Welcome to Life Images by Jill

Welcome to Life Images by Jill.........Stepping into the light and bringing together the images and stories of our world. I am a photographer, writer and multi-media artist.
Focussing mainly on Western Australia and Australia, I am seeking to preserve images and memories of the beautiful world in which we live and the people in it.

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Sunday, 22 December 2024

Celebrating Christmas in Australia

 Hi dear blogging friends, and welcome to my Christmas edition. 

I was wandering around blogland wondering what to do for my Christmas post and I came across this site - Why Christmas.com I found it to be a really interesting site explaining the traditions and customs of Christmas, and how different cultures celebrate Christmas around the world. Not everyone celebrates Christmas, but for those you do, or for those who are interested to know more, I suggest you take a look. When you go to the site, just click on the links to learn more. 

So for my post today, I've taken a little from the site (though I've made quite a few changes) about how Christmas is celebrated in Australia. 

In Australia, Christmas comes towards the beginning of the school summer holidays - which run from mid December to the first week in February, so many people plan this time for their summer getaway holidays. Because it is hot (usually around the mid to high 30sC or low 40sC) many people head to the beach on Christmas Day or Boxing Day, or laze around the pool (if they lucky to have one!). 

I think this Christmas song from You Tube (Strolling Through a Summer Wonderland) sung by Ronan Keating (even though it was recorded for Air New Zealand) sums it up - New Zealand is only just across the ditch from us after all!


In 2021 is was so hot on Christmas Day (around 43C) that our grandson cooked a fried egg in a pan on the driveway. 

Some people hang wreaths on their front doors and decorate their houses and gardens with Christmas lights. People drive around in the evenings to look at the light displays. Some people must spend days/weeks putting up their Christmas lights. Sometimes the displays are set up as early as December 1st. We took a drive around on Saturday night in our area. Some of the displays were truly amazing. 

The shopping centres, hotels, and city streets, etc also put up Christmas displays. 


In each State capital city there are Carols by Candlelight concerts. Famous Australian singers help to sing the carols and those who attend are encouraged to join in the singing. These concerts are broadcast on TV across Australia. There are also Christmas pageants and street parades in capital cities, that are also broadcast across the country. Most towns and cities have festivals and parades. 

You can see a short video of some of Carols in the Domain in Sydney, Australia, in 2023 here from YouTube- 

Many towns, cities and schools also hold their own Carols by Candlelight concerts, with local bands and choirs helping to perform the Christmas Carols and songs. In the past we held candles to read the words in the song book, whilst today it will probably be a battery operated candle.  

As it is the middle of summer in Australia at Christmas time, the words to carols about snow and the cold winter are sometimes changed to alternate Australian words. There are also some original Australian Carols.

A couple of years ago I brought you a few Australian Christmas carols including two versions of The 12 days of Aussie Christmas - one showcasing our unique Australian animals. 

There are some beautiful Australian trees flowering around Christmas.  Below are the candlestick banksia (they remind me of giant Christmas candles) blue/purple jacaranda (beautiful - but not an Australian native), the yellow/orange Western Australian Christmas tree, and the red flowering gum. So vibrant. 

When he reaches Australia, it is said that Father Christmas sometimes gives the reindeers a rest and might use kangaroos. He also changes his clothes for less 'hot' ones! Children often leave out carrots for Santa's reindeer. They might leave out milk and cookies or cake for Santa, with some cold beer - but should be non-alcoholic because Santa has to drive his sleigh!

There is a popular Christmas song about Santa using six white kangaroos, called "boomers"  to deliver presents to children in Australia. The song explains that Santa's reindeer can't handle the Australian heat, so the kangaroos take over pulling his sleigh.

Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
Racing Santa Claus through the blazing sun.
Six white boomers, snow white boomers,
On his Australian run.

Most families try to be home together for Christmas and the main meal is normally eaten at lunch time. Although many people still have the traditional roast English Christmas lunch (turkey, pork or ham and roast vegetables), in more recent times a cold Christmas dinner or a barbecue with seafood such as prawns and lobsters is popular. Some people like to have 'traditional' English Christmas Pudding but there may also be cold desserts like pavlova and trifle. An ice-cold 'punch' drink is also popular. 

