Today is Tuesday, 26th of January, 2010. It's 9.04am and it's around 26C (80F).
And it's Australia Day.
Apart from that meaning we have a public holiday, this morning I'm imagining what it was like 222 years ago, right here where I'm sitting. And the most likely answer is that it was just covered in Australian bush, much like it would have been for hundreds and thousands of years prior.
As I listen to the sound of the builders next door (why are they working today? Very unAustralian...), the planes flying distantly overhead, and the occasional car go by, I focus on the call of the whip bird. It's likely the only sound that I can hear right now which would not have been out of place on the day in 1788 when the first fleet of convicts arrived in Sydney Harbour.
I wonder what that would have been like for them, to sail in through the remarkable headlands into what Governor Phillip called "the finest harbour in the world". Certainly nothing like it is today, flanked with some of the world's most remarkable buildings & bridges. To realise that this was going to be home, 11,000 miles from everything they'd ever known, and likely having no idea how harshly this land would treat them. A whole new world. (take it away, Peabo & Regina...)
But there'd been people here for years. And most of them were more than willing to share with these new settlers. Sad most of the newbies didn't quite see it the same way, but the past is past, what's done is done.
Not far from where I'm sitting now there's a place called Breakfast Point. It's where the first contact was made between the new settlers and the aboriginal people, the Wangal clan. It was friendly.
Enough of my introspection. We're celebrating!
So let's celebrate Australia, the Great South Land of the Holy Spirit. Home of weird and wonderful animals. Where we eat our coat of arms. And where people like me are allowed to roam free. Indeed, even be leaders.
You're scared now right? You should be... :)
Comments (3)
Australia is a beautiful country. I was there for a week in 1966, on R&R while in the Army. I will guess I spent my time as many of your countrymen will today, at a BBQ, the beach and sharing a few Fosters.
I am surprised a Foster's isn't on your countries coat of arms. :)
While your country was founded by convicts, mine was by pious Puritans, who did burn the occasional witch, and the settlements of many Native Americans who were foolish enough to welcome then.
As you say the past is the past. The only important thing is that we all work to insure that the next 200 years are better than the first. Which will hopefully include celebrating many more anniversaries with BBQs and days at the beach.
And I'm really glad I wasn't at the beach yesterday...it was v.hot. And beaches are great when it's hot, but not v.hot. V.hot just means feeling really uncomfortable for the time you're out of the water :)
And convict or puritan, we're all depraved humans. I wonder if we'll ever learn to respect each other with love?
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