Where in the World?...

Many times I am asked about information concerning Australia, and travel advice or info on arrangements, but it has also been interesting in my time in the US, how often people are confused by where Australia actually is, how big it is.  Often in general conversation, Australia is easily confused with Austria, which is in Europe.  Though, I have to tell you, its nowhere near Austria and is quite a distance from the US, in fact, Australia's closest neighbor is Indonesia. 

 

Click on Map to make it larger 

 

Notice Australia down the bottom right.  Its big. Its next to New Zealand and pretty close to Papua New Guinea, as well as Indonesia. In fact, from the top of Australia, it only takes about 30 minutes to fly to Papua New Guinea.  If you take a look at mainland US and compare the sizes you can see how close the countries are in size.

 

Now, if you can read it, because the writing and numbers are rather small, notice Russia, then look to the lower left of Russia... the smaller countries such as Germany? If you look at Germany, then you'll see Poland.  If you look at the little orange area on the right of Germany and the left of Poland, kind of underneath it, that is... Austria.

 

Australia, Austria... Austria has a few letters short, but you may be able to see why its sometimes confused.

 

Australia is in the Pacific, near Asia.  If you fly over Hawaii, you're usually going in the right direction.  Austria is in Europe, closer to the North Atlantic.  Needless to say, if you're headed to Austria, and you fly over Hawaii, you may want to contact your travel agent, or replan your sight seeing trips.  You should be flying over the atlantic ocean towards France.

 

Australia is only about 10,000 sq foot (yes sq foot) smaller than the US mainland which means its difficult to walk from Perth to Sydney.  Thats pretty close to saying you are going to walk from Florida to California. You can not drive to Perth in an hour from Brisbane.  Brisbane and Perth are practically across the country from each other. A similar distance would be the coast of North Carolina to the coast of California.

 

So any trip you take to Australia, be prepared to spend more than a week there if you want to see a few different places, if you can. 

 

As always, happy to answer questions about Australia.  Just let me know by either posting a question, or comment, or you can always email any time

 

Catch ya later!

W&W

 

 

  

A Merry Christmas!

Just a few minutes ago, after making a second batch of meringues, I had been thinking of the past year, gazing out the back glass door, for no more reason than for somewhere to look. Noticed the reflection of color from the Christmas tree lights in the rain drops and focused on them, thinking how it would make such a great picture, but I was too caught up in thinking after a busy day, to take one.  Friends from places we've previously lived have talked about the current snow fall, how peaceful and beautiful it is.  Here its still warm, relatively. 

The past day especially I've been quite busy, but have made slow progress between other things going on. The decorations are up, menus planned, gifts wrapped, cards finally made...

 

Around town, some people are still wearing t shirts! What more would you expect than warm winter days, comparitively that is to our past homes in the Midwest. By now, we'd have probably, at least some snow covering the pastures in Wisconsin, maybe an ice storm on its way in Iowa. Even a smattering (or as its been the few years we were there, inches) of the white stuff in and around Dallas, Texas. 

In contrast again to Christmas in Australia, in the rural area we lived in, the heat and summer thunderstorms.  It was a busy time and an amazing year full of firsts for all of us.  This time last year, I was President of a community radio station, we had celebrated with our Christmas party and were about to farewell one of the stations mainstay Presenters, who was to return to New Zealand.  The small town, so different to what we had been used to, and our many trips into the larger town of Bundaberg, still close to an hours drive away.  The girls had just finished school, their first experience wearing school uniforms, and it was our first Christmas without Dad.

On the roads we passed Redgums, heard the Kookaburras, had been busy planning stockings and discovering a whole new range of different products we could buy. And of course, there was Boston, who spent most of the time climbing the tree and with one pretty good swipe of his paw, scattered ornaments all over the lounge room (living room).

Now our roads have changed, and we pass by evergreen forests, beautiful old southern buildings, some pre-civil war, others built during the towns' boon years, and some abandoned years before.

We have Bob and Samson, both rescues from the local shelter, who seem to be quite taken with thier first Autumn and Christmas.  Bob, aptly named for his shorter than average tail.  What he lacks in length, he makes up with volume. Seriously, any fluffier it could easily be used for a duster. Bob, is still busy knocking a single acorn left over from a Thanksgiving project, all around the living room and kitchen. He also tends to enjoy climbing the tree and knocking ornaments off. Bob is the ring leader, Sam joined in later.

 

Sam is gentle and laid back, but a kitten with absolutely no quarms about attacking prey, when he gets you, you certainly know about it. He crawled into a wreath left on the table before we had a chance to hang it

 

 

We've been blessed to have such a wide range of wonderful experiences, different places, different customs and seasons.

We wish you all the best of Christmases with your own special memories and seasons, and a fabulous new year.

Southern Cotton...

 

They are just a little way down the road from us - two large fields, one on each side of the road. I wasn't sure what was in it when we first moved here, (I'm used to cows and corn, and more recently, sugar cane) but as it turns out, they were cotton fields, and there is a lot of cotton in this town.

