Mind Space

Venice

I spent a long weekend in Venice recently, and took quite a few photographs (Flickr set here). It's a wonderful place; the blue skies contrasted well with the pinks and greys of the buildings, and the emerald green of the canals and lagoon. The photo above was taken in a workshop that makes masks of painted papier mâché. Some of the masks are of a traditional design used in the annual Carnivale di Venezia, but others are purely for the tourists. Whilst sitting enjoying the sunshine and a coffee in one of the market squares in the Rialto district, I noticed that a group of Americans on the next table were looking at their purchases. One tried on his mask rather sheepishly, and I managed to catch the moment. It's my favourite photo of the trip.

Tourists aren't in short supply in Venice. The main island is thronged with people from early morning until dusk, and most of them seem to be visitors. I was staying on the island of La Giudecca, just to the south. It used to be an industrial island of flower mills and boat building. Today, shiny new apartment blocks have sprung up in the former industrial spaces, and of an evening teenagers play football in the courtyards, and young men play around on boats, or practice their skills with a Gondola. I suppose most of the people living on La Giudecca service the tourist industry, but it's still nice to know that the area isn't just a historical theme park.

I inevitably spent some of the time visiting the standard tourist attractions such as the Palazzo Ducale and the Basilica di San Marco, but the real beauty of the place was off the beaten track looking at secluded canals and faded architectural gems.

The surprise of the trip for me was in the treasury of the Basilica di San Marco, which is stuffed full of church plate and gruesome relics of saints. Much of the hoard was looted from Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade of 1201-1204, which began as a quest to gain Christians free access to the Holy Land, but ended in the sacking of Constantinople, one of the most shameful acts in Christian history. I wonder if there's ever any discussion of whether they should give the objects back.

Digging Holes and Mending Fences

I've spent the last week on a conservation working holiday for the National Trust in South Devon. We arrived on Saturday night, and the wardens of the property set out un unfeasibly long list of the jobs that we would be doing on the Coastal Path overlooking Pudcombe Cove. It included replacing steps, building a viewpoint, changing a style for a gate, putting in some benches and clearing a footpath. We got all this done and more.

The group I worked with were a fantastic bunch; by the end of the week we felt as if we knew one another for ages. We had a lot of laughs, and improved public access to the estate. All in all, a fantastic week.

Details about National Trust Working Holidays are here. I can't recommend them enough. My Flickr photoset is here.

 

While I was away I had a new washing machine installed at home. On my return I filled it with mud- and sweat- encrusted trousers and shirts, whiffy socks and, well you get the idea. I started the machine. It took in water. It dissolved the detergent. It heated the water. It swirled the clothes around. It tried to empty the water. It failed. It tried again. It made pathetic grinding noises until I turned it off. It trapped my clothes for three days in the most fetid water I’ve ever smelt (and boy could you smell it). So I’m stuck with a load of wet clothes, the nastiest wash of the year and it’s stuck in the machine. I finally got it sorted out this morning. They failed to take the plug out the end of the waste pipe when they fitted it. Many thanks to Andrew Lyle of St Mary's Church for sorting it out. He's a trooper.

Ghost Town; Chernobyl 20 years on

So it's 20 years since reactor 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded. Like most people at the time, I thought that Russia was a world away, and failed to grasp the enormity of what had happened, perhaps because the USSR worked hard to keep the disaster a secret for as long as possible. The magnitude and environmental impact of the explosion only really hit home in the early 1990's, when I worked for the UK Atomic Energy Authority alongside colleagues who were making regular visits to Chernobyl to advise on the clear up.

Two or three years ago I discovered the web journal of  Elena Filatova (link below). Elena is a writer, historian, biker, and Kiev resident. Her journal includes writings and photographs from a bike ride around Chernobyl. It's a terrific read, and, since she's given permission for it to be reproduced freely, I'll quote an extract;

Dad is nuclear physicist, and he has educated me about many things. He is much more worried about the speed my bike travels than about the direction I point it.

My trips to Chernobyl are not like a walk in the park, but the risk can be managed. Sometimes I go for rides alone, sometimes with pillion passenger, but never in company with any other vehicle, because I do not want anyone to raise dust in front of me.

I was a schoolgirl back in 1986 and as soon as radiation level began to rise in Kiev, dad put all of us on the train to grandma's house. Granny lives 800 kms from here and dad wasn't sure if it was far enough away to keep us out of reach of the big bad wolf of a nuclear meltdown.

The Communist government that was in power then kept silent about this accident. In Kiev, they forced people to take part in their preciously stupid labor day parade and it was then that ordinary people began hearing the news of the accident from foreign radio stations and relatives of those who died. The real panic began 7-10 days after accident. Those who were exposed to the exceedingly high levels of nuclear radiation in the first 10 days when it was still a state secret, including unsuspecting visitors to the area, either died or have serious health problems.

