Barangaroo: a tale of two Australia Days

The prize exhibit at Barangaroo this Australia Day was the very fine 'Always' sculpture (as in "Always was, always will be: Aboriginal land") So that was my primary focus yesterday morning.

If I'd been earlier out of bed, I'd have got to see the early morning smoking ceremony, and maybe the other indigenous entertainments that had been promised. The smoking ceremony chap was still in action though, and was in much demand for photographs still. His fellow participants and entertainers seemed to have taken an early mark?

My take on what the sculpture's about: I approached from the shiny side, and saw the back-to-front version, and the shiny illusory reflections of myself and the modern city. Then from the other side it's the way it should be: very solid, a little rusty, but timeless and sustainable, the real deal.

Meanwhile on the harbour just behind me, the usual red-white-blue Australia Day waterborne festivities were going on. A huge flotilla assembled to watch the end of the traditional ferry race under the Harbour Bridge, and it was all quite exciting!

Here's the end of the race, with the Port Authority's firefighting boat clearing a path through the crowd.






















The first, second, and third ferries, I think. (I couldn't find any sort of official race result report when I did a search just then. Only ads for passengers - let's keep our money-making priorities after all!)

In fact there's a lot of middle ground going on between the two Australia Days, despite the deliberately incendiary pronouncements of partisan activists like the current (very temporary) Prime Minister, and despite the media emphasis on conflict and division. I've a feeling we'll work out an appropriate solution to our big National Day conundrum before too long.

Mt Annan Botanic Gardens

I'd been there once before, about ten years ago when it was a fairly new creation. Since then the Mt Annan Botanic Gardens have grown up and matured nicely. I found lots of nice little (and not so little) features to admire and explore.

It's near Camden, to the south west of Sydney, and it's 416 hectares in area, and Australia's larget botanic garden. It's run by the same Royal Botanic Gardens & Domain Trust that runs the main Sydney one and the Blue Mountains version at Mt Tomah. Mt Annan's specialty is the display of 'plants from across Australia in both formal and informal settings within a typically Australian landscape'.

There are sculptures, barbecue areas, sundials, picnic areas, a visitor centre, a blue tree, and a cafe. There's a memorial to the aboriginal stolen generation, and there's the Australian Plantbank, which hosts one of the largest native seedbank collections in the world.

There are also lots of Wollemi pines, the 'living fossil from the dinosaur age'. It had been thought to have been extinct for eons, but was found in 1994 in one steep sided valley in the depths of the Wollemi National Park. It's been planted all over the place now, and seems to be rather a happy and hardy species.

And I loved the Sturt's Desert Peas, from central Australia. Bright red, in full flower, and not seemingly worried to be so far from home.












Mt Annan (the mountain itself) is actually a bit of a molehill. I strolled up it, and you do get nice views of the rest of the site, but a rather drab view of the surrounding monocrome grey suburbs.

I might come back more frequently in future.

Sculptures by the Sea

October and November bring not only jacaranda flowers. There's also Sculptures by the Sea. Regular as clockwork these days, and just as scenic.

You have to make your way to Bondi Beach and walk the kilometre or two along the clifftop walkway to Tamarama, via Marks Park. You encounter over a hundred fabulous sculptures, all with a message to tell.

Not that you'll always figure out what the message is. The poster of the iceberg, "coming to a beach near you" is presumably a comment on global warming. Lots of washed up things, transparent boats, and tents on rafts, all implying to me a comment on asylum seekers and their plight. There's a collection of beehives, with miniature human dwelling units inside. There's a skeleton cycling up a narrow beam with a boulder strapped to his back, likely to fall off the end when he completes his mission. There's a pretty blue whirly thing on Tamarama Beach, entitled 'Look at Me'.

There's a big circular collection of red or yellow 'swim between the flags' flags. But the central zone is all red flags for danger.




All self-explanatory, I thought. But lots of the other works would have benefitted from me purchasing the catalogue, I guess. Next year I'll do that, and I'll find the time to spend a whole

day there, or at least time it so I avoid the enormous crowds, schoolkids especially. It's been quite a success story, the Sculptures by the Sea. Check it out.