I always make sausage rolls and these little Christmas puddings you can see below here top left. I have shared the recipe here - Christmas baking when it's baking hot


After lunch on Christmas Day we often flop in front of the TV to watch a movie - especially if someone has been given a new DVD for Christmas, or collapse on the lounge with a book, or play a board game. Or for those with enough energy - a game of back yard cricket. 

Dinner Christmas evening for us will usually be a casual affair of leftovers - a ham sandwich maybe and a bowl of icecream. 



On Boxing Day many people visit friends for a barbeque. And there is often a new release movie at the cinemas - a good way to keep cool on Boxing Day in the cinema.  People very often travel on Boxing Day to start their summer holidays. 

A famous Yacht race - the Sydney to Hobart - from Sydney in New South Wales to Hobart in Tasmania is held on Boxing Day. Another Boxing Day tradition is the Boxing Day Cricket Test Match. It starts every year on Boxing Day and is held at the MCG (Melbourne Cricket Ground) in Victoria. 

On Christmas Day we need to remember the service people in our community who continue to work for us - like hospital workers, doctors, nurses, ambulance officers, community service personnel, police, firefighters (bush fires in Australia are common this time of year), and the Australian Royal Flying Doctor Service who are on hand if someone in remote Australia needs help. Thankyou to all those people. 

This year is the 50th year anniversary of the Christmas Day cyclone that hit Darwin in the Northern Territory in the early hours of Christmas morning 1974 - Cyclone Tracy - when Santa didn't make it into Darwin. It devastated 80% of the city, and 66 people were killed. More than 36,000 people were evacuated from the city. Singers Bill and Boyd wrote a song about it - 

Santa never made it into Darwin
Disaster struck at dawn on Christmas day
Santa never made it into Darwin
A big wind came and blew the town away

You can hear the song and see vision from the aftermath of the cyclone here on YouTube - 


A bushfire came scaringly close to our house on 21 December 2021 - and I was so grateful to the firefighters who brought that bush fire under control. We had never been in that situation before. 


And for those who are missing someone from their table for the first time this year a very special song on YouTube from Anya - Spirit of Christmas Past. 


Here are some of my previous Christmas posts you may enjoy

A Christmas wish for you - and the Ghosts of Christmas Past - 2023

The 12 Days of Aussie Christmas - 2022

Christmas in Australia - 2021

Christmas waves a magic wand over the world - more about Christmas in Australia 2021

The Christmas in Australia edition - 2020

Christmas baking when it is baking hot in Australia -2013

I wish you all a blessed festive season spent with those you love. And for all a prayer for peace and safety around the world in these troubled times. 


Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. How do you celebrate Christmas? Perhaps you would like to tell us about it in your comment. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 
I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!
   
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Sunday, 15 December 2024

Midwest, Goldfields, Wildflowers Trundle - Part 6 - Niagra Dam & Karalee Rock - Western Australia

 Hello dear blogging friends. I hope you and yours are doing well. I thought before the year finishes I better finish off our Wildflower-Midwest-Goldfields Trundle. But I see now there is going to be two posts to finish this off. If you didn't see the last post you can revisit here - Part 5 - Leonora, and Gwalia, Western Australia

We are going to be free camping for the next few nights. Here is the map again - we have just left Leonora and are heading south through the goldfields area towards Niagra Dam and then passing through Kalgoorlie to Karalee Rock on the Great Eastern Highway before turning north to Beringbooding and Elachbutting Rock before returning home via Bruce Rock. 

Niagara Dam is located about 83 kilometres south of our last stop, Leonora, and 191 kms north of Kalgoorlie via the Kookynie Road. It is a great place to stop for a picnic, or to free camp overnight or for a few days. We discovered this little oasis years ago and have camped here several times. There are plenty of places to set up camp and we have found it to be a quiet camp. As we didn't have a long way to go from Leonora, we had a lazy get up and arrived at Niagra before lunch-time. 

The 30,000,000 gallon Dam was built in 1897 with cement hauled on 400 camels from Coolgardie by the Afghan cameleer Abdul Waid. The Dam was to provide water for the now abandoned goldmining town of Niagara, the surrounding district, and for the steam locomotives using the railway linking Kalgoorlie, Menzies and the northern goldfields. John Alway pegged the first gold lease in the Niagara area in January 1895, followed rapidly by other mining leases.

