Like most summers, I spent the bulk of the summer of 2003 doing research and trying to get some writing done. To be exact, I finished up a manuscript (Language on Trial: Linguistics and the Criminal Law) that I am writing with a colleague and friend at Brooklyn Law School, Larry Solan. And I worked on a couple of articles. I also made a trip out to Vermont to work with some judges on writing more comprehensible jury instructions. But, of course, I did manage to get away for two or three weeks. It started out when I got involved in planning a conference on language and law in Sydney, Australia. Since I helped set up this conference, it seemed appropriate for me to attend it. And Thea thought that Australia sounded like fun, so she volunteered to come along. The conference itself took place at Sancta Sophia College, which is part of the University of Sydney:
It looks like my right eye is damaged, but not to worry, this is just a distortion caused by lowering the picture quality of the jpegs so they will load a bit faster. That funny thing hanging around my neck is a GPS receiver, which is mostly a toy but sometimes came in handy. It receives satellite data and tells you exactly what your coordinates are. Most people think it's a cell phone.
Sydney is famous for its harbor, and the most famous part of the harbor is the opera house. We got a look at it when we took a harbor cruise:
Sydney has a beautiful harbor area that meanders through much of the city. A lot of people can take the ferry to work--they arrive at the Circular Quai, which is very close to downtown. It's a great way to commute. In this sense it reminded me a bit of San Francisco, which also has a beautiful harbor (bay) and where there are also a lot of people who can commute by ferry. A big difference is that Sydney is fairly flat, while San Francisco is very hilly.
Another famous feature of Sydney Harbor is the Harbour Bridge (as they spell it). You can see a small snippet of the opera house on the left:
Sydney is the capital of the state of New South Wales, which occupies the south east corner of Australia. Australia has a federal system of government that is fairly similar to the United States in some ways. Each state has its own laws, legislature, and judicial system. And there is also a federal government, which is centered in Canberra. One big difference with the US is that the head of state is the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. There was a referendum on whether to make the country a republic a few years ago, but the republicans narrowly lost and the country remains a monarchy of sorts. Below is a shot of the NSW parliament in Sydney:
One of the things that really struck us about Australia is all the exotic birds. Actually, most of the animals in the country are pretty exotic, like Kangaroos and Wombats and so forth. The thing is, we knew about the exotic land animals. We were somewhat more surprised by the interesting (and sometimes very noisy) birds, like this ibis walking in front of the main administrative building of Sydney University. I associate the ibis with ancient Egypt, where, if I recall correctly, it was worshipped as a deity. It's a nice-looking bird, but "deity" seems a bit exaggerated. Have you ever heard of deities that eat bugs?
There are also a lot of tropical types of birds, like cockatiels, cockatoos, parrots, lorekeets, etc. The birds below must be members of the parrot family. They were just wandering around a pasture area not far from Sydney:
Sydney is a bit of a small town feel to it sometimes, but there is no denying that it is a major city with an impressive skyline. This photo was taken from the Darling Harbour/Cockle Bay area, which is pleasant touristy area close to downtown.
BLUE MOUNTAINS and beyond
We had a great time in Sydney, but wanted to see some more of the country. To the west, not all that far from Sydney (a lot of people go there for day trips) are the Blue Mountains, so called because of the bluish haze that often hangs over the:
This is a shot of the three sisters in Katumba. It's amazing to stand up here and listen to all the bird chatter in the valley below. As you can see, this area has some very beautiful rock:
Also in the Blue Mountains is the Zig-zag Railway. This was part of the rail line that went to Sydney and was built about a century ago. To get through the mountains, it had to zig and zag, hence the name.
We were lucky that they were using a steam engine that day. Steam engines are very dramatic, but you do get a lot of steam in the cars. The train also had the old fashioned cars where each little compartment has its own door to the outside, something you used to see in England a lot on local trains, but which have largely disappeared over the years.
We planned to gradually head off towards Melbourne. To get there, we drove in the area of Jenolan caves, which are impressive limestone caverns full of stalagmites and stalagtites. I can never remember which is which, and in my line of work it really doesn't matter.
The countryside along the Hume Highway (the main artery from Sydney to Melbourne) is not especially dramatic, but provides a pleasant landscape of rolling hills, generally very green, with scattered eucalyptus trees and lots of sheep, cattle, and an occasional group of kangaroos (who graze on the grass a lot like sheep, except that the sheep can't bounce around the way kangaroos do).
Victoria
Continuing in a westerly direction, we left New South Wales behind us and entered the state of Victoria. There are several wine-growing regions here, among them the Yarra Valley. We did not do a lot of wine tasting, but we did manage to stop at one of the larger wineries in the area:
We did not spend a lot of time in Melbourne, which is the capital of Victoria. Australians from Melbourne are quite emphatic about how much nicer Melbourne is than Sydney. Apparently, they have a bit of an inferiority complex. We weren't there long enough to judge, but it's hard to beat Sydney's location on that dramatic harbor. Melbourne does have some charming areas and also some archtecturally interesting buildings, as you see here at Federation Place:
We left Melbourne and drove another hunderd or so miles to the west, passing through Geelong and on to the Great Ocean Road. If we continued in this direction, we would eventually end up in Adelaide and then, after even more driving, Perth. Australia's a big country! Instead, we veered off the highway and went to the South, where we the southern coast. The road along the coast is called the Great Ocean Road.
The picture below is taken from the Great Ocean Road. It's an area known as the Twelve Apostles, although you can only see about six of them. Behind me were a few other apostles, and there are apparently a few more under the water. Is this cheating?? Somehow the "Nine Apostles" doesn't sound as good as a full dozen, but we didn't come all this way to be cheated out of a few apostles! How's about some truth in advertising, mates?
We drove the Great Ocean Road back to the Melbourne area, but decided to bypass Melbourne itself by taking a ferry from Queenscliff to the Gippsland area. We then drove on (now heading east), planning to follow the coast back to Sydney.
About 75 miles southeast of Melbourne is Phillip Island, which is attached to the mainland by a causeway. It's famous for its "penguin parade," which involves penguins who live on the coast, in burrows just behind the beach. I never knew it before coming here, but there are quite a few little penguins (fairy penguins) in the southern part of Australia, Tasmania, and also southern New Zealand. They go out to the ocean to feed. After several days in the ocean, some of them come back every evening. They wait until the sun has set and it gets dark, in order to avoid predators. Then then come out of the ocean, waddle across the beach, and head off to their burrows.
The picture below was taken from the website of the penguin parade (it's a type of nature preserve)--they would not let people use cameras at the event itself.
Also on Phillip Island is a koala sanctuary, which is a great way to get a good look at these cute animals. They are not really bears, but a type of marsupial. Fortunately, no problems with using a camera here (all of these pictures were "grabbed" off of a video that I made):
Continuing our journey to the east, and following the coast as much as possible, we came to Wilson's Promentory National Park. It has some great hiking and spectacular views. Here's Thea on one of the trails. Why so bundled up? It was July, the middle of winter in Australia!
