We woke to news of yet another illegal immigrant boating tragedy north of Christmas Island. Matters on this front do not change; it is as if the fleeing immigrants have a death wish, but then what would I know about any of this having had such a privileged life?
We headed into the city on the quiet Sunday roads, first in search of the house where Chris spent his first months in Australia all those years ago. Harold Street in Highgate is actually in Mt Lawley and is indeed just up the street from a pub that looked like it would have been around in those days, but Number 168 is no more. A large secure gate protects a collection of apartments or town houses from lurking pilgrims, and that was as far as we got.
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| Barracks Arch |
Instead we drove up to Kings Park and set off on foot back down to the city, past the Barracks Arch, a rather out of place construction perched above the highway that passes through the city. It was once upon a time a much grander structure known as the pensioner’s Barracks, built in 1863 to house a special force of soldiers called the Pensioner Guards, veterans of conflicts such as the Crimean War and the Indian Mutiny, who were now assigned to keep order over the 10,000 convicts sent to Perth between 1850 and 1868. The building was used for other government purposes after the pensioner force were disbanded in 1878, and eventually demolished in 1966 to make way for the Mitchell Freeway. However there was an outcry from the population and this token arch was saved as a memorial.
Further down the street, we passed the Old Perth Boys School built in 1854, previously only glimpsed from the bus window, currently undergoing restoration. This stands adjacent to the Old Perth Technical School into which the church-like structure of the Boy’s School was incorporated in 1900. This was built in 1910 and has less character than the more western structure. But both of these buildings, standing side by side, look rather incongruous dwarfed by the huge glass structures all about reaching for the sky.
We walked through the city centre, just starting to come alive with the casual weekend shoppers and made our way to the Town Hall, another building which the tourist is encouraged to visit. Today it was closed up tight and not very inviting at all. The opening times were advertised on an office door so we might find ourselves back there another day.
It was not too far across the rail and into the Cultural precinct where we found a dry spot on a garden wall and ate our lunch. It had rained last night and showers still threatened. The herbs in the Urban Orchard garden beds exuded strong scents; we were unable to identify them from the list of plantings. Here on the roof of car parks, planter boxes are full of fruit trees, herbs, vegetables and companion plants, managed organically, the structures made from recycled waste for parts of building works. The community can involve themselves by registering on the Council website; however I did wonder whether a casual picnicker such as myself would be allowed to pluck a ripe fruit from a tree, or a stalk of rhubarb home to stew, or even a handful of herbs for the night’s dinner.
We decided to start our afternoon with a visit to PICA, the Perth Institute of Contemporary Art, which today had an exhibition titled Hatched, which features thirty seven artists from twenty art schools across Australia. This is an annual event and no doubt would astound us similarly every year. Personally I found little to my taste, even though even I was able to acknowledge that most of the artists did prove they had some talent, albeit eccentric or maniacal. Needless to say, Chris and I were in and out of the gallery in a fairly short time.
Across the courtyard we found the entrance to the museum and it was there we spent the rest of the afternoon, and even then, did not even see half of the exhibitions. And this does not include the special visiting exhibition, Secrets of the Afterlife – Magic, Mummies & Immortality in Ancient Egypt. We were given a set direction to attack the museum and the first gallery was the Discovery Centre, a fabulous area targeted at children but equally interesting for grownups. Although today it was packed with exuberant children and all a bit much. I would have been happier to have had any one or two of our own grandchildren in tow rather than the chaos of other peoples.
We progressed through other areas of the museum, the section Land & People situated in the beautiful old Hackett Hall and on into other areas where Chris finally lost me and had to put a request for his lost wife over the PA system. This I still failed to hear and it was not until a staff member tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was Bronwyn that the confusion was resolved. Shall we simply say that Chris had failed to hear the first part of my conversation,” I will go check out the gallery below and then ….” I became very engrossed in the Katta Djinoong: First Peoples of Western Australia gallery.
