Lake Burley GriffinNational Gallery of AustraliaKnow My Name: Making it Modern celebrates innovative women artists who changed the course of modern art in Australia with an aim to enhance understanding of their contribution to Australia's cultural live.
There are two walking track options to reach the summit. We chose the Adventure trail a 5 kilometre strenuous up-hill track from the Waterfall Gully Carpark. After a false start, which lead us in the opposite direction heading back towards the carpark we doubled back, found the correct track and were on our way. The track traverses for 5 kilometres, dirt tracks and fire trails then eventually connects with the original track closer to the summit for an epic practically dead-straight up-hill slog before reaching the top in a climax of burning calf muscles, beetroot red faces and sweat-stinging eyes that are half blinded by the beaming white obelisk at the top, called Flinders Column, glaring back at us in the bright afternoon sun. Once at the top we opted to descend via the 4 kilometre original track that is now mostly sealed, but still very very steep. I'm not sure what was harder going; up or down... The walk to the summit was energising and being serenaded by sweeping views over Adelaide city and the surrounding suburbs felt like an achievement and was well worth the burning calf muscles. Admittedly we could have driven to the summit, but where's the adventure in that...
South Australia was officially declared an English colony on 28th December 1836 near where the “old gum tree lies in the suburb of North Glenelg. Colonisation history took a different path to the likes of Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart and Brisbane. The approach to South Australia was a planned colony of free immigrants, promising civil liberties and freedom from religious persecution. Land would be surveyed and sold at a rate too expensive for labourers and journey man, this was to raise funds to immigrate working class settlers. These ideals were originated by Edward Gibbon Wakefield after reading about Australian settlements when he was serving time in prison for attempting to abduct a heiress. The ambition of a free settler colony was to create a utopian style crime free civilisation. Not even a Gaol was in the plans. This changed quickly in 1837 when there were reports of escaped convicts on the run from New South Wales on the South Australian Register. While a temporary Gaol was put on the cards, a burglary, a murder and two attempted murders occurred, this forced South Australia’s first governor John Hindmarsh to make the decision to employ the state’s first ever police force in 1838. Adelaide was off to a slow start economically until wool and livestock imports arrived in 1838 from Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. By 1860, wheat farms expanded as far as Encounter Bay to Clare, alongside producing wool, fruit, meat and wine, which were all strong exports in Adelaide. Through the mid 1800’s Adelaide was seeing large economic growth through it’s exports, the boom brought gas lighting, a university, a couple of reservoirs and the South Australian Art Gallery to the city. The 1890’s brought on an economic depression, the value of South Australia’s exports almost halved leaving their two main exports as wine and copper. Mining towns like Burra and Broken Hill lent an economical hand with Copper, Lead and Silver. The 1900’s brought in electric lighting and a tram network to Adelaide. The finish of World War 1 started a prosperous postwar boom, its growth made Adelaide the third most populous metropolitan area in Australia. The boom was short-lived with the droughts and great depression in the 1930’s. World War 2 times transformed Adelaide’s industry from agriculture to manufacturing. Companies like General Motors took advantage of Adelaide’s more safer location to bring the manufacturing industry to life, driving the city into the 20th century. The 1950’s brought an Airport and the Murray River pipeline, the 60’s was Flinders University and Medical Centre. The 1970’s started a social reform with the Adelaide Festival of arts, which created a cultural revival in the city. More recent highlights for Adelaide was being the host for the Formula 1 grand prix in the 80’s and V8 supercars to now, which shuts off parts of the city for cars to paint the roads with tyre marks. South Australia has had quite a progressive history, leading the nation and the world by example. It was the first Australian capital city to be connected to London by telegraph in 1872. In 1895, South Australia was the first place in the