Underground water was found at Kookynie soon after Niagara Dam was completed, and the Dam proved unreliable due to intermittent rainfall.  Named after a nearby waterfall which proved to only flow after heavy rain, Niagara was a little different to its gigantic namesake.

There are two walk trails – the Round the Dam Trail (1150 metres) and the Breakaway Trail (1600 metres). The walks are relatively easy and are well marked with steel marker posts approximately every 70 metres letting you explore and learn about the landscape through the interpretive panels. The path takes you across the dam wall - no jumping or diving. 

These rocky outcrops are called breakaways - Breakaways are a notable feature of inland Western Australia. Softer soils have gradually eroded through the repeated action of wind and water. Only those areas with a hard laterite (ironstone/granite) top have resisted this reshaping erosion.


There was a gorgeous display of the Tall Mulla Mulla - Ptilotus exaltatus which is prolific through midwest and northern Western Australia. It always signals to me when we travel north that we have travelled out of the south west. They are one of my favourites. There are around 100 varieties of Mulla Mulla. I have added a few more to my photo list since I wrote this post in 2017. 


And some birds - we think the one on the left is the Grey-headed honeyeater and on the right is the Cockatiel weiro (often a household pet as it responds well to people). 

It was a beautiful still, quiet night and we toasted marshmallows over our campfire. 

The next morning we headed south to Kalgoorlie, passing through Menzies around 60kms from Niagra Dam. There is an interesting story to read on my blog about the Menzies Town Hall clock here - Menzies - Town hall without a clock. As you can see it now has a clock - but didn't have for around 100 years. 


We only stopped in the gold mining town of Kalgoorlie briefly before heading west to our next stop Karalee Rock - around 372km from Niagra Dam - arriving early afternoon. 

Located not far off the Great Eastern Highway 177 km west of Kalgoorlie, we have camped at Karalee Rock several times over the years, and it is one of my favourite free camps.  We decided to stay for two nights. 

There is plenty of places to set up with lovely shady camp sites suitable for caravans, camper trailers and tents. The only disappointment was that the toilets weren't operating. It is a popular site to camp so I hope they fix them soon. 

There are walk trails around and over the rock. And plenty of opportunity to take photos of wildflowers, including orchids in season. Orchids can particularly be found in the rock gardens were water collects on the rock. We enjoyed pointing some of these tiny orchids out to some other visitors to the rock. 

Below you can see, clockwise from top left - Lemon scented sun orchids (I love their little faces), what we think is the blue Candy orchid, Little Laughing Leek (so tiny), and the Clown orchids (I love their stripy trousers). 

Karalee Rock is one of the stopping points along the Golden Pipeline Heritage Trail which follows the 560 kilometre Perth to Kalgoorlie pipeline, and is one of a number of rain water rock catchments built in the 1890s to service the steam trains on the Eastern Railway from Perth to the Goldfields. The rock's history goes back thousands of years to when Aboriginal people camped here and collected water from the rock’s gnamma holes and soaks.

When the railway between Southern Cross and Kalgoorlie was completed in 1896 a series of rock walls, an aqueduct and 48.3 million litre dam was constructed at Karalee to collect rain water off the two granite rocks and provide water for steam trains en route to Kalgoorlie. 

Six kilometres of granite slab walls up to a metre high, all cut from the rock itself and laid by hand, surround Karalee Rock forming a rain catchment. 

These walls direct rain water to flow off the rock into the dam via a large semi-circular steel flume aqueduct, which was hand riveted at each joint.  The water was then pumped 3.6 kilometres south to the railway siding. The construction was an enormous achievement of both manual labour and horsepower.  


And more wildflowers - it really is a lovely place to stop and relax, walk or just sit and read under the shade. 



You often see Ornate Dragon lizards darting across granite rocks - you need to be quick to get their photo


And last year when we were camped at Karalee we came across a Tiger Snake slithering across the rock. Deadly poisonous - you don't want to get tangled up with one of these. Stand still and back away slowly.



I hope you have enjoy this part of our Midwest, Goldfields and Wildflowers Trundle. Next time I will take you to Beringbooding and Elachbutting Rocks for the final part of our tour. 