Link: Ghost Town

A Meditation for Good Friday

For Good Friday at Christ Church we are offering a series of meditations on images of Christ from around the world. By chance I've landed an aboriginal picture of Christ, and so a lot of my thinking comes out of my recent trip to Australia. The meditation follows below the picture, but before reading on, you might like to follow the link to read Luke 23:26-32 .

The Aboriginal Christ

The cross bears down on Jesus; the rough-hewn timbers pressing into the open wound of his back. Simon of Cyrene shares the burden of weight, supporting and upholding Jesus as he walks to the place of crucifixion.

This image is one of a series of stations of the cross, painted by Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr, a member of the Daily River Mission Church in Australia's Northern Territory. The painting is made in the traditional style of her aboriginal community. In the earlier stations, the patterns on Jesus' body show the physical stress he is under. The circles on his head indicate the pain and sorrow locked up inside him. The patterns on the cross show the increasing weight on his shoulders. In this painting, the patterns are changed. When Simon of Cyrene takes hold of the cross, his body merges with that of Jesus, and the pattern on Jesus' head is open. This, Miriam-Rose says, indicates a transfer of grace to Simon to strengthen him. As he shares the burden of another, so he receives strength from the one who is helped.

Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr's people are well-used to having burdens placed on them by others. In 1788 the first British fleet of soldier and convict settlers made landfall in Botany Bay in New South Wales. As the settlers built prison colonies, houses and farms, the land was stolen from its traditional owners. The displaced aboriginal people, bewildered, afraid and starving, were hunted down and frequently murdered.

Photograph by Findo.

Today this legacy of brutalisation and alienation shapes the communal identities of Australia's aboriginal people. Many struggle to maintain anything of the way of life known by their ancestors for tens of thousands of years. This graffiti was chalked onto the outside of a Roman Catholic Church in Redfern, a poor aboriginal suburb of Sydney. The graffiti says, "Crucified on every city sidewalk - the Aboriginal Christ should be free in his church and among his own people."

It's not too great a leap of imagination to wonder if Miriam-Rose Ungunmerr painted this Roman cross and thought of the burdens of injustice heaped upon her own people by another empire in another century.

Traditional aboriginal art is never purely decorative; it tells people how to live; how to find water in desert places, what plants and animals are good to eat, and how to perform their sacred rituals.
What does this picture tell you about how to live?
In what ways do you heap crosses onto the backs of others?
In what ways do you share the loads that other are weighed down by?

"I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me." (Matthew 25:40)

Litchfield National Park

Florence Falls
Originally uploaded by Ayres, no graces.

I'm on a three day tour of the Litchfield and Kakadu national parks. Both parks are in the tropical 'top end' of Australia's Northern Territories. Litchfield is the park closest to Darwin and we spent the first day there. We drove to the Florence Falls (above) for a swim, and then on to the Adelaide River. The approach to the river involved crossing a river flood-plain covered with rich vegetation. This was a huge contrast after Alice Springs, where the vegetation had to be tough and scrubby to survive extended periods of drought, bursting into new growth and flower only when the rains come. In the Adelaide River floodplain, the growth is lush and verdant. As we drove along the road, flocks of birds took to the skies. It reminded me of Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire in that respect, though given the tropical setting, that isn't perhaps such a good comparison. Furthermore, Wicken Fen is a nice place for a walk. Walk across this floodplain and you'ld never use your gym membership again. The place is infested with saltwater crocodiles.
We came to the Adelaide River for a Jumping Crocodile Cruise. After a cuppa and some snake handling (snakes found locally, of course), we boarded a rather grand cruise boat with tinted windows high above the water. I say boarded, but in fact we were ushered straight through the cruise boat, and into a rusty tub moored just the other side. I think Laurel and Hardy did a gag with clapped out motor parked behind a Rolls Royce. You get the picture. By the time all 16 of us had embarked, the tub sat low in the water. A would- be cowgirl drove the boat, with her assistant, a chap called Rocky. Rocky was described as a 'Crocodile Handler', a job description which made me expect him to be be rather lacking in the hand department.

Rocky tied chunks of meat on a broomstick and waved them over the water. Within a couple of minutes, a few crocs appeared, and jumped to catch the meat. He would lift the meat out of reach so they repeated the show five or six times before they got lucky and snatched the meat. Good family fun? I guess there's a certain satisfaction to be had from humiliating animals that would be above us in the food chain if they got the chance.

Into the maw
Originally uploaded by Ayres, no graces.

When the crocs were fed or frustrated (I hope they were fed!), Rocky turned his attention on the local sea eagle and whistling kite population, which swooped down around the boat to collect pellets of meat that he thre into the air at the side of the boat. This was, if anying, more stunning to watch than the crocodiles. After all, crocodiles go to any lengths for meat. That's what they do. The hunting of birds, on the other hand is an altogether more private and seldom viewed affair, and to see them feeding so close at hand with grace, speed and skill is something I'll long remember.

Whistling Kite
Originally uploaded by Ayres, no graces.