 

Driving out towards Williston and White Pond, I noticed at least one historical site sign of a plantation that was up ahead. And if you talk to Dean at the donut shop, he'll give you a pretty good idea of some of the history of the area.  

Its one place I've yet to actually visit, an old plantation.  Many of the original ones are either gone -the casualties of war, are now equestrian centers or museums.

Though, these fields, and there are still plenty around, line the road, white buds of cotton standing out from the sea of leafy green. But cotton in this area did have its close call, during the civil war.

Cotton began its life in this area in 1845, when a cotton mill was built not far from Aiken, by a man called William Gregg, in a village called Graniteville, which as you may have guessed, is named aptly for the granite that was quarried there. During the war, it was very nearly burned to the ground, which was the fate of a few towns in the area as the Union army marched through. Though, as the story goes, the Confederate army was larger than expected, and instead of burning the ground, the Union army retreated. 

That mill survived and it still being used since the first cloth came off the loom in 1848.  And it seems cotton is thriving here. 

Though I have to admit, I was starting to wonder when they would actually harvest it.  I received my answer about 2 weeks or so ago, they wait until the plants have died down before stripping the cotton. The plants are then plowed back into the ground for fertilizer.

It was surprising to still see a few flowers on the plants when I first visited the field, as most of the cotton pods had already opened.

 

These were I think, the last remaining 2 or 3, small buttery flowers left, they're similar to roses.

How much cotton actually comes from those pods is pretty impressive too.  The cotton ball from the boll (yep, boll) are deceivingly large!  Each boll has approximately 8-9 seeds from which linseed oil can be made, or they are used for the next crop.

This was cotton from half a boll, I have in my hand.  This one below actually. One boll also makes about 12' of yarn. 

Cotton, and an interesting history. Though having investigated cotton, it did bring up an interesting history on a few other towns near Aiken. I now have to go and research White Pond.  I had wondered what that very old overgrown building was as we drove past...

Wandering...

And so in July, we ended up here, in South Carolina.

Who would have known that a young Aussie girl would have met her future husband  in a country that was only dreamed of being in, but never thought possible.

A kid that a visions of becoming a Paleoarcheologist (if there is any such thing), and used to hang out at the local creek of an area, nothing more than a hamlet, to look for coal and fossils. And as luck would have it, it was a hamlet with its own old story, complete with the remnants of old wagons and a wooden bridge that probably saw that wagon cross a hundred times in the past. 

And then of course there was Mr Burke senior at one of the dairies whom I wrote about in The Darling Downs, Cows and Forbidden Milk, and Mrs Donovan who had grown up in the area and seen I think, quite a bit of what it used to look like before the cyclone came in and blew it all away.  It was Mrs Donovan's parents who owned the old wagon. Course, that hamlet now is a booming town, and the old residents have sadly passed on.

Moving wasn't an unusual thing for my family growing up.  Dad being in the Australian Air Force, it was more my parents who moved, as by the time I was 10, Dad had done his 21 years and retired, moving into the car repair business.  Even still, we'd moved to two different locations in one state and then an additional move to a new state, before settling in at the little hamlet we called home for the next 8 years.

It was then, a few short years later that I started writing, in this little town, a block 2 miles long, the creek, a small school when we arrived, with 46 kids in it. I began writing to penpals all over the world.  One of them was my husband to be.  Who knew?  My writing continued after we moved to another town, a small town towards the outback.. I guess. There was nothing much there, and 5 hrs drive to the nearest big town, so it was close enough to the outback for me!

It was just a few years after that, I moved to the US, wandering (or living in) and visiting a number of different locations.  Kentucky was the first place I'd seen on arriving.  Green, lush and beautiful.  Something entirely different from the Eucalyptus and parched ground I'd been walking around in just a few days before, looking again, for fossils, only by now, I'd actually found some. A large boned mammal, possibly a very large kangaroo species.

This is where our wandering began, for the most part around the Midwest. Who knew it was going to continue for me after I'd left home. If my mind was to consider the possibility of fate vs chance, I'd say that I was previously being prepared for it.  After now quite a few years, and 7 states with 2 kids, we'd settled in South Carolina, in a cotton growing town that has a little civil war history, an area the well to do were known to escape to from the long, hot and humid summers of Savannah, Georgia, post civil war.  History, my absolute love of it has placed me in a position to really investigate the area, just as it did when we had been living in Texas, but a history quite a bit different.  

So is this the dream I had growing up?  It doesn't always come out exactly how you planned, if it is at all planned, which probably isn't just impossible, but not a wise thing to consider. But considering that I am where I never thought I'd be, and in a state even as a married couple, we'd never thought we'd be, for me is a little thought provoking.  Still missing Australia, particularly after just returning from our year there, but the experience is always something to consider.  Its that 'bloom where you're planted' quip. 

With that in mind, I've taken the challenge and been traveling around the countryside taking some photos, with many more in mind.  Researching a bit of history and talking to a couple of people with a bit of knowledge of the area.  Cotton for example... something I'd never seen before up close and personal....