Letter to Students 02 September 2009

Dear Reader

Canberra Botanic Gardens

It is now a glorious sunny day which has welcomed me after a frosty morning, and I am sitting on a pebbly path with large rocks placed judiciously to allow moss, Acacia trees, and other native plants to display their beauty.  The plants in Australia are so different from those in New Zealand, although we have introduced all these Australian plants into Aotearoa and we see them often.  However, it is so much drier here, and the plants must be very hardy to cope with the drought conditions.  There is water beside me, a still pond in the shape of a small stream, and I always feel at peace when I am beside water. The only noise I can here is the distant traffic of downtown Canberra, and the call of birds, mainly magpies, I think.  None of these birds  have found their way across the Tasman Sea, unlike the plants, so I am not sure what they are.

Arriving into Canberra at 5.30 in the evening proved to be as rushed as I had anticipated, not that I was forward worrying.  I had decided that if I missed the 6.20 plane, I would just buy another ticket, but I was going to make the plane from Sydney to Canberra if at all possible.  Hence, as I stood in a long queue, I spied an immigration officer who had no one going up to be processed by him. He was looking after queries from Australians arriving home, but I went up to him and asked if he thought I would make the flight.  He said he didn’t think I would, but processed my passport and I rushed through. I had only carry on luggage, and although I headed off in the wrong direction originally, I found a taxi and headed to the domestic terminal.  The meter went up $10 in a flash and then the immigrant driver insisted on taking a tip as he “had been waiting so long.”  I had no time to argue, but it reminded me of the time we arrived back from Fiji after a family holiday, and got ripped off by an Indian taxi driver in Auckland!  However, the Virgin Blue woman on check-in was absolutely delightful, and said that I had made it with three minutes to spare!  I told her about the taxi driver, and she said that that paying $20 was cheaper than buying another flight ticket, and she waved me through, telling me to enjoy myself. 

As I write, there is a frog croaking near me, and I feel he is welcoming me to this special spot.  It is so sunny and calm, and a feeling of relaxation has come over me. I just had a phone call from a friend in Dunedin, and it was funny to talk with her, knowing that it is grey and cold there, and I am bathed in the late afternoon sun.

This morning, I awoke to traffic noise outside, although I thought we had booked a quiet hotel on the internet.  There was the noise of groaning coming from next door, as if some special needs person was trying to communicate, and communicate they did for over an hour.  I got up and had a shower, and decided that this was not the morning to have a lie-in, not that I ever do anyway.  I went for a walk into the centre of town, and bought some fruit to have in my room.  It was good to find that my appointment, related to some of my students, was just a ten-minute walk away from the hotel, and this went very well.  I then returned to the hotel to change my clothes and shoes so that I could explore the town in comfort.  My feet led me on an interesting walk, and it was fun just looking at buildings, and seeing where I ended up.  It is not as boring a city as I had remembered from the age of twenty when I was last here, although there is not a lot of real interest for me to see.  I was advised to see the war memorial and parliament buildings, but they really don’t interest me.  I found a migrant centre in a TAFE, similar to our Polytechnic, and the Australian government pours a lot more money into migrant education than our government does, percentage wise. With the National government in power in New Zealand, there have been more cuts to refugee and migrant English programmes, and it is a pity they won’t take a leaf out of Australia’s book! However, not all things in Australia are better. I introduced myself to the head of the ESOL department, but I could tell by her querulous look that she was totally disinterested in me, and I took the hint and left! I suppose I shouldn’t expect everyone to be as friendly as we are! Walking along the road, I passed so many men in suits, and yet I haven’t seen so many women dressed as professionally.  It certainly is a city of bureaucrats.  Having said that, I have also seen two young, rather scruffy men, attempting to wash windscreens when cars have been stopped at the lights, but the token gesture of a quick wipe with a brush across the glass doesn’t produce many tips.  I wouldn’t want to pay anything either, and certainly wouldn’t want to feel intimidated to do so.  I also noticed in the public toilets that they have a disposal unit for syringes, and it reminded me of the time Han and I visited our daughter in Melbourne, and we were told of the drug problem there.  I remember being shocked that they daily have machines to sift the sand on St Kilda beach so that the beach is free of syringes which cause harm to innocent people strolling along the sand.

The croaking frog has been joined by his mates, and they are now making a real racket!  I wish I could see them, and I am sure they are just on a rock near the water’s edge.  There is a little bridge near me, and I think they have gathered under the wooden planks.  It feels soothing to hear the regular croak, as if the little slimy creatures are rubbing balls together in contemplative meditation.

I enjoyed my flight over from Auckland yesterday.  All but one of the crew were older men, and they were very attentive.  Guy, the flight attendant who made such a fuss of me, made sure I was well looked after, and I appreciated that.  I don’t usually have such attention lavished on me, preferring to spoil others, and it is nice for a holiday treat!  I intend to indulge myself and not feel guilty!

