A Sculpted Sunset

In an LA Tmes article a couple of years ago Christopher Reynolds recommended in a travel article that people step out of their comfort zone on trips to enhance their experience.  Going to Broken Hill was Ruth & my recent “stepping out” experience.  One of Chris’ 9 recommendations was to hire a local guide without a big bus.  We did this in Broken Hill with very mixed results.

We had spent the day in town walking around.  We didn’t have a car.  It was hot, we were tired, but we still had time for more.  The other attractions we were interested in required renting a car.  We had tried to do this earlier that day, but all cars were booked.  Then we remembered the Sunset Sculptures.  The folks at the visitor center had told us earlier that we could hire a local guide to take us there.  We walked back to it and booked Milton to take us there.  Except for 2 things, it wasn’t worth $90.

Milton picked us up at the visitor center at 4:30.  He didn’t say much either driving the 7½ miles west of town to the sculptures or returning.  He only became chatty and animated when he told us about the hail storm the previous November that did a lot of damage.  He answered my questions curtly and sat in his van while we looked at the works that 12 sculptors had created.  In general, he seemed distracted and indifferent.   Maybe Milton was just tired of taking customers to the sunset experience.  He was, however, honest.  He told us bluntly that the town needed more tourist attractions, so the high altitude sculpture park opened in 1993.

The Sculpture Symposium sits atop a rise in the lower Great Basin Range.  It’s part of the Living Desert Sanctuary.  Milton’s brochure

for the Sunset Sculpture Symposium Tour beckons, “see the stunning sunset and its colors it throws over the country side”.  The view is of Outback wasteland beyond the hilltop sculptures.  The symposium that brought the sculptures to Broken Hill occurred between April 2 and May 23, 1993.  The most popular one is Antonio Nava Tirado’s “Bajo El Sol Jaguar”  (Under the Jaguar Sun).  Antonio is an Aztec Indian from Mexico City.  Based on a song, this sculpture imagines a big cat taking the sun into its mouth at night to protect it.  Day is represented by the open circle.  Two of the other 11 sculptors invited to participate were from Syria and Georgia.  Five of them are Australian with only one having been crafted by a Broken Hill artist.  They are somewhat similar.

Two things made this unexpected journey worthwhile.  The sculptures were surrounded by an animal reserve.   I didn’t know this until we got there and saw kangaroos.  When baby roos are found with a deceased mother they are released here to mature.  There are currently 30 of them.  One ranger acts as custodian to make sure they are not harmed.  Milton mentioned that dingos can be a menace.   We met Grant and Sherril from Geelong who had also come to see how sunset played on the sculptures.  A delightful couple, Grant and Sherril were on their way to Adelaide in their car and invited Ruth and me to go to Silverton with them tomorrow.   Silverton, where Mad Max 2 was partially filmed, was not far from the sunset sculptures.

Hank

 

Garibaldi and Gray

One of the more interesting places on the upper Oregon Coast is in the town of Garibaldi.  Garibaldi’s history is the subject explored on the first floor of its fine museum.  Upstairs is most of the maritime stuff in the Garibaldi Maritime Museum.  Its most interesting area, however, is the Captain Gray Gallery, which is upstairs too.   This museum’s hours are seasonally irregular.   During the summer weekends are a safe bet.  When Ruth & I were there recently on a sunny Saturday, a cat show was in progress.  If not sure, call 503 322 8411 to see if it’s open.

Garibaldi is about 10 miles north of Tillamook.  Its past included Native Americans, crabbers, the Coast Guard, loggers, and sawmill workers.  At one point the town’s biggest employer was a plywood company.  Speaking of crabs, the best place in the area to eat them and other seafood delicacies is The Fish Peddler at Pacific Oyster. which is halfway between Garibaldi and Tillamook in Bay City.

The maritime stuff in the Garibaldi Maritime Museum included mastheads, guns, nautical dress, etc.  I enjoyed looking at its Korean mother of pearl and alabaster screen, which told the story of a naval hero.  This surprisingly vivid museum was pretty eclectic and worth a browse, but I found the Robert Gray stuff fascinating.  His accomplishments and place in history were underrated during his lifetime because he was, apparently, a very modest man.

