Dictator Dan
The number of infections is rising with a serious speed. Additional measures are necessary but people complain and resist. Maybe it is the time to look abroad and see how people are doing there.
Australia seems to be the continent of endless space and freedom. 25 million Australian occupy a continent of 7692024 km2, the world’s sixth biggest country after Brazil of 8.5 million km2. However, Brazil has a population of 210 million.
So far 895 people died in Australia from a Covid-19 infection. 800 of these were inhabitants of the state of Victoria, in particular its capital Melbourne. That led to what are some of the strictest Corona rules anywhere.
The number of infections is rising with a serious speed. Additional measures are necessary but people complain and resist. Maybe it is the time to look abroad and see how people are doing there.
Australia seems to be the continent of endless space and freedom. 25 million Australian occupy a continent of 7692024 km2, the world’s sixth biggest country after Brazil of 8.5 million km2. However, Brazil has a population of 210 million.
Countryside in Victoria
The skyline of Melbourne
The lock down now lasts for 5 of the last 7 month. Inhabitants of Victoria are not welcome anywhere else in Australia. If they travel, they have to go into guarded quarantine in a hotel. Likewise people, who arrive in Australia from outside. The borders are closed. Repatriation flights are rare and weekly only 7000 Australians are allowed to return home from abroad. In Melbourne, people are only allowed to move in a circle of 5 km around their house. Wearing a face mask is compulsory for the 2 hours they are allowed to go outside each day. Many companies and all pubs and restaurants are closed. After 8 pm people have to stay at home.
Old Melbourne
In general, people seem to have accepted what opponents called a “dystopic nightmare”. Punishment is draconic. A pregnant woman was arrested in her pyjamas at home because she had used facebook to motivate people to join a demonstration against the corona measures. Daniel Andrews, premier of the state of Victoria, commented that this is not the time for protests against anything. Meanwhile Andrews has got the nickname “dictator Dan”.
Beach outside Melbourne
The general opinion in Australia is that the virus is a good reason for a continent led by increasingly restrictive governments to reduce civil liberty even further. Other civil rights such as to remain silent before the court or to have a lawyer were abolished before the outbreak. Immigrants have no rights at all and are locked away on far away islands. That even though 30% of the australian population are considered to be immigrants and the ancestors of the majority of the population all were immigrants who arrived less than 150 years ago. They can look back at a history of oppression over selected parts of the population.
The “New York times” called the Australian way of dealing with the crises the most restrictive measures of any bureaucracy since the time the continent was a british penal colony.
After James Cook had explored the east coast of Australia in 1770, he had written a report describing the suitable conditions for colonisation in particular around Botany Bay, now Sydney. Immediately the british government recognised the opportunity to improve the appalling conditions in british prisons and ship hulks serving as jails and get rid of the unwanted part of the population. In 1788 the first british fleet carrying 788 convicts including 192 women arrived in Botany bay to establish a penal colony. Until 1868 about 161.700 convicts of which 25.000 were women arrived. The first voluntary settlers arrived on the continent in 1793.
Like in the American West the discovery and conquest of Australia came with dispossession and murder for the local aborigine population. That was the first time in recorded history when a virus came to Australia. Already in 1789 a smallpox epidemics killed half of the aborigines around the newly established centre of colonisation. Some historians state it was spread deliberately.
The clearing of large areas for agriculture in the first half of the 19th century led to constant conflicts with the aborigines. Their population at the time of european arrival was probably around 750.000. About 20.000 were killed until 1920. Many more died from imported diseases. The relocation of the indigenous population to reserves comparable to those for the North American Indians led to even worse epidemics under the local population.
Paddlesteamers on the Murray river at the wharf in Echuca
At the time of the arrival of the Europeans a high concentration of aborigines populated the valley of the Murray river. The Mississippi of Australia is the continents longest river. It is navigable and became a lifeline for the settlers and commercial exploitation of the backland of Victoria and New South Wales. It was used the ship down wood from the mountains in the east to the coast. Quickly there were fights about the land with the indigenous population.