world to allow women to stand for parliament, in that year women were also granted the right to vote. In 1936 Adelaide was the first city to generate public housing for families in need known as the South Australian Housing trust. The first Aboriginal flag was raised in 1971 on Victoria Square to support land rights for Aboriginal people. In 1975, South Australia was the first state to decriminalise homosexuality. In 1977 South Australia introduced a 10 cent refund on every can or bottle recycled, which was a first. In more recent times, South Australia is still reputable for a progressive approach to combat issues. In 2017, U.S Company Tesla installed the worlds biggest lithium ion battery pack just outside Jamestown to combat wind power outages around the state, its response rate to power outages is within milliseconds beating its hydro, coal and gas competitors by well over 2 minutes. Although South Australia gets forgotten about by its east coastal neighbours, they’re a step ahead of the country. On our first day in Adelaide, we took a train into the city to do a walking tour. Our guide Graham met us at the Parliament building steps away from the train station.Graham took us around the city and enriched us with his knowledge on Adelaide’s history. We started off with no idea about Adelaide and South Australia and finished the tour with a new founded appreciation of Australian History. Our walking tour inspired us to visit the Adelaide City Library, the Art Gallery of South Australia and the South Australia Museum. The Art Gallery journeyed us through many eras of art ranging from Ancient Egyptian Art right up to modern contemporary art. Its variety of paintings and sculptures take you on a trip around the world and back in time with out a plane ticket. Adelaide’s South Australian Museum is filled with a wealth of natural history knowledge. The museum had an impressive display of taxidermied animals from around the world, the realness of the specimines leaves you waiting for them to come to life. The museum features a level of Australian Indigenous History and a level of Papua New Guinea History, all filled with paintings, clothing and beautifully handmade tools for hunting and gathering. The four story high squid keeps you interested, although just a plastic replica, it is 11 metres long and based on a real squid caught in New Zealand, the largest one caught at that time, the most recent largest recording stands at 13 metres. After hours of fuelling our minds with art, culture and science, we went for a walk around the Mortlock Wing, the first building of the Adelaide library. The Library was opened in 1884 to the public, and now still stands strong with a collection of 23,000 books. Every part of the library is so well preserved it feels like it hasn’t aged since the day it was built. Walking through the entrance feels like you’ve blasted through a time machine making you feel a part of the history. Its a beautiful inspiring place to wonder around, relax or maybe even read a book. On one of our days in Adelaide, we took a walk up to Mount Lofty, Adelaide’s lookout. The track begins at Waterfall Gully, named for obvious reasons, it has two running waterfalls which flow elegantly at the start of the track. It made for a very active day out in Cleland Conservation Park’s nature. Nestled on Adelaide’s shore is the coastal suburb Glenelg, its gorgeous town hall and Anzac memorial was surrounded by unfortunate lifeless feeling beach apartments. While walking around Glenelg we felt like it lacked a lot of atmosphere, shops lacked colour, cafes lacked taste and people lacked excitement of being there. Adelaide has spoilt us with a large amount of convenience. Everything to do there was just…..easy. Everything there just felt so easy to do, getting to a beach, getting to the city, getting groceries, a franchise acai bowl cafe we loved called Delicia would pop up every where we go and even to park a car somewhere, barely a sweat! Although Adelaide can lack hype compared to its other cities, it filled our days with some good solid chill.
We love Florence, but staying a night at the Blackman was heavenly. The studio apartment quipped with a kitchenette (including a dishwasher) was perfectly portioned and very liveable, without being overtly fussy. After we checked in we ventured to Albert Park for a Reuben Sandwich and shopped for some local produce. Shovel cooked up a storm and we dinned in our robes whilst sipping on kombucha. We enjoyed a long-arse continuous hot shower before diving into the massive king sized bed for a luxurious and restful sleep, surround by iconic art.
