Australia Part 3 - Final. Sydney and Chakola
Trip Start
Jan 08, 2004
1
5
167
Trip End
Ongoing
Sydney and Kangaroo Valley,
Australia
Saturday, March 13, 2004
Visiting Grant I get some feeling that I have missed out on some interesting experiences by not being in the Army in the last several years. Many people have asked me if I miss being in the Army. I certainly do not. I enjoyed the lifestyle at the time, perhaps it was suitable for that part of my life. I doubt whether I could fit into the Army way of thinking now though and I have no wish to. I did put a large amount of time and effort into being a good Army officer though and so I am slightly envious of Grant and Brett's recent experiences. That envy doesn't last too long. My life is very good as it is and I know that for the few amazing things they have both done there has been an extraordinary amount of 'other stuff' to go with it.
I quickly caught up with Shannon again and another Mark (friend from Army Reserve) whilst in Canberra. Grant and Claire gave me a lift to the bus station, loaded me up with some excellent homemade chocolate chip biscuits, goodbye and I head off to Sydney. 3 hours later as the bus pulls into Central station I notice that the same group of homeless aborigines that were living outside the station a year ago are still there. Their situation has not changed. I decide to walk the 30 minutes from Central to The Rocks to meet up with Emma who is in town with her friends. I have all my gear and it is drizzling with light rain however I'd prefer not to waste money on unnecessary transport and I also like to look around cities by walking through them.
It is a Sunday in Sydney and so there is not too much traffic around. There is a mixture of people around; drunks, shoppers, homeless, beggars, business people. All seem to ignore each other. A beggar asks me for $1. Although I do have a few dollars spare I decline to give him anything. I do smile and talk to him however. He points out the direction of The Rocks and I smile and offer some encouragement as I leave. He also smiles. The people in suits rush past. No eye contact. Pretend no one else exists. Must make more money. I walk along towards The Rocks and another beggar asks me for $1. I decline. Again I smile and wish him luck. He responds by swearing and yelling abuse at me. He aggressively rants and raves and hits and kicks the things around him. I continue on towards The Rocks. BMWs drive past.
I know many people love Sydney, however this scene captures what Sydney is to me in many ways. In a place where the indigenous people shared the land and lived without permanent shelters for thousands of years, property prices now skyrocket out of the reach of most people, men in suits walk past and expensive cars drive around the streets. The poor people are ignored. Most people won't even look at them let alone answer them. To some extent I can understand why, people are perhaps scared. But I can also understand the frustration and total despair felt by the beggars. No one appears to care for them. People that spend millions of dollars on houses won't even glance at them let alone give them $1. Of course there are people in Sydney who do care for them and try to help (Alex, mentioned in a previous log is one who does some work to help). However it must appear that the great majority of people, the government and businesses do not care about them at all. They don't even like to admit that they exist.
I know the feelings well. I spent months on the streets in Sydney begging in order to raise money for UNICEF (the United Nations fund that is dedicated to helping women and children). Few people helped. The ones that did were often poor themselves or recently arrived migrants. The rich Australians almost always gave nothing, not even their time. To me Sydney, although it has some very beautiful parts, is a city with no 'soul'. It is largely empty of human compassion. I apologize to the people who love Sydney and dislike hearing this, however I am simply recording my feelings, which are based on my experiences in Sydney.
Hmmm, a positive point - I have noticed on this trip to Australia that many people are now using permanent shopping bags instead of disposable plastic bags. YAY!! I am sure Australia and the oceans are already cleaner and safer due to the people that are doing this.
Anyway I found Emma and her friends, who were all quite nice. Had a coffee with them and headed to Emma's new flat where I would stay for a couple of days. I had two days in Sydney and in that time I caught up with Alex and her family and her boyfriend Nick, Michelle, Laura, Emma H, and Claire. Almost all these guys I know from an expedition to the Indian Himalayas I was leading for them. They were a fantastic group and many have now become my friends. It was good to see them all again. Separately I also caught up with Colin, Lucy and Nina, who all work for Antipodeans (can look at www.antipodeans.com.au for more info) which is the company that employed me to go to India with the above group. We arranged some more work for me in Thailand and had quite a good meeting. Also I saw Isa in Chatswood straight after that. Oh, also saw Pete who is selling his beautiful house.
