Aboard the James Craig

On Australia Day I found myself aboard the good ship James Craig, and had a little ride around the Harbour. It was my first time on this fine old sailing ship. It's an iron-hulled barque, built in the UK in 1874, and it carted freight around the world many times until it was abandoned and sunk off the coast of Tasmania. In recent times it got lovingly rebuilt, and it's now operated (equally lovingly, I observed) by the Sydney Heritage Fleet.

I'd invited myself on board to say hello to my old friend Liam, who happens to be the third mate. Half way through the trip, he got promoted to driver, or whatever that is in correct nautical terminology. It looked like a rather demanding role, and consisted of running around the back end and peering over the edges, trying to see what's ahead. He was in radio contact with people at the front (fortunately), with the chap operating the engines, and with the drivers of the various ferries that were scuttling backwards and forwards around us.



















Bringing the thing in to the wharf at Darling Harbour seemed particularly challenging.And there were the tugboats too to coordinate then.

Here's a tug shadowing us as we pass Barangaroo and the nearly-finished Crown Casino thing.

They weren't using the sails this time, but they'd used them earlier, and they were still being furled up as we started out. Looks like a labour-intensive operation, and there are 21 of them.

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.

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.

Invasion Day

"Always was, always will be......... Aboriginal land". The continuous chant was loud, the numbers were large, and it made an interesting and meritorious alternative to the usual Australia Day attractions. The Invasion Day march went from the Block in Redfern into the city.

  
There were an awful lot of police officers on duty for it, a lot of them with video cameras. As far as I'm aware there weren't any untoward incidents requiring any subsequent use of the footage.

From the pointy political end of the issue, on to the softer sell. I walked back to Victoria Park in Camperdown, where the annual Yabun Festival of aboriginal culture was being held. 'Yabun', by the way, means 'music to a beat', and there was lots of music, plus traditional dancing demonstrations, and information and other stalls selling T shirts with the message below.

The Australia Day vs Invasion Day dichotomy comes up every year. And so it should. At least until they move Australia Day to the first of January, to commemorate the founding of Australia in 1901, rather than the day in 1788 that the British officers of the First Fleet erected a flagpole at Sydney Cove and declared New South Wales as a British colony. (This was almost a week after they arrived in Botany Bay, by the way.)

It's good anyway to see that the mainstream Australia Day organisers are incorporating indigenous performers and ceremonies into the proceedings too. Here's Jessica Mauboy singing the national anthem in the Gadigal (Sydney) language on top of the Harbour Bridge. Click here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g61BocUcss0