Our camp for the night was at Point Stewart, just outside of Kakadu. We slept in permanent tents made of heavy-duty mosquito netting. The tour guide called himself 'Dangerous Brian'. Fortunately he didn't show us his dangerous side. Or maybe he just invents the title to cultivate a degree of machismo.

I'll post more about Kakadu soon.

Kata Tjuta and Kings Canyon

The third day of my Uluru tour saw walks around Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) and King's Canyon. we camped near King's Canyon, and, after a swag bag lie-in (6am!) started the rim walk around King's Canyon. The top of the canyon was once the sandstone floor of an inland sea, and shows ripples in places. The top has weathered into  convoluted beehive-like domes of friable sandstone, which give way to vast drops into the canyon floor, in which water collects to give a rich habitat for rare cyclads and other plants.

Of the three walks on the tour, this was the most interesting, and also the steepest.

After the walk, we stopped for lunch and then commenced the journey back to Alice via an unmade road of deep red sand and gravel. Wayoutback tours promised that their 4 wheel drive vehicles would allow us to go to places that the tour busses couldn't reach. This was certainly true! The ride was rough and wild. 100km later, and I was relieved to get back on tarmac. We arrived in Alice Springs at 4:30pm, and met up in the evening to go out for a meal together.

Since I got back, my ipod has been behaving erratically, and I'm worried thet the hard disk may have been damaged by the off-road journey. The tragedy is that I've been storing the photos of my travels on it. I'll leave it switched off until I get home, and can investigate further. from now on, I'll burn photos to CD. Unfortunately I copied all my red centre photos across before I discovered the problem. The final 8 days of my holiday will be a little tense!

Wayoutback

Uluru Dawn
Originally uploaded by Ayres, no graces.

This morning I was woken by the light of the campfire. It was pitch-black, unsurprising given that my watch was showing 4:30am. My tour group had shunned the pre-pitched luxury tents used by other companies operating Uluru tours. Our camping consisted of unrolling our swag bags on the ground in a circle around the camp fire, and sleeping under the stars. A swag is a canvas bag containing a built-in matress in which you put your sleeping bag. The night was comfortably warm, so I just put my sleeping bag on top, and had a brilliant night's sleep. Sleeping around the fire, looking at the stars and listening to insects was one of those mountain-top experiences, almost spiritual in itself.

We left camp at 5:30 to drive out to see sunrise over Uluru (Ayers Rock) from a vantage point near Kata Tjuta (The Olgas). The weather and the viewpoint weren't ideal for taking postcard pictures of Uluru changing colour, but by driving further we escaped the crowds that flock to the usual viewpoint, and had an altogether more private experience, shared only by our group an half a million flies. I was a little disappointed not to get the classic sunrise view, but the sunrise was beautiful, as was the view of Kata Tjuta.

Yesterday afternoon we walked around Uluru. The walk was flat and intensely hot, and became rather tedious. The monolith is impressive, but there's relatively little variety in the perimeter walk. In contrast this morning's Valley of the Winds walk around Kata Tjuta was beautiful. Quite steep in places, the path circles one monolith in the range. The muted light of dawn gave way to clear blue skies of day, making for some pleasing photographs.

The local aboriginal people have great attachment to these sites, and with good reason. The red limestone clifffs tower over the generally flat landscape. The Israelites called such locations 'high places', where earth and heaven touched, and where they set up altars to worship God. The aboriginal people incorporated them into songlines, stories of god-men that gave shape to their cultural tradition, and conveyed practical wisdom about living in the harsh landscape. These are places of myth and meaning, whatever theological interpretation is imposed upon them. I'm glad I've seen them. Reflecting on what they mean for me will take some time...

Backpacking

I've been backpacking once before, but that was with my brother a few years ago in Northern Queensland. I wasn't sure quite what to expect of sleeping in dormitory accommodation with people I didn't know. In the event, my first night was great! I shared a dorm with two gap year students from England, a German couple, and a German woman. We got on so well that we went out for a meal together, then got rather drunk in a noisy local bar. Very silly indeed. This morning I got up at 6am to start my tour of Uluru in a rattling 4WD vehicle. The time and the jolts conspired to weaken my already fragile head.

From Sydney to Alice Springs

I've just flown into Alice, and been knocked over by the heat of the day. I'm off to Uluru tomorrow, but today's task is to explore the town.

This area is called the red centre, and flying in by plane confirms that it is indeed very red. That it's the centre is less easy to verify, but I'll take their word for it!

For the last few days I've had limited internet access, and have written a few blog entries on my PDA. When I can find an internet cafe that will let me use a card reader, I'll post them. Out of order, just to make reading this a more convoluted proposition!

The real reason for Australia Day

Cameron Booth (Senex Prime on Flickr) has pointed out that Australia Day is actually the anniversary of the arrival of the first fleet from Britain in 1788. The fleet began the process of establishing Australia as a prison settlement. Thanks, Cameron.

I met up with Cameron in Sydney today, and we had a very good afternoon wandering around the ANZAC bridge taking photos (see Flickr). Good to meet you Cameron!