The wharf of Echuca and one of the lighters to transport gum wood
Today the area of the Murray river valley is full of historic relics of that time. The little town of Echuca found in 1853 used to be Australia’s biggest inland port. Wool was transferred to trains to be brought to Melbourne and shipped to the Motherland. The Redgum wood coming down the river was processed in the mills into building material for boats, houses and bridges. Interesting enough the wood of the australian gum trees is so dense that it does not float. It has to be suspended from lighters to be ferried downstream. In 1872 more than 240 boats were cleared in the wharf. Today the wharf is reconstructed and the world’s biggest collection of paddle steamers is on display. PS Adelaide is the oldest operating wooden paddle steamer in the world. Once 80 pubs and 79 hotels were in business in Echuca. Today the Murray, Star and the Bridge Hotel are remainders of the little town’s great times.
The bridge hotel
With a RV we stay on the municipal campground. The day ends with the cacophony of hundreds of parrots, lorikeets or kockatoos or however this specific noisy type is called which fly in crowds from tree to tree to find a suitable spot for the night. The day begins with a similar performance. During daytime others roam the campground in search of spills – if there are none they venture to the camping tables and wait for moments of lack of attention to steal cereals, bread or fruit.
Brave little lorikeet...
... and a cockatoo
The discovery of rich gold fields in the border area between New South Wales and Victoria brought a flood of diggers and new immigrants from Britain. The indigenous population was soon swept away. But even after the newcomers had the area for themselves there was no peace. According to British law all minerals belonged to the crown. The licensing of claims led to riots amongst the diggers. In 1854 the army crushed a riot in Eureka and killed at least 30 diggers. In 1890 Mark Twain who visited the site wrote about the Eureka riot: “The finest thing in Australasian history. It was a revolution-small in size, but great politically; it was a strike for liberty, a struggle for principle, a stand against injustice and oppression… it is another instance of a victory won by a lost battle”.
Main street of Beechworth
It is characteristic for the attitude of the modern australian rulers that they play down the importance of that event. In 1999 Bob Carr, the Premier of New South Wales, dismissed the Eureka Stockade as a "protest without consequence". In 2004 Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson stated his view "I think people have tried to make too much of the Eureka Stockade… trying to give it a credibility and standing that it probably doesn't enjoy”.
Victoria’s best preserved gold mining town is Beechworth. After gold was discovered in 1852 the site yielded 115 tones worth approximately two billion dollars. Many historic buildings of that time are preserved. There are several historic pubs, hotels, breweries, the courthouse, banks and the only hospital at the time in Victoria outside Melbourne. The prison was built in 1859 and is still in use for arrested Corona deniers. It used to hold infamous Ned Kelly, a highwayman who terrorized the area for years. Eventually he was executed in Melbourne for killing two policemen. The hotels have preserved their beautiful pubs. However, we have to stay in the campground outside town. Instead of a pub we get parrots and four-footed rascals which claim the place at night to steal food.
Outside of town is the old cemetery. There were many chinese miners and for us it is unusual to see graves with chinese characters. A couple of funeral towers where incense was burnt overshadow the tombstones.
On the way to Melbourne we pass the Grampians, a national park full of waterfalls and striking rock formations. Like in North America or New Zealand the colonists had as little mercy for the nature of the places they settled in as for the indigenous population. Big parts of the endemic flora were burnt and/or replaced by European plants and the fauna either deliberately or accidentally decimated or extinguished in the short period of only about 150 years after european arrival. The Grampians give an impression how the landscape must have looked like before the Europeans came. Kangaroos and emus roam the meadows around the mountains. While the kangaroos come into the campground. the emus are shy and only spotted from a distance.
The great ocean road leads into Melbourne. It is one of the world’s most scenic coastal roads leading above sandstone cliffs overlooking sandy beaches. We pass places called the arch, sentinel rock, bakers oven, lace curtains, Loch and gorge or the famous 12 apostles. This is a wild stretch of coast and a graveyard for ships which were not able to stay off. Numerous wrecks are recorded here. The most famous is the Loch Ard. On June 1, 1878 this clipper hit the rocks off the coast. The captain had tied a lifebelt around the waist of 18 year old Eva Carmichael and fastened her to a spar. Washed overboard she bobbed in the waves for two hours. Her cries for help were heard by 18-year-old apprentice midshipman Thomas Pearce, who had already made his way ashore by clinging to an upturned lifeboat. He swam out to the helpless woman and dragged her ashore. All the other 16 crew and 37 passengers including Eva’s parents, her three sisters and two brothers drowned. What sounds like the beginning of a Hollywood love story did turn out differently: Eva and Thomas both went their own separate ways.