Robert Gray was born on a farm in Rhode Island in 1755.  This fact became important much later on.  Somewhere, somehow he lost his left eye, which didn’t slow him down.  At some point he married, and over time he became the father of 4 daughters.  His early naval career is largely unknown.  He didn’t gain much recognition until he became commander of Lucy, a privateer.  A privateer was an armed ship with a government commission owned by private individuals.  Privateers specialized in capturing merchant ships.  His maritime skills were not especially recognized until the Presidency of James Madison despite his navigational success.   By that time he was dead.

During the time when the west coast of North America was being explored by many nations like Russia and Spain and much of it was not officially claimed by any power, Robert Gray was there.  It was 1791, 12 years before the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition.  The first time Robert Gray passed the mouth of the Columbia River he didn’t attempt to cross its treacherous bar.  Later, while Commander of the Columbia Rediviva, he managed to sail over this barrier to become the first non-native to explore this important river.  He stayed 9 days and named the river after the ship he was in charge of.  After passing back over the bar into the Pacific Ocean, he headed for China, where he sold furs and bought tea.   He then became the first American to sail around the world.

Robert Gray died in 1806.   What took his life is unknown.  Most believe he died of yellow fever and was buried at sea.  His family back in The US, probably in Boston, was financially needy so a friend suggested that his wife petition Congress to provide the Gray family with $500 a year pension for the time he spent serving his country.  Congress failed to pass it and a later request for land.   The fact that Gray was an American, however, did help the United States during the Madison Presidency to lay claim to a large stretch of the west coast of North America.

Hank

Do You Say Boo to a Zoo?

The Australia Zoo, once the home of Crocodile Hunter Steve Irwin, is easy to get to from Brisbane.   Ruth & I went to it via Airtrain.  We got off at the Beerwah Station, and a free courtesy coach was waiting to take us to the zoo.  If you rent or have access to a car, it’s only about an hour’s drive from the city.  The Australia Zoo is in many ways typical with more than 1,200 well-cared-for animals.  It unsurprisingly stresses its animals and assures anyone who might be less than a fan of places that confine them by reminding us that part of every dollar we spend goes to conservation projects related to them.  All in all, Ruth & I found this excursion worthwhile, and we enjoyed several dramatic views of the Great Dividing Range from the train.

Perhaps it’s time to let go of Steve Irwin a bit and focus more on  his family.  His image still fronts the visitor guide, there are photos of him everywhere, he still greets you at the beginning of the noon show in the Crocoseum, etc.  He died on Batt Reef in September, 2006, after being pierced in the heart by a stingray.   His life and legacy are celebrated every year on November 15, Steve Irwin Day.  Images of his daughter Bindi are plentiful also, and her Dancing with the Stars costume is on display.  Images of Steve’s wife Terri and son Robert are not as frequent.  Robert is still a teenager; and Terri claims that she’s spending her time running this zoo, preparing for the family’s new Animal Planet series, and not dating.  The TV show debuts in fall, 2018.   An official date has yet to be announced.    The family decided to help Animal Planet develop projects 11 years after Steve Irwin died.  There’s a sneak peak on animalplanet.com of the new series, and it looks like it will be a big hit.

 

The Australia Zoo is vast and can be uncomfortably hot so almost everyone relies on the shuttles that bustle about to get around.  We saw quite a few resident animals like an Emerald dove and the many Australian animals before joining almost all of the other visitors for the noon show that featured lots of flying birds and one enormous croc.  The most memorable bird was a huge condor.   After this show, which was rather traditional, we toured the rest of the Australia Zoo, which is more than 100 acres.   The most impressive sight was a 24-acre African savannah.  The newest animals were plenty of meerkats near it.  The most unusual animal, to me, was the red panda.  The most disappointing area was Bindi’s Island where the treehouse that Steve Irwin dreamed of creating is closed for changes.  However, we had our best animal encounter on Bindi’s Island when the staff-supervised ring-tailed lemurs were allowed to frolic about.

Hank

 

 

Fire, Then Recovery

 

Ruth’s Aunt Cleta married in Missouri and emigrated to Oregon.  It was from Cleta and her husband Homer that I learned about The Tillamook Burn.

