14. Brisbane

Tuesday, 23 OCT 2012

Brisbane is the third largest city in Australia. It has experienced dramatic growth over the past couple of decades as the mining industry has prospered and expanded. Brisbane is the headquarters city for several corporations and a major financial and shipping center. It's hot here (think Houston), although it has been very pleasant while we were here.

On the way into Brisbane harbor I spotted this ship, the Torm. This is the fifth ship of the same name in a series stretching back 137 years. The company is famous for its tradition of sponsoring individual Olympic athletes in a variety of sports. In fact, it is responsible for the expression, "Any sport in a Torm".

We took a guided tour of Brisbane which culminated in the Brisbane Botanic Gardens.

Paula among her favorite plants, ferns.

On the tour we stopped close to the Mormon Temple on the top of a hill next to the Brisbane River. There are several of these in major cities around the world, always prominently situated, sparkling white, with the golden angel Moroni blowing his trumpet from the pinnacle.

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13. Sydney

Sunday, 21 OCT 2012

We entered Australia's premier city with just two objectives: reliable high-speed Internet and SIM chips for my iPad and our two mobile phones. We met our first objective at the Apple store, which had pretty good wifi service for free within their walls, and they were able to sell us a Telstra SIM chip for my iPad. There was a Telstra store right across the street, so we went there and bought two chips for our phones. However, the Telstra system that handles the chip activation process was down all day for maintenance, so we had to wait a couple of days until we reached Brisbane where we finally got them activated.

Here is the fabulous iconic Sydney Opera House.

This is the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

People climb it for fun, and for the view.

The Sydney Tower from the stern of the Volendam om the way out Sunday evening.

Paula working on some beautiful fabric she bought on one of the previous islands.

Paula enjoying another spectacular sunset.

 

 

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12. Melanesians and Polynesians

Saturday, 20 OCT 2012

Today we are at sea, destined to arrive in Sydney tomorrow morning. As we leave the domain of the South Pacific Islands I want to illustrate the characteristic appearance of the natives. The region is divided into three large groups of islands based on the ancestry of the people who first settled them.

Micronesia includes the Marshall Islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, and others approximately located in the northwest zone of Oceania between the equator and the Tropic of Cancer (the northern hemisphere tropic) and between longitude 130 East and 180. We are not visiting any of the Micronesian islands.

Melanesia includes Fiji, Vanuatu, and New Caledonia, as well as the Solomon Islands and others. They were settled by people like those of Borneo and Papua New Guinea. They are very dark-skinned and have facial features more similar to Africans and Australian Aborigines than to Asians.

Polynesia includes Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Tahiti, the Marquesas Islands, and Hawai'i, among others. Polynesians are lighter-skinned, though still quite brown, and have more asiatic facial features. Their ancestors began their long migration from Formosa or the east coast of China some 5000 years ago. Their Lapita pottery first appears on Fiji, but they were evidently displaced by Melanesians.

These origins and distinctions between the three groups of Oceanic peoples is supported by cultural archeology, linguistics, and DNA correlations both through the maternal line (mitochondrial DNA) and through the paternal line (Y-chromosome).

Here are some examples of Melanesians:

 

 

Here are some Polynesians from Hawai'i and American Samoa

 

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11. Noumea, New Caledonia

Thursday, 18 OCT 2012

Noumea is the capital and the largest city in the South Pacific islands. New Caledonia is still a French possession, and the currency is the French Pacific franc. The economy of modern colonialism is the reverse of traditional colonialism: the mother country pours far more revenue into the colony than the colony returns to the mother country. Even so, this island of Grand Terre has very important nickel deposits which form the base of the economy, the importance of tourism notwithstanding. English is common here but not apparently on such a co-equal footing as on Vanuatu. The state police force are gendarmes rotated through every few years directly from France.

 

This odd tower can be seen from the harbor and from many other vistas within Noumea. We weren't told what it is.

This is the ship terminal building with the welcoming committee:

The Yellow Tchou Tchou Train is a popular way to see the sights.

 

We visited the aquarium, which is excellent -- not the biggest we've ever seen, but very well managed with great exhibits. Here's a particularly attractive creature:

There's something fishy about this display.

 

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10. Easo, Lifou, New Caledonia

Wednesday, 17 OCT 2012

Easo is the name of the village on the small island of Lifou of the French possession of New Caledonia. There is no port, so the Volendam anchored in the harbor and launched several of its lifeboats to serve as tenders. This stop was a nice change from all the other westernized ports and hyper-organized tourist activities. Those who wanted to could go ashore and enjoy the beautiful beaches and wander through the vendor tents. They had some gorgeous fabrics, probably not local.

Here is one of the lifeboats loading passengers.

On the head at left is a small church with a great view. I made the hike to the top and spent over an hour taking pictures.

 

Our "floating palace" as the natives call it, at anchor in the bay.

Retrieving one of the lifeboats:

 

 

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9. Port Vila, Vanuatu

Tuesday, 16 OCT 2012

Vanuatu was formerly a French possession known as New Hebrides. Port Vila is the capital and largest city (40,000) in Vanuatu. English and French cultures coexist with each other and with the native Melanesian people.

The four-masted schooner in the harbor was seized by the government for trying to smuggle in firearms.

 

I got a kick out of the signs in pidgin English, the common language for the natives who suffer with dozens of non-mutually-intelligible dialects. It is one of three official languages in Vanuatu alongside French and English. Many of the words in pidgin can be deciphered if you pronounce them just as they look. "Blong" comes from "belong" and is the possessive, equivalent to standard English "of". This sign reads "National Museum of Vanuatu".

"Sandroing" means "sand drawing"; "spesel kastom" means "special custom". See if you can find the pidgin meaning "a (one) project of the Vanuatu Cultural Center".

Here is an example of sandroing blong Vanuatu, by the native who also demonstrated a couple of musical instruments.

A poster about a traditional resource management program:

"Yumi" shows up frequently in pidgin. No, it doesn't mean yummy. It's the plural personal pronoun ("you-me") equivalent to we, us, our ( as in "blong yumi").

One more example. You should be able to figure this one out:

 

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