I had been looking forward to visiting the museum to learn more about this state and its history. I don’t think I had been alone in thinking of Western Australia and Perth as being a large quarry adorned with an attractive city by the sea where New Zealanders aspire to settle. Of course it is these and so very much more.
Today I learned that Perth was formed and shaped from the wealth of the 1890s gold boom, when profits were poured into bricks and mortar in the city. And then much of this distinctive architecture was swept away in the mineral boom of the 1960s by towering office blocks. In the entrepreneurial 1980’s, concrete and glass skyscrapers came to dominate the skyline. Nowadays there is more emphasis on conserving historic building. Even this evening on the local television news we learned that the go-ahead has been given for a hotel to be remodelled out of an existing structure in Northbridge.
I also read more about Western Australia’s major problem with salinity. Rising salinity is destroying bush and agricultural land in the Wheatbelt. Every hour, an area the size of a football field is lost to salt. Railway workers noticed rising salt levels in Avon Valley streams and dams in the 1890s. Thirty years later, scientists began to study links between soil salinity and land clearing. Yes, large scale clearing continued till the late 1980s. Now two million hectares, about 10% of farming land is salt affected and this could rise to as much as 30%. Losses in agricultural production are forecast to reach $400 million a year by 2050.
As well as the problems caused by salinity, sheep and cattle grazing have left a legacy of environmental problems in the State’s fragile pastoral country. More than 25% of these areas are environmentally degraded because of overstocking. The loss of vegetation and the impact of hooved animals – horses, cattle, sheep, goats and donkeys, have led to soil erosion. Grazing animals have damaged wetlands and left rivers and streams choked with silt. Perennial shrubs and grasses, once maintained through regular firing by Aboriginal people, have been lost in many areas. Today many pastoralists are experimenting with reduced stock numbers and rotational grazing, just as our forefathers die with their cropping many centuries ago in Europe. Somewhere down the track the common sense of such practice was lost.
And then, as we have learned in other museums around the country, there was more bad news. Colonists introduced exotic animals and plants to Western Australia. As well as domesticated species such as sheep, horses and cattle, they brought in other animals to remind them of home. An Acclimatisation Committee established in 1896 stocked local waters with trout, English perch, tench, and gold and silver perch. It also brought in white swans, hares, deer, quail, Senegal and Indian turtledoves, peafowl, guinea fowl and angora goats. Some of these species have flourished and become pests.
In the gallery dealing with Aborigines in Western Australia, and other places visited over the past few weeks, it has been interesting to read the term of “invasion” by Europeans of Australia. Of course it was, however I had never heard it described as such. But then such a word suggests a very negative act and we of European blood like to consider we came as saviours to the isolated people of the Pacific. Not so, of course.
The tension between the Noongar people and the British settlers here in Western Australia amplified this fact. Despite the gentling words of Stirling in 1829 when he arrived to establish Perth and surrounds, that no European should do any harm to the indigenous folk, there was great unrest between 1830 and 1834, which did not totally settle for many years thereafter.
In October 1834, a well-armed group of men set out from Perth for the area now known as Pinjarra. Three days later this force trapped about seventy men, women and children of the “Murray Tribe” between the banks of the Murray River. In less than an hour and a half, the massacre was over. British witnesses estimated that between fifteen and thirty Aboriginal people died, caught in crossfire from both banks. Aboriginal oral tradition places the figure much higher. Two British soldiers were injured, one died two weeks later. The British party quickly left the scene leaving Aboriginal bodies where they had fallen. Captain Ellis was buried with full military honours.
The event is referred to variously as “massacre”, battle” or “event”, reflecting interpretations from different sides.
After I was found, I followed my husband back across the city like a chastened child. We caught the free Red Bus back up near Kings Park and walked the last leg, arriving back at the car park as the rain began to fall. By the time we arrived back at camp, the bad weather had set in for the rest of the day. It was indeed a good night for a roast.
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