Also known as the six-year jinx, the Tillamook Burn commenced in 1933.  Before that the forests east of their town were logged.   Timber harvesting and jobs were the focus before the first fire.  This was, after all, during The Depression.   On August 14 of that year, a logging company manager ceased cutting operations due to extreme fire danger.  One canyon crew didn’t hear about it and dragged a log over another causing a spark that ignited a forest fire.  The film in the Tillamook Forest Center about the fire that ensued says that it caused a roar like an earthquake and ash fell on the decks of ships 500 miles out to sea.  The 1933 fire raged until September when fog and rain finally rolled in and helped to smother it.  A charred landscape full of snags, dead or dying trees that were still standing, remained.   Snags made it hard for the forest to regenerate in a natural way.

Fires repeated every 6 years after that.  The 1939 fire burned 190,000 acres.  The devastation from 1945’s fire, the best known because it affected travel through the forest, could still be seen in the 1970s.  It was caused by a tossed cigarette.  The 1951 fire was the most contained because the focus on logging was shifting to conservation.   Only 32,000 acres burned.   The total acreage destroyed in the 4 forest fires was 355,000.    One of the largest reforestation efforts in the world began.  A billion seeds were scattered and 72 million seedlings were planted.  The recovering Tillamook State Forest was declared 45 years ago.

Today a drive through this forest is thrilling because everyone sees the greenest, most incredibly beautiful trees and vegetation  on Planet Earth.  Out of disaster came both knowledge and healing.  In June of this year a prescribed fire burned only 60 acres of the Tillamook State Forest.  It was controlled so it wouldn’t spread.  About halfway through this incredible forest, a Center has been built along the Wilson River to provide access to trails and inform travelers about both The Tillamook Burn and the efforts that created today’s lush growth.  When we were there last Sunday, wild foxglove flowers were everywhere and the Tillamook Forest Center was full of families.

Hank

 

 

Like Being in Greece

I’ve known since my first visit to Melbourne, Australia, that it has a large Greek community because we ate in a Greek restaurant and the passionate family that owned it wanted Ruth and me to admire the food and know about their heritage. That’s why on our recent visit to Melbourne we decided to visit the Hellenic Museum at 280 William Street.  I hadn’t been aware of it before because it doesn’t get a lot of attention in local tourist info.

The Hellenic Museum is in the CBD.  A tram took us almost to its door, which once was the entrance to the Royal Mint Building.   The rooms now full of Greek treasures were once mint offices.  This venerable, 19th century Renaissance Revival landmark makes a fine 2-level museum and has a very welcoming staff and lots of activities attracting the local Greek community.  If you speak Greek, you’ll probably get a chance to use it.

There are currently 400,000 people of Greek ancestry living in Australia. About ¼ of them were born in Greece.  Most of them came to Australia in 3 waves.  The 1st wave causing exodus was World War II.  The Greek Civil War followed it from 1946 to 1949 and brought even more.  During it, Greek Communists tried without success to gain control.   The final wave was caused by the ongoing financial crisis caused partially by this country’s participation in the EU.  Up to 20,000 Greek nationals have come to Australia since 2013.

Melbourne is where the Australian Greek community is most established.  Many people of Greek ancestry live in the Oakleigh neighborhood.  A census released in 2017 said that 162,103 people in this city claim Greek roots.

Most of the exhibits in the Hellenic Museum are temporary. That’s what makes “Gods, Myths & Mortals” something of an exception.  This museum partnered with Athen’s Benaki Museum to celebrate its 10th anniversary, and the Benaki sent this very special exhibit to be displayed at the Hellenic until 2024.  Anyone interested in Greek civilization has plenty of time to see this truly excellent show that celebrates 8,000 years of Greek civilization.  The ancient myrtle wreath on loan from the Benaki has become the star of this exhibit.  It is stunning.  Gold wreaths like it look as if they were removed from actual myrtles, aromatic evergreens native to the Mediterranean.  Such wreaths have been found in royal tombs in Macedonia, Asia Minor, and southern Italy.  The crowning of the dead with such a wreath signified that the person was worthy of being rewarded with eternal life.  I also much admired the 19th century breast ornament from Thessaly made of silver and many glass stones.

The driving force behind the Hellenic Museum is Spiros Stamoulis.  Born in Athens, Spiros emigrated to Australia and fell in love with Melbourne, his new home.  He became a wrestling champion and founded a successful soft drink company, Gold Medal Drink.  His entire life was not marked with success and happiness.  When she was 24, his beautiful 24-year-old daughter was killed in an auto accident in Greece.

Hank