Darwin Departed
Saturday 21st 2013, Beagle Gulf, Sea of Timor, North of Australia 11.35.2S 128:54.8E Today's Blog by David (Time zone BST +8.50; UTC +9.5) Great Names Some things in life are really quite obvious – staring you in your face so to speak – but you don’t see it. From time to time I have talked about the achievements of Captain James Cook and observed that most of the Pacific seems to be named after him (Cook Strait, Mount Cook, Cook Bay etc.) or his boat Endeavour. I have also mentioned – principally about the Galapagos Archipelago - Charles Darwin and his ship the Beagle both of which names are also liberally dotted around the Pacific. Indeed, the Beagle Gulf an area of sea north of Darwin – between there and Melville Island - is clearly named after the boat, so why should it be a surprise that Darwin is named after Charles Darwin? Well, ….. for one thing, he never went to the place. The original township was called Palmerston (after then then serving UK Prime Minister) but early in the 20th century the population decided to rename the town “Darwin“ in honour of a great man who never went there. Don’t know why that is such a surprise to me. Anyway, time to rename Hawkley: “The Garden House, Einstein, Hants “? … it has a certain cache, don’t you think? ……………… “The Garden House, Thatcher, Hants “? ..... “The Garden House, Beckham, Hants “? ……. Errrr…. Some things one can take too far! Darwin Darwin is the principal city of the Northern Territory (indeed its state capital). About 125,000 people live there. The “Top End”, as the northernmost part of NT is known, is a tough place to live. But the aborigines claim to have been living in the area for 60,000 or more years. Some of their cave paintings have been dated back 40,000 years using carbon dating etc. Compare that to the oldest civilisation I had hitherto encountered – the Egyptians from circa 3-5, 000BC. Aahh, perhaps that’s it, “civilisation”. Darwin itself has had a tough time of it. What little I know about WWII is really about Europe and North Africa – I knew nothing about the Pacific War beyond the Hollywood Films’ portrayal of the Americans winning the war. So it was something of a surprise to me to learn that Darwin was pretty much flattened by the Japanese and the whole of the NT north of Alice Springs was under Military Rule for three years. Then on Christmas Morning 1974, Darwin was flattened again by Cyclone Tracy. So, unlike e.g. Brisbane which has some very attractive Victorian/Edwardian architecture, Darwin is all pretty much sharp angles and concrete … and very hot, even in “winter”. (In fact, they refer only to two seasons; “Wet Season” and, you’re ahead of me again, “Dry Season”.) Global warming In Europe we castigate ourselves about our carbon foot print. We worry about emissions, insulation – even feel a little guilty if we have a bonfire rather than composting the garden waste. Our farmers long since stopped burning crop stubble in response to some European edict or another. Well that sense of social responsibility has not yet reached Australia where sugar farmers burn thousands of hectares of cane stubble each year. One can see the fires from miles out to sea – by day and night. The Aborigines don’t get it either. They deliberately set fire to about a third of their land every year.
There are a number of justifications for this. 1 If they don’t have a ‘controlled’ “cold fire”, early in the dry season then the risk an uncontrolled “hot fire” 6 months later – with another seasons dry growth sparked by a thunderstorm. Hot fires damage the underground ecosystem – cold fires don’t. 2 It is easier to hunt when the undergrowth has been thus thinned out. 3 It kills off the bad things – the good things regrow quickly. So they burn off when the ‘tribe’ moves on to new pastures so that when they return the forest will be good for them. Whatever the reason, the fact is that millions of hectares of land are burned each year – consuming oxygen and releasing CO2 into the atmosphere. Makes me miss my Jag….. More tomorrow. |