Onto the train to Bowral to meet up with Irene and get a lift to Chakola. The train was quite clean and spacious and arrived only 15 minutes late after a long trip. I met Irene, however Elanor who was also supposed to be on that train was 2 hours late. Finally we all headed off to Chakola and a night of good Chinese food at the bowling club.
I find it difficult to describe Chakola. Alexa Thomson in her new book "Antarctica on a plate" describes it as: "Chakola was a paradise for me. I always wanted to be more than just a client there and I was willing to do anything so long as I could spend my days cloistered in this wonderful world. It always seemed to be summer and the people were wacky, charismatic types who read you Winnie the Pooh before bedtime." (I am reading Alexa's book on the plane to Thailand - it is very good.)
'Chakola' is the name of a property in Kangaroo Valley. It is a beautiful green nature reserve with Kookaburras, Monitor lizards, Wallabies, Wombats, Lyre Birds and many other animals in good supply. The ticks in particular are in the many. It has some functional if slightly rustic buildings on it as well as caves, cliffs and the Kangaroo River flowing past it. Also hidden amongst the trees and bushes are numerous 'games' to solve, usually in the most time efficient manner and to the highest possible quality. Derek is the devious mind behind most of these activities. He operates Experiential Learning Pty Ltd. Corporate groups progress through Derek's activities, improving and developing their leadership, teamwork and problem solving skills as they go. (www.operationchallenge.com.au may help explain it more). For the next week and a half I would be working as a guide at Chakola. It was great to be back and excellent to work with Derek, Irene and the other guides, helpers and cooks at Chakola: Bruce, John, Trish, Lance, Elanor, Amanda, Katrina, Nicole and Ian. I could but won't write pages on these guys.
Working as a guide at Chakola is also difficult to explain. A 'normal' day for me may be waking up at 0545hr to get into the shower before the clients. Shower, shave, apply insect repellent and get dressed. Turn on the dishwasher, make tea and coffee. Put on my head torch and go to each hut waking everyone up with a drink. Help set the tables for breakfast, empty the bins and perhaps help out on a pre-breakfast rope game. Breakfast; eat porridge, toast, orange juice. Yum. Get abused by the cooks for not eating the scrambled eggs. Help out cleaning up and drying and putting away all the dishes and then off with my group for a problem solving activity. My job is to clarify the task to them and make sure they are safe. Perhaps prompt them a bit if it's appropriate. At the end of each activity my job is to facilitate a discussion that draws some lessons from the game. Can these lessons be used in the workplace? How? Maybe then some time to quickly help the Chakola team clean the toilets, sweep the place and set up some more games, whilst the clients do some theory work in the classroom. Lunch followed by washing, drying and putting away the seemingly endless stream of plates, cups, utensils, etc. It is quite varied work which is great and there is a great sense of Sanook (Thai word for fun) amongst the Chakola crew. Although we are busy we also seem to spend a great deal of time laughing. The Chakola people are down to Earth and from various backgrounds which makes for interesting work discussions. The other great thing is that almost everything we do is done in an efficient and quality aware manner. From washing the dishes and cleaning the toilets to supervising the activities all is done in the best possible way. Although, we do stuff things up occasionally.
The groups we had were all very good and also an interesting variety of people. From coal miners to final year university scholarship winners. All seemed to get something from the courses. (Co-op was good Sue - you would have loved it. Hi Deb and Brooke). Oh - I finished reading "Stranger in the Forest" by Eric Hansen. Really good book about traveling in Borneo. I could understand and identify with a lot of what he was saying. Thanks Brian. Also thanks to the cooks at Chakola - the food was great as usual.
My time at Chakola eventually came to an end and back to Sydney I went. Only two more days before "Man Fat" goes back to Thailand. In that time I stayed with Emma again and caught up with Alex, Briony, Adele and Ani. All from the India trip. Good fun night. OK, that is all. Thanks to everyone that helped me in Australia - I hope I see you all again next year or perhaps some time in Thailand. Singapore airlines again to Bangkok - very, very good.