The night started with chilling out on the fresh grass of Alexandra Gardens eating Lord of the Fries for dinner, we then strolled along St Kilda Road, across the Yarra River reaching Margaret Court Arena where Gumby seen me off to let loose to one of my favourite bands, Parkway Drive. I lined up in the cue with 7499 other people, the soundtrack of hard-hitting spring hay fever and smells of excessive nicotine intake surround us all. The ticket gates lifted, security pat downs were done and the sprint up the stairs was in full action, mostly for people to get to the bar or a toilet, or for some to take their mind of being away from cigarettes. I got down to what is called the “mosh pit” commonly known as the floor area, or in this case the tennis court. The first band arrived on stage was called “Thy Art is Murder” a Deathcore band from Sydney. The first sound of the night was an insane roaring vocal and a machine gun like drumming which brought many heavy metal smiles around the crowd. Thy Art is Murder certainly got the crowd warmed up with ear piercing guitar riffs that get your heart racing, its hard edge tone isn’t for the faint hearted and is a lot of fun to mosh along to. Second band out was a heavy metal group from the USA called Killswitch Engage. Formed in 1999, this band took the metal world by storm with stunning vocal range and killer guitar solos. If you were to take up heavy metal listening, this would be a good place to start. The band creates an amazing atmosphere that anyone could enjoy. Killswitch brought the crowd to life with their perfectly executed music that 7499 people (and me) sang along to, and also some in between music humour from guitarist Adam Dutkiewicz. After Killswitch Engage tearing it up on stage came a playlist of some of Australia’s most popular sing along songs, this included Jimmy Barnes – Working Class Man, Daryl Braithwaite – Horses and John Farnham – You’re the Voice. Without any doubt, all of us sung along to the bottom of our hearts waving phone lights from left to right. The music faded and so did the light, which meant the entrance of Parkway Drive, a metalcore band that formed in Byron Bay 15 years ago. A group of 5 mates that surfed together thought they would put a band together too, after several laps around the country and the world playing gigs and making albums they haven’t looked back. Their music is notorious for explosive hard-hitting breakdowns and fast paced riffs and beats that turn crowds into storms. I’ve seen these guys play in a pub in Cairns, a regional music festival in Townsville, a large hall in Berlin and now a larger than life show in Melbourne. Every Parkway song as usual was just played at 110 percent, alongside that is the audience giving back their effort with crowd surfing and circle pits. From what used to be a wild pub gig is now immense levels of fire, an orchestra, a full upside down rotating drum kit and a full light show to go with it too, its all pretty crazy which I think is great. Although their gig was on steroids, you can still feel the presence of the humble chilled vibes from Winston, Ben, Jeff, Pie and Luke, which make you feel just as close to them as you would be in a pub gig. The curtains dropped and I, alongside 7499 other people were covered in sweat, blinded by fireworks, deafened by noise and heated by flames, that is satisfaction! As I leave the arena and walk outside and find Gumby, I know the highlight of my night is walking home with the love of my life.
Our day begun at 3am when we woke and bundled ourselves into Cherry and headed up the highway to Tullamarine Airport and onto a 6am Jetstar flight bound for Hobart. At Hobart we hopped onto a bus into town then boarded the MONA ROMA to the museum. We ate beautifully delicious fresh and local foods from a berry smoothie at the Salamanca Markets, to pasta at the Museum cafe, sardines and rare beef at the MOMA restaurant, Faro and fresh Atlantic salmon back at Salamanca. Our flight was delayed; we ended up getting back to Florence at 4am, having been awake for 25 hours, but we made the most of our additional time in Hobart and finished off the day with a dark chocolate fondue and fruit. Wonderful. museum of old and new artDavid Walsh is a frickin' genius. What an amazing idea to create a museum from your own collection in a gallery built under the home of a local Hobartian wine maker, Claudio Alcorso on the Moorilla Estate. The original home of which was designed by Australian architect Roy Grounds, who was most famous for his work on the National Gallery of Victoria and the Melbourne Art Centre designed in 1959. MONA was opened in 2011, with the original home being used as the entrance to what is currently the largest private museum in Australia. We had the most incredible time at the museum, using our GPS audio guide iPods to navigate through the catacombs of underground rooms, into a sublime world of thought provoking art, Egyptian tombs and original artefacts. Nothing compares to what has been created at MONA, it is hands down one of the best experiences to be had and even if you don't 'enjoy' art go just to marvel at what can be created with an open mind when you are only limited by your imagination. hobartWe took another leisurely Sunday journey into the city of Melbourne. A feast of Gnocchi at the Veggie Bar for lunch, a stroll around the city, a visit to the library to witness Ned Kelly’s armour and a chocolate fix at Max Brenner. After getting our buzz of chocolate goodness, we went to achieve today’s objective, taking off into the virtual skies on a flight simulator.
