We have just had Australia Day, January 26th, commemorating the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove, Captain Arthur Phillip presiding. This is generally considered the founding date of modern Australia. We were visiting Kathryn’s relatives, and our party observed the holiday the way Australians seem to mark all important occasions: with a barbeque, plenty of beer and wine, and cricket on the television. And because Kathryn’s aunt, a retired teacher, was involved, we also had several readings from amusingly outdated school textbooks and a quiz on various facts that should be known to every good Aussie (Q: What are budgie-smugglers? A: Swimming trunks).
One fact surely known to all good Aussies was that the First Fleet was no flotilla of holidaymakers, nor yet a group of scuba enthusiasts looking for the Great Barrier Reef. Rather, it was more than 730 English convicts—men, women, and in some cases their children—and over 500 officials and marines (plus some of their wives and families) tasked with keeping an eye on the convicts. I have read in several books and articles that some Australians, especially older ones, still are uncomfortable speaking of this part of their history. It has been referred to as “the convict stain,” and I have not yet conversed with an Australian about it. It was not brought up at our Australia Day celebration. But, of course, I am still a new arrival here myself, and I’m describing just what I have read and what we have found in Melbourne. Things are altogether different in Tasmania, where they seem rather to enjoy stuffing the tourist with as much convict history as he can hold.
But let me back up a bit. With embarrassment I confess that until this past August I didn’t know whether Tasmania was officially part of Australia. I thought it might be a separate country, or a territory or something. An Aussie friend set me straight, though she was clearly a bit unsettled at having to do so—imagine someone asking you if Hawaii were part of the U.S. But I have been chipping away at my vast ignorance since then, and now can proudly announce that Tasmania is, in fact, an Australian state—an island a bit larger than West Virginia, lying some 150 miles off the mainland’s south coast. The state capital is the port city of Hobart on the island’s southeast corner. Tasmania’s population is just over 494,000—about the same as Luxembourg’s or a bit less than that of Albuquerque New Mexico—which works out to just 18.7 people per square mile: plenty of room to swing a wallaby, though you’ll be fined and get your name in the paper if they catch you doing it.
Indeed, the island does have a very spacious feel. Much of it is in grazing land or farms (including several large tracts of opium poppies, of all things, being grown for GlaxoSmithKline), but nearly 37% of Tasmania is in reserves, national parks, and world-heritage sites. The island also is much cooler, wetter and more rugged than what we have seen of Melbourne’s surroundings. Various parts of it reminded us of England, California, and Washington, though, of course, it had a lot more marsupials, eucalypts, opium poppies and tree ferns than any of these. Ah yes, the tree ferns. Imagine a standard Boston fern that has somehow grown a 20-foot tree trunk underneath itself, and you have pretty fair picture of Dicksonia antarctica. Tasmania has them in the wildest profusion; they cover whole hillsides, and they are the most prehistoric plant you will ever see. They look incomplete, somehow, without a stegosaur in the picture, munching on the topmost fronds.
We learned about them and other plants and animals during a hugely informative nature walk with a poet ranger at Lake St. Clair National Park. He was a herpetologist by training, and while his poetry was very amusing, it was perhaps a bit of a niche commodity. One poem was an imagined dialogue between a skink (a type of lizard) and a camper, in which the reptile asks the camper to put a sweater on if he’s cold, rather than building a fire with downed wood. Skinks live under the wood, you see. Another poem cleverly described the shape of wombat feces (they are cubical), and yet another elucidated the sexual habits of echidnas. Echidnas are egg-laying mammals, and are covered in spines like a porcupine, so you will appreciate that keeping the species going involves some delicate and challenging manoeuvers. This poem was particularly stirring; I wish I had written it down.
And, being pro-snake, this ranger also took pains to point out the Tasmanian creature we should really fear: the Jack jumper ant (Myrmecia pilosula). He referred us to Australian Animals that Will Kill You, Volume 13 to learn more about this crusty little fellow, but I couldn’t find that. Here is what Wikipedia has to say, however:
Jack jumper ants are carnivores and scavengers. They sting their victims with venom that is similar to stings of wasps, bees, and fire ants. Their venom is some of the most powerful in the insect world. Jack jumper ants are proven hunters; even wasps are hunted and devoured. These ants have excellent vision, which aids them in hunting.
The symptoms of the stings of the ants are similar to stings of the fire ants. The reaction is local; swelling, reddening and fever, followed by formation of a blister. The heart rate increases, and blood pressure falls rapidly. In individuals allergic to the venom (about 3% of cases), a sting sometimes causes anaphylactic shock. Although 3% may seem small, jack jumper ants cause more deaths in Tasmania than spiders, snakes, wasps, and sharks combined.
Forgive me if I do return to this theme rather often, but I really never have lived in a place that went to such lengths, and took such apparent delight, in devising ways to kill me. What’s more, Australians love to give their lethal creatures perversely whimsical names. Jack jumpers, forsooth! And then there is the salt-water crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), which grows to 18 feet, weighs up to 2,500 lbs., swims far out to sea, and can kill and eat kangaroos, water buffalo, sharks, and, of course, people. The Australians call these reptilian horrors “salties,” as if they were frolicsome cartoon characters, or stuffed toys you might tuck into baby’s crib at night. Just imagine the humiliation, if the last record of you on this earth were to be found on page six of some podunk outback journal—The Borroloola Bunion, or something: “…was taken suddenly by an estimated 5m salty at the north shore of the billabong. Though help arrived within minutes, no trace of the victim was recovered except his torn and bloodied budgie-smugglers.”
But I digress; I was going to tell you about the convict history in Tasmania. I promise to return to that business in the next installment.
--originally posted 2/2009
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