finally here is the sign i like. i am not sure what you have to do to qualify to be a "tidy town" in AU, but as you can see yamba has qualified....this sign goes along with the topic of the day, so the timing is good at finally getting it to you.
Ok so today we are going to talk about an amazing aspect of the Australia I have seen, and that is the fact there is no litter and no tagging. Greg and I just got back from a long walk through town and out onto one of the break walls that form the entrance to the harbor here in yamba. The break wall is ¼ of a mile long and the rocks that make it up are perfect for tagging, nice and flat and as big as the side of your car. I saw one place where someone along time ago had written his or her name. It is such a relief not to see tagging everywhere, and to just enjoy the waves, fisherman and big rocks (anyone who knows me knows I have a real weakness for rocks, how many rolls of pictures of rocks did I bring back from machu picchu? How many rocks have I dragged back from Baja? I even drug back a ten pound rock from the top of the crazies (my favorite mountains in Montana) one year for the top of the first brick oven steve and I built). Ah, but we are getting sidetracked, back to tagging. Maybe in the big cities you find tagging in AU, but not here in the country.
You also do not find trash….anywhere. We have been here two weeks now and this whole time I have seen a total of 8 pieces of trash in all the walking I have done on the beach and on the roads. Even on the highway, sorry motorways, you do not see trash. I can’t tell you how much more beautiful the beaches are because of this. They have a pristine quality about them that makes you feel like not very many people have been on the beach because it is so clean. The sand on the beaches here is gorgeous, so soft and fine and a lovely cream color, it is in sharp contrast to what we had in fiji, which was so much coarser. An interesting fact I read was that parrotfish are the cause of much of the sand you find in the tropics, as they nibble the algae off the coral and inadvertently bite off bits of coral. I forget the figure on how many pounds of coral a parrotfish eats in a year, but it was amazing.
Many people here, both young and old walk. The other day I was walking way down the beach from town and started talking to a woman named Grace that was quite the character. Turns out she is 83 and walks every morning, I’d say 3 miles judging from where she was that morning and where she told me she lived. She says she still goes surfing, although she bogie boards now. She told me about some photog that filmed her for a movie he was making. I hope I am in as good shape when I am that age. And speaking of age and surfing, there is another guy that Freddie told us about that is 78 and he surfs every day out at Angourie on a short board!!! We saw him out in the water and the guy can surf, he is no poser.km
1 comment:
Australia, being part of the British Commonwealth, shows you what the U.S. might have looked like...if we had never declared war on King George in 1776 by sending him our Declaration of Independence.
Has our much-treasured independence over the past 200+ years really gained us anything???? Wouldn't you wish that the U.S. could be more like Australia is today?
For one thing, if we had remained part of the British Commonwealth, we'd not have fought all those wars: (1) The Revolutionary War, (2) the War of 1812, and (3) the Civil War, to name just the first three major U.S. conflicts.
I say no Civil War, since we would have abandoned slavery in 1832, at the same time Britain did. And since 75% of the blacks shipped to the U.S. were received AFTER that date, our racial mix would have been more like Australia's too...2-3% non-white, instead of 5 times that amount that we have today.
True we probably would be taxed at higher rates...after all, the Tea Tax was one of the factors that sparked the Revolution. But presumably those tax monies would have been spent to educate and equalize the population, as they have in Australia...don't you think that's why people are smarter there? Walking more, happy to live with higher prices, littering less, etc, etc... My observation was that Australians are more socially-conscious that are Amreicans. Have you ever seen a street begger in Australia? I don't think they exist. But if they did, most Australians would want to help the beggar right now! That's a social conscience.
In the U.S. we all fear "creeping Socialism" as tho learning to live responsibly with your fellow man is bad. But I think that Australia, along with most of Europe, is far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to making everyone feel included.
Are we better off NOT being part of the British Commonwealth? I say no.
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