, the smell of which always sends the neighbors crazy with hunger and sudden interest in what is going on in your backyard.

An early Caribbean invention, this baby is an entrenched device in every Australian household and again, bringing in the heavy utensils here, is seen as a social offence not to own one. The weather in most states allows for it to be used year round and is such a quick way to feed the masses that suddenly turn up at your doorstep at short notice. Oh and to make sure you are the perfect guest, the person who hosts the barbeque buys and cooks the meat and those who visit bring the salad and alcohol.

Australian actor Paul Hogan famously promoted our proud culture in an advertising campaign by saying the words “I’ll slip an extra shrimp on the Barbie for you”. To us Aussies, we were a little perplexed at the word ‘shrimp’ as we see them as little fingernail sized sea creatures that hardly deserve the mention of a meal. Prawn is our name for it and those buggers can be the size of a decent banger, (that’s a sausage for the uninitiated).

Regardless of our differences in names, we can all safely agree that one way or another Barbie is a perfect friend to have around, always provides for great discussion, entertainment and a smoking hot time!

News.com.au reported that Kangaroo Island is looking to tourism to help get back on track.

Seal Bay and Kelly Hill parks have opened and the government is hoping to open more soon along with a campaign to promote the message of the parks being open.

You can see the whole story at here.

-OZtralia.tv Staff

By: Priscilla Fox

When referring to a ‘nice drop’ in Australia, it could be interpreted as stumbling awfully close to the cliff face of a mountain. It is however more pleasantly associated to an alcoholic beverage of the grape kind.

The wine industry in Australia is considered the world’s fourth largest exporter of this in demand juice which can be represented in any possible way that the humble grape can be exploited.

From the Coonawarra Cabernet Sauvignon to the Jacob’s Creek Chardonnay as well as the sparkling Pinot-Noirs from the highlands of Tasmania, there is a taste for every palate.

Almost every state in Australia including Queensland has its own wineries and it is certainly a must when visiting the country to fit in a tour to sample the delightful flavours.

Not only can you trek our lands to see the wonderful mountainous views but to make the trip complete, take an intoxicating bottle of Australian wine in your backpack and you’ll have created the ultimate nice drop experience.