(26/06/01)Hello again children, Are we sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin. Couldn't be doing better on the cuddly animal front - we visited a discount centre for damaged wildlife in Tasmania. All the fender-bender furries end up in this refuge, and while we cannot claim to have seen the prime of Australia's wildlife, we did get close to some dented kangaroos, one legged wallabies and some toothless Tasmanian Devils.
There seems to be a recurring theme to all Australian tours we go on. At some point or another, one is bound to end up at some historic prison, gallows, or convict camp, and if you let him know you're English, your tour guide will do his very best to turn day trip into guilt trip. Port Arthur then was the latest of the jails we visited (perhaps remembered by some of you as the scene of the senseless deaths of 35 tourists in 1996 by a mad gunman). The setting, and even what remains of the buildings are absolutely idyllic - to the degree that after it ceased to function as a prison, part of it became the Carnarvan Hotel.
Though our guide did his best to outline the atrocities that took place here, it was all somewhat downplayed by the fact that they (the convicts) ate three times as much as the average modern man (divide by six if American) and were ''rationed'' to three pints of beer or a pint of wine per day.
Arrived in Sydney on Saturday. We were unable to get a double room and had to share with sid the cockroach and family (I saw on a newspaper they were killed - they were all over the front page). This, combined with ''Hell's'' kitchen (three flights up, on the roof, 1 knife, no forks, two and a half plates and bereaved and vengefull relatives of Sid), and a shower whose cold nylon curtain would seek to vacuum-pack its occupant as soon as the water was switched on, persuaded us to change accommodation.
Sydney then is big. Really big. We've managed to cover most of it in the past few days, the opera house and the bridge, a string of surfer beaches, botanical gardens (we are now, I think a world authority on these) again, - anything cheap or free.
This attitude led us into the ''Museum of Contemporary Art'' this morning. Neither of us are art buffs, and as we walked around the bottom floor we made all the usual ''looks like its been painted by a child'' noises. What struck us though, is that all of the exhibits were ''untitled''. We saw works by ''Arum'', ''Ramona'' and others, and it was only when a photo of the artist accompanied the work, that it dawned on us that we were in an ''elephant artwork exhibition''. Yup, a couple of guys who had too much of a good time in the sixties decided it would be a good and worthwhile idea to teach elephants to ''express themselves'' on canvas. (If interested you can bid for works over the internet). We thought this couldn't be surpassed until we walked through the ''Photography by Monkey's'' exhibition on the second floor!!! Got to go - early morning tour tomorrow, (no doubt with a glimpse of some local prisons!). Take care all, Lots of Love.
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