Invasion Day: 'Worst date ever'

The best date ever to highlight the worst date to have as Australia's national day is of course 26 January, Australia's official national day.

It marks the day in 1788 that Captain Phillip and his First Fleet sailed into Sydney Harbour to start the British penal colony. They'd arrived at their intended destination, Botany Bay, a few days earlier, but found it to be without drinking water, so relocated.

To the indigenous population 26 January thus marks the start of the invasion and colonisation of their lands.

Over the years it's become the thing to mark the day with rallies and marches, and other symbolic events to draw attention to their continuing plight. It's got to the stage where the Invasion Day events in Australia's capital cities are almost overshadowing the mainstream celebratory events. A major theme this year has been the 'Change the Date' movement, highlighting all the other dates when Australians could all come together and celebrate their nation without offending a rather essential core group of them. Needless to say, the major political parties have yet to come to grips with this, and for now are happy to be on the losing side of history.







I attended the Sydney event, which started with a rally at 'The Block' at Redfern, and then became a march through city streets to Camperdown. It was a big deal.






As one of the speakers noted, there wasn't a conventional Australian flag to be seen in this crowd. I noticed too that when I strolled back through the city through the usual Australia Day crowds doing their more usual Australia Day strollings, a large proportion of them were carrying Aboriginal flags as well as the conventional ones.

Port Macquarie's Koala Hospital

One of Port Macquarie's most deservedly popular tourist attractions is the Koala Hospital.

It's quite the place to see koalas, to learn about them, and to give serious thought to our impact on them.

This part of the world is prime koala habitat. But in the Port Macquarie area especially, that habitat is being destroyed at a shocking pace.

The hospital's official line seems to dwell mostly on dog attacks and motor vehicle accidents, but the biggest problem of course is inappropriate and inadequately regulated development, leaving the poor things with nowhere to live.

I notice that in real life the staff are well aware of this, and doing sterling work on the activist front too! Here's an article from the local  newspaper: http://www.portnews.com.au/story/4599216/concerns-over-koala-habitat/

North Brother lookouts

Here's the view to the north from the North Brother mountain, near Laurieton, NSW.

We were staying in North Haven, which is the more distant settlement, just over the bridge in the centre left of the top photo.





The view to the south, and to Crowdy Bay. Sydney is 300km or so further down the coast.

The other two brothers are nearby. Here's Wikipedia on their etymology:

The Australian Aboriginal local Birpai people tell a dreamtime story of three brothers who were killed by a witch called Widjirriejuggi and were buried where the mountains stand. The youngest of the three was Dooragan, that now carries the name for one of the national parks.^[8]
By amazing coincidence, when Captain James Cook passed the area on 12 May 1770 he named the mountains Three Brothers, since "these Hills bore some resemblance to each other".^[9][10]

North Brother, from North Haven

The kangaroos of Kew

Passing through Kew on the Mid North Coast the other day. Right alongside the Kew Country Club in fact. Thought they were sheep at first glance.

Pelicans, perambulations, and addictive pies!

We spent a few days recently in North Haven, a nice sleepy holiday town on NSW's Mid North Coast, a bit south of Port Macquarie.

Its most famous attraction is the Addictive Pie Shop. I sampled the allegedly addictive wares, and agreed there could be something to that name. My steak Diane pie was indeed pretty good, and I hadn't come across that particular pie appellation before. Of  course there are countless 'best pie shop in the world' contenders in Australia. Some even claim best in the universe. But this one's probably up there.


What else do you do in North Haven? I think most people do fishing. I did strolling the waterfront walkways and watching the pelicans and the other strollers. And we used the place as a comfortable base for further sightseeings and  visits.
















The waterfront at nearby Laurieton







                Among the mangroves

Our very own Queen of the Night

We've got a 'Queen of the Night' plant in our front garden: Epiphyllum oxypetalum. It's a cactus that looks like an orchid. It's native to the rain forests of Mexico, seems to be happy here in Sydney, and I planted ours a few years ago.

It only flowers at night, and according to some accounts, only for one night at a time. I think we may have got two or three nights out of ours. This week was the first time ever that I'd caught it at the right moment.

It's quite spectacular when it finally does its thing. And then, as the label says, it looks bad after blooming and just needs a bit of a rest.