Dear Family and Friends,

We are trying to catch up on our blog and have a lot to share.  We have been up to a lot including:

Aussie Day

Surfing lessons

Bundeena and the aboriginal rock engravings

Hiking the Blue Mountains and surviving the Giant Stairway

Mosman

Bradley's Head

Sending the kids off to Cronulla Public School

Cafe Parlo going head to head with Cafe 43

And much much more...

Soon after our arrival, Australia celebrated Australia Day on January 26th.  This day can be compared to our Independence Day celebration except that Australia didn't actually declare independence from anybody, but rather it is a celebration of the anniversary of the founding of the first settlement.     We woke the kids up at 5:30 AM so that we could catch the 6:13 train to the CBD (central business district, or downtown to us Yanks).  The reason we made the trip so early was to see the Woggan-ma-gule ceremony at Farm Cove which started at 8 AM.

The ceremony includes song, dance and a smoking ritual.  Woggan-ma-gule means "meeting of the waters" and  continues the commemoration of the past and celebration of the future.  The singing and dancing is both traditional and contemporary and continues to honor the spirits of the past inhabitants.  It was a very moving performance of old and young people of Aboriginal descent demonstrating various pieces of their history and culture including hunting, gathering, and rites of passage.

There is more history than we can possibly honor in this short entry but here are some photos and if you are interested you could explore more of the history on your own.

Following the ceremony we walked through the botanical gardens and Mike suggested we stop for a treat (this is surprising because he is a notorious cheapskate).  After enjoying some tasty treats we explored the gardens and saw cockatoos eating out of visitor's hands and thought we'd have a go at it.  While no cockatoos were interested in our bits some other unknown birds were quite eager to land on Mike's and Jack's outstretched hands.  It was quite amazing.  

 

In the gardens we saw the flying foxes which are bats about the size of a fox with wings.  There are literally thousands of them in one section of the gardens, and every night around dusk, they alight from their roosts and fly off to the suburbs to feed.  We were not there to witness this event.

As part of the celebration each year there are many activities throughout the harbor and CBD including various musical artists, shows, fireworks, boat parades in the harbor, and the famous ferry races.  Each year several of the passenger ferries get dressed up, and then race through the harbor - first one under the harbor bridge wins.  Don't know if it is real or staged but it is quite exciting as hundreds of boats join the chase through the harbor.  It is quite exciting and chaotic as people line up for hundreds of meters along the harbor and watch the action. 

No trip to the botanical gardens would be complete without stopping at Mrs. Macquaries chair.  In the early 1800's, the wife of governor Lachlan Marquarie, had her servants carve a seating area into the sandstone so she would have a nice place to sit and look over the harbor.  To quote Bill Bryson, author of Down Under "You really cannot move in Australia without bumping into  some reminder of his tenure.  Run your eye over the map and you will find a Macquarie Harbor, Macquarie Island, Macquarie Marsh, Macquarie River, Macquarie Fields, and Macquarie Pass.  And that's just some of the Macquaries, by the way.  Macquarie is also the name of a bank, a university, the national dictionary, a shopping centre, and one of Sydney's principal streets.  That's not to mention the forty-seven other Roads, Avenues, Groves and Terraces in Sydney that, according to Jan Morris, are named for the man or his family.  Nor have we touched on the Lachlan River, Lachlan Valley or any of the other first name variations that sprang to his tireless mind."

Mrs. Macquaries Chair and the view from Mrs. Macquarie's Point

We haven't seen all of the Macquarie landmarks, but we have visited the shopping centre, street, university, and the chair.  Inspired by the ferry races, we decided to take a ferry trip to Manly for a relaxing day at the beach. 

 

Australia is preparing to apologize to the Aboriginal People.  There has been much debate and politicking over the contents of the message, and it is due out soon.  Many people feel that if the government makes a formal apology to the Aboriginal people for their horrible sins of the past, then billions of dollars in claims will be forthcoming.  Stay tuned...    This photo by the way was someone's attempt to apologize to the Aborigines during Aussie day.  While Aussie day marks the day white people began their first settlement, it also marked the day that Aboriginies were forcefully removed from lands that had been theirs for tens of thousands of years.

  After the beach we grabbed a delicious meal at Hungry Jacks, and took the ferry and train back to Cronulla  for an early bed time.  Cronulla itself was having a large Aussie day celebration consisting of games, music, food and fireworks.  A house not far from our apartment was having the largest house party  we have ever seen.  All of the windows from the house were removed, presumably so that nobody would break them during their fall, and so that we could hear the DJ (yes they hired a DJ).  We didn't stay awake long enough for the fireworks, but we were told that they only went for three minutes then inexplicably stopped.  The rumor is that somebody fell off a cliff, or jumped off a cliff, or something that required search helicopters to be deployed to the area to cause a premature cancellation.  Anyhow we were in bed and Aussie day was over.  Until next time, cheers!