With more than five million inhabitants Melbourne is Australia’s second biggest city. With its beaches, art district and cafes along the waterfront it was amongst the world’s most liveable cities for a long time. Behind the impressive skyline hide some historic quarters, the enormous Flinder street station and the world’s most extensive tram network.
That is all quiet now. Yet, however harsh Dictator Dan’s measures seem to be, they still do not suffice. After a decline to one figure numbers of newly infected the rolling count rose to double figures again. Another person died yesterday. As every night Dictator Dan has mentioned his name when he recounts the casualties of the day in his daily evening announcement.
Victoria’s best preserved gold mining town is Beechworth. After gold was discovered in 1852 the site yielded 115 tones worth approximately two billion dollars. Many historic buildings of that time are preserved. There are several historic pubs, hotels, breweries, the courthouse, banks and the only hospital at the time in Victoria outside Melbourne. The prison was built in 1859 and is still in use for arrested Corona deniers. It used to hold infamous Ned Kelly, a highwayman who terrorized the area for years. Eventually he was executed in Melbourne for killing two policemen. The hotels have preserved their beautiful pubs. However, we have to stay in the campground outside town. Instead of a pub we get parrots and four-footed rascals which claim the place at night to steal food.
Outside of town is the old cemetery. There were many chinese miners and for us it is unusual to see graves with chinese characters. A couple of funeral towers where incense was burnt overshadow the tombstones.
The chinese funeral towers
On the way to Melbourne we pass the Grampians, a national park full of waterfalls and striking rock formations. Like in North America or New Zealand the colonists had as little mercy for the nature of the places they settled in as for the indigenous population. Big parts of the endemic flora were burnt and/or replaced by European plants and the fauna either deliberately or accidentally decimated or extinguished in the short period of only about 150 years after european arrival. The Grampians give an impression how the landscape must have looked like before the Europeans came. Kangaroos and emus roam the meadows around the mountains. While the kangaroos come into the campground. the emus are shy and only spotted from a distance.
One of the viewpoints in the Grampians
Hiking trail
Kangaroos outside the Grampians
Waterfall in the Grampians
Road in the Grampians
The great ocean road leads into Melbourne. It is one of the world’s most scenic coastal roads leading above sandstone cliffs overlooking sandy beaches. We pass places called the arch, sentinel rock, bakers oven, lace curtains, Loch and gorge or the famous 12 apostles. This is a wild stretch of coast and a graveyard for ships which were not able to stay off. Numerous wrecks are recorded here. The most famous is the Loch Ard. On June 1, 1878 this clipper hit the rocks off the coast. The captain had tied a lifebelt around the waist of 18 year old Eva Carmichael and fastened her to a spar. Washed overboard she bobbed in the waves for two hours. Her cries for help were heard by 18-year-old apprentice midshipman Thomas Pearce, who had already made his way ashore by clinging to an upturned lifeboat. He swam out to the helpless woman and dragged her ashore. All the other 16 crew and 37 passengers including Eva’s parents, her three sisters and two brothers drowned. What sounds like the beginning of a Hollywood love story did turn out differently: Eva and Thomas both went their own separate ways.
Some of the 12 apostles
Rock formations along the great Ocean Road
Rock Ard bay, where Eva Carmichael and Thome Pearce were washed ashore
Thunderstorm appraching the South Coast
After the shower
With more than five million inhabitants Melbourne is Australia’s second biggest city. With its beaches, art district and cafes along the waterfront it was amongst the world’s most liveable cities for a long time. Behind the impressive skyline hide some historic quarters, the enormous Flinder street station and the world’s most extensive tram network.
Melbourne tram in front of Flinder street station...
.... and in front of the public baths
That is all quiet now. Yet, however harsh Dictator Dan’s measures seem to be, they still do not suffice. After a decline to one figure numbers of newly infected the rolling count rose to double figures again. Another person died yesterday. As every night Dictator Dan has mentioned his name when he recounts the casualties of the day in his daily evening announcement.
Entrance to an attraction park in Melbourne
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