After a briefing in the main room, the instructor took us into a replicated cockpit of a Boeing 737-800, running just like you would see if you look in before you take your seat on the plane. The instructor sat me in and explained the main controls of the aircraft. We were placed at JFK International Airport, lined up on the main runway. We set up the aircraft for takeoff and pushed the throttle forward, a pull back of the stick put us into the sky of many pixels. The flight took us over pleasant views of a virtual New York City, circling around the city we lined up to land at LaGuardia Airport. We lined up with the runway and eased the wheels onto the Tarmac. With the instructor happy with the skills, he put me on an airport in Aspen, Colorado, USA, which is notorious for its challenging terrain through mountains and dense weather. Set up for take off again, we virtually took off as hard as possible to lift up over the nearby mountains. Clearing the mountain peaks, we leveled out and flew over the well-known Colorado terrain. After a few turns we were lined up with the runway and had to descend steeply over a large nearby mountain. After the mountain, we straightened up the nose again with the middle of the runway and hit the tarmac nice and firmly. We taxied back to the terminal and shut the engine down, the fasten seatbelt sign is switched off which meant we made it to our destination. I had a ton of fun taking to the virtual skies with an amazing instructor who got me in the air and back on the ground. A massive thank you to Gumby for making this special moment happen, love you babe xxxx Our first day in Canberra we got ourselves down to the Australian War Memorial, a national memorial dedicated to members of the military who have died or served in wars involving the Commonwealth of Australia. It sits directly across and in line with the parliament house, which is connected via Anzac parade. We walked from the car park through the nicely manicured garden and found ourselves looking up to the gorgeous shrine and courtyard of the memorial, while behind us was Anzac parade, perfectly lined up with the parliament house. Walking up the stairs took us into the commemorative area, a courtyard with walls filled with the names of deceased war veterans and a sea of red poppies. Through the sea of red poppies took us into the hall of memory, a Byzantine style building that was completed in 1941 to commemorate the fallen heroes of World War One. Inside the Hall of Memory is 3 large stained glass windows. The southern side represents personal qualities: resource, candour, devotion, curiousity and idependence. The west window expresses social qualities: Comradeship, Ancestry, Patriotism, chivalry and loyalty, while the east window represents the fighting qualities of youth and enterprise: Coolness, control, audacity, endurance and decision. Surrounding us in between the windows are mosaics that were completed after World War 2, each artwork represents the four services in the Wars: The Women’s Services, Army, Navy and the Airforce. Central of the Hall of Memory is the tomb of the unknown soldier, once buried at Adelaide Cemetery in Villers-Brettoneaux in France, the body was transported over with French soil and buried in the hall to commemorate the 75th World War One anniversary on 11th of November 1993. After taking a look around the memorial, we walked around the surrounding museum. Divided into World War 1, World War 2, aircraft hall and Anzac hall, the museum enriched us with artefacts and stories of Australia’s military history. You would need several days to take in the information that is there, its a day in itself just looking at the machinery and equipment that was used. Anzac hall put on some cinematic displays with the equipment, one was a display of a Japanese Navy midget submarine, and the story (called the battle of Sydney) of how close the war was to our home soil. The midget got tangled up in nets that were deployed at the western boom gate. Two Navy vessels were sent out to investigate and found the submarine demolished after the Japanese crew chose the warriors death option charging a torpedo into the vessel. After a huge intake of history we witnessed a last post ceremony, which is held at the end of every day to commemorate an individual soldier’s sacrifice made to the country. The story of the soldier is told, the ode is recited by Australian Defence Personnel and the sound of the last post is played beautifully through the bugle to conclude a day of Australian military history.
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November 2023
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