I have booked a bus ticket to Sydney tomorrow, leaving at nine o’clock, and look forward to the trip there.  We chose this hotel in Canberra because it said that it  had a pool and internet, but what they didn’t say was that the pool is an outdoor pool which is only open in summer, and the internet has a charge!  Never mind.  It is in a good location, and apart from the paper thin walls which failed to block the moaning in the morning, it is clean and does the trick!  I don’t want to complain as it sounds so precious as so many people would give their right arm to stay in a place like this.  I remember when one of the members of Education Dunedin complained about the accommodation in a hotel in China and I cringed.  It was superior to anything I had ever stayed in till I had gone on that trip, and I think we can become too preoccupied with the unimportant details in life.  We are the losers in this case, because we become upset over trivia which wrecks our stay. It is better to remain positive, and enjoy the total experience.

The sun is beginning to set so I will walk back down the hill and get a taxi.  The driver from the airport was from Bangladesh, and the driver to the Botanic Gardens was an Indian, both graduates in IT from Canberra University, and looking for work in that area.  I wished them well in their search.  They didn’t rip me off as the driver in Sydney, although I told them of my experience and made sure the meter was running! Whoosh, over my head; it doesn’t matter!!

Tonight, I am having dinner at a Turkish restaurant with the people I met this morning.  It won’t be a late night, and I am looking forward to having an early night, something I haven’t done in quite some time.

Australia is very similar to New Zealand in many ways, with English the common language, and many of the shops are the same.  However, the Australian accent is stronger, and there is less variety in the trees and fauna.  New Zealand has lost so many of its birds to predators, the two legged and four legged variety, that we are now bereft of many of the species that existed before man arrived in New Zealand.  Most of our birds were flightless, so had no way to escape their death.  However, Australia has always had predators, and the birds are quick to take flight.  Even their possum is smaller than ours, and doesn’t do the damage our possums do. People here are friendly, on the whole, and I certainly don’t experience any culture shock, not that I do wherever I go.  This morning I discovered a shopping centre with a wonderful delicatessan with the most amazing selection of cheeses and meats.  That is something we lack in Dunedin, probably because of the small population.  My mouth was drooling with the selection, and I could have spent a fortune if I could have taken the produce home.  Australia is almost as strict as we are with their import of food, but they don’t have the x-ray machines for luggage in the same way as we do when everyone exits the customs area.  This morning, I discovered a small piece of chocolate, wrapped in a tissue, which was in the bottom of my bag, put there last week after a meeting.  It had gone through Australian customs undetected and I wouldn’t have got away with that in New Zealand, not that it had any contaminants in it. 

A bird has just taken a dip in the water and flown away.  It reminds me that I, too, must depart, although I won’t be having any dip until Sydney, where hopefully there is the indoor pool which was advertised in the apartment’s advertisement.  No complaints if not, as I know there is so much to do in Sydney.  I look forward to telling you about it tomorrow.

Love

Sharron

PS

Just arrived  back at the hotel, and it is just eight o’clock.  I ordered a taxi to take me across town, but although I waited, it didn’t appear.  As I was looking longingly down the road, another taxi pulled up and I quickly jumped in.  The taxi driver was another Indian, this time from the north of India, and another driver with a degree in IT.  Nearly every driver here must be Indian or Bangladeshi and have an IT degree!  Mr Singh was extremely personable and told me he was a Sikh.  When I asked him what that meant to him, he said that it meant that he believed that men and women were equal, that there was just one God, and not many as is believed by Hindus, and that temples should not be decorated with images of God.  One tenth of their salary should go to the poor, in the same way as Christians tithe the same percentage to the church.  He was a real character and we talked about my devastating experience of having my bag with ten rolls of film and diaries with two years of writing stolen when I was travelling through the south of India.  Mr Singh quite rightly pointed out that there are thieves throughout the world, but did stress that although the people in the south were better educated, the people in the north were friendlier!  After talking to this entertaining driver, I felt like visiting the north of India as had been my hope at the time I travelled to the south, following the wishes of my partner of the time.

Will I ever get over the trauma of losing my two years of writing?  Probably not!

I am now going to have a little sleep as I walked for four hours with only a break for some late lunch at the botanic garden.  I had a quiche and salad, and a glass of bubbly, and it was very pleasant in the sun as a number of elderly sat around and chatted as they enjoyed the woodland setting.  This was in stark contrast to the busy, noisy Turkish restaurant we went to tonight.  The food was fabulous, and obviously everyone knew that as the restaurant was full.  It was a wonderful family restaurant which made delicious Turkish bread to accompany mouth watering tastes of Turkey.  My eyes were smarting a little from the smoky atmosphere as they grilled a lot of meat, but I am not complaining.  I love such places, and prefer them to the expensive, upmarket, formal dining establishments.  However, talking over the noise of other tables means I now have little voice left. 

I am now going to snuggle up in bed, and I look forward to seeing what tomorrow will bring.

Love

Sharron