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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: Australasia; Published: 04 July 2020; Hits: 9902

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The cruise up to Brisbane (about eight hundred kilometres) gave us an opportunity to find our way around the ship and to sample its various pastimes. The ship made it's way along the Brisbane to the Brisbane Cruise Terminal. It was some time since either of us had been in Brisbane so we went into town to see what's changed and to do a little shopping. We needed more wine for our cabin and I needed something that would float for the boat building competition on board (maybe empty wine bottles?); as well as some tools like: box cutters; string; and duct tape. See our final design later on.

above: Heading down the Brisbane River at a crawl - but no tugs
below: Brisbane CBD.

We found some previously unseen buildings in the CBD and new construction under way along the river. The Art Gallery, now close to the river, was also new to me.

Queensland Art Gallery

The Queensland Gallery has a fine collection of works by iconic 19th and early 20th Century Australian artists (Lambert, Bunny etc) that complement those in the Melbourne Sydney and Adelaide collections. There are also a few well known British; French; other European; and American artists represented. Overall it's a very nice collection but no other Australian State can compete with the Victorian collection.

The Queensland Gallery

Mackay

On the way up, through the Coral Sea, we had an unexpected diversion back into Australian coastal waters for two medical evacuations. Someone had suffered a serious heart attack and another had slipped in the shower and broken his hip - or so his wife explained to us later.

She was unable to accompany him and was obliged to complete the cruise alone - with two pre-purchased liquor allowances: quel dommage.

Two helicopter medical evacuations to Mackay - one heart attack and one fall in the bathroom - broken hip.

The helicopters don't land - the patient is sedated; strapped to a stretcher; and hoisted up - a bit like an Assumption (Protestants may need to Google this procedure).

En route again - passing through the Lousuade Archipelago on the way.

Once the extractions were over we were well off course and several hours behind schedule - so we took off at 23 knots towards Rabaul - passing through the Lousuade Archipelago on the way.

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Travel

Israel

2023 Addendum

It's a decade since this visit to Israel in September 2014.

From July until just a month before we arrived, Israeli troops had been conducting an 'operation' against Hamas in the Gaza strip, in the course of which 469 Israeli soldiers lost their lives. The country was still reeling.

17,200 Garzan homes were totally destroyed and three times that number were seriously damaged. An estimated 2,000 (who keeps count) civilians died in the destruction. 'Bibi' Netanyahu, who had ordered the Operation, declared it a victory.

This time it's on a grander scale: a 'War', and Bibi has vowed to wipe-out Hamas.

Pundits have been moved to speculate on the Hamas strategy, that was obviously premeditated. In addition to taking hostages, it involving sickening brutality against obvious innocents, with many of the worst images made and published by themselves.

It seemed to be deliberate provocation, with a highly predictable outcome.

Martyrdom?

Historically, Hamas have done Bibi no harm. See: 'For years, Netanyahu propped up Hamas. Now it’s blown up in our faces' in the Israel Times.

Thinking about our visit, I've been moved to wonder how many of today's terrorists were children a decade ago? How many saw their loved ones: buried alive; blown apart; maimed for life; then dismissed by Bibi as: 'collateral damage'?

And how many of the children, now stumbling in the rubble, will, in their turn, become terrorists against the hated oppressor across the barrier?

Is Bibi's present purge a good strategy for assuring future harmony?

I commend my decade old analysis to you: A Brief Modern History and Is there a solution?

Comments:
Since posting the above I've been sent the following article, implicating religious belief, with which I substantially agree, save for its disregarding the Jewish fundamentalists'/extremists' complicity; amplifying the present horrors: The Bright Line Between Good and Evil

Another reader has provided a link to a perspective similar to my own by Australian 'Elder Statesman' John Menadue: Hamas, Gaza and the continuing Zionist project. His Pearls and Irritations site provides a number of articles relating to the current Gaza situation. Worth a read.

The Economist has since reported and unusual spate of short-selling immediately preceding the attacks: Who made millions trading the October 7th attacks?

Money-making by someone in the know? If so, it's beyond evil.

A Little Background

The land between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea, known as Palestine, is one of the most fought over in human history. Anthropologists believe that the first humans to leave Africa lived in and around this region and that all non-African humans are related to these common ancestors who lived perhaps 70,000 years ago. At first glance this interest seems odd, because as bits of territory go it's nothing special. These days it's mostly desert and semi-desert. Somewhere back-o-Bourke might look similar, if a bit redder.

Yet since humans have kept written records, Egyptians, Canaanites, Philistines, Ancient Israelites, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, early Muslims, Christian Crusaders, Ottomans (and other later Muslims), British and Zionists, have all fought to control this land. This has sometimes been for strategic reasons alone but often partly for affairs of the heart, because this land is steeped in history and myth.

Fiction, Recollections & News

Cars, Radios, TV and other Pastimes

I grew up in semi-rural Thornleigh on the outskirts of Sydney. I went to the local Primary School and later the Boys' High School at Normanhurst; followed by the University of New South Wales.

As kids we, like many of my friends, were encouraged to make things and try things out. My brother Peter liked to build forts and tree houses; dig giant holes; and play with old compressors and other dangerous motorised devices like model aircraft engines and lawnmowers; until his car came along.

Opinions and Philosophy

Australia and Empire

The recent Australia Day verses Invasion Day dispute made me recall yet again the late, sometimes lamented, British Empire.

Because, after all, the Empire was the genesis of Australia Day.

For a brief history of that institution I can recommend Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World by Scottish historian Niall Campbell Ferguson.

My choice of this book was serendipitous, unless I was subconsciously aware that Australia Day was approaching. I was cutting through our local bookshop on my way to catch a bus and wanted something to read. I noticed this thick tomb, a new addition to the $10 Penguin Books (actually $13).

On the bus I began to read and very soon I was hooked when I discovered references to places I'd been and written of myself. Several of these 'potted histories' can be found in my various travel writings on this website (follow the links): India and the Raj; Malaya; Burma (Myanmar); Hong Kong; China; Taiwan; Egypt and the Middle East; Israel; and Europe (a number).

Over the next ten days I made time to read the remainder of the book, finishing it on the morning of Australia Day, January the 26th, with a sense that Ferguson's Empire had been more about the sub-continent than the Empire I remembered.

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