These are free camping spots with basic facilities, be self-sufficient: gas BBQ, fire rings, bins, long-drop toilets, chemical toilet dump point. Bring own firewood and be aware of fire bans. Please be respectful of other campers. Please take away your rubbish. 

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Thank you so much for stopping by. I hope you are enjoying my continuing tour.  I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week.
 
I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!
   
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Monday, 9 December 2024

Rone Exhibition - Art Gallery of Western Australia

 Hi all, I hope you and yours are doing well. Life has been busy here and I haven't blogged the last few weeks, and now it is December already! But I have been busy - mostly with getting ready for a market, family things, photography and writing, etc etc just life really. In there I managed to get myself elected as Secretary of my photography group - and at the moment it is a steep learning curve. 

However last weekend we did take some time off and went to Perth for a few days - mainly to see our sons compete in the Chung Wah International Dragon Boat Festival, but also to visit the  Art Gallery of Western Australia, and the WA Museum. 

Wow - the Rone Time Exhibition at the Art Gallery was amazing!

I have never experienced anything like this amazing immersive art experience which was shown in the historic Centenary Galleries of the Art Gallery of WA. Installed in 12 rooms over 2 floors, it was the first time the Centenary Gallery had held an exhibition in almost 20 years.

As you walk through the rooms you step you back in time, where it appears that people have suddenly left leaving everything as it was and the rooms shut up for years - exploring places lost in time.

Rone says he hopes his work acts an an emotional catalyst and an open-ended narrative with no right or wrong way for people to experience the space. He says it is not just the painting on the wall, it is the objects that surround it that really tell a story, playing on all our senses.

Taking Tyrone ‘Rone’ Wright and his crew several months to set up in completely empty rooms, every part of the worlds they created is specifically placed, including especially made cobwebs. It is like walking into a time capsule - an art piece - overlaid with music. Amazing. It is quite overwhelming and you need to slow down and take your time to take it all in. You can walk around as long as you don't touch or move anything. The back of each room is a painting of a girl. Her eyes seems to follow you. His art work is so detailed, you would think they were photographs.

The exhibition invites you to consider time and how it has worn away so much, with dust settling over the detritus. But through the peeling paint and cracked ceilings, life persists. Faces search out for something, for all of eternity.

Below I share a few photos (yes you were allowed to take photos) Considering I was just using my point-&-shoot and the subdued lighting, I was very happy with them. But I know my photos won't do justice to them.

As you enter the Art Gallery the foyer is dominated by the glass house - imagine sitting here sipping tea.

My favourites were: the library - I love old libraries - with books lining the walls and on the floor, the spiral staircase. We read later that they weren't really books, just made to look like the covers, as the weight of them all would have been too much.

I've always dreamed of having a dedicated library in my house - with walls lined with bookshelves and those ladders that slide along - or indeed a spiral staircase! And comfy chairs beneath a window to sit and read.

Another favourite which kept drawing me back - The dinner show. Backstage elevates you from the viewer to the performer, placing you in the spotlight.

You stand on the stage where there is a microphone and lights along the edge, and look out over the room where there are tables set up for dining. There is a light on each table, coats on the backs of chairs, a handbag or hat here and there, bottles of wine, place settings.

I could relate to the typist pool with the old manual typewriters like those I learnt to type on, with the boss's office just beyond. And that somewhat sad look on the girl's face as she looks out the window dreaming of another life perhaps. I wish I had paid more attention to what they were typing.


The boss's office - the inner sanctum, not a place for mere typists.

the telephonist room - my Mum was a telephonist in a Western Australian wheat-belt country Post Office during the late 1940s early 1950s. Pulling plugs, connecting callers. A few years ago we went to her country post office and I asked if I could see the room - it was tiny!

The sewing room - with material laid out ready to cut - and paper patterns hanging on a rack. Old sewing machines and huge rolls of thread.


In the old shop the top newspaper on a stack of newspapers was printed 2 days before my husband was born - 17 December 1955. My Mum and Dad ran a newsagency in South Perth for many years.


Another of my favourites - the store room with shelves of boxes of all sorts of things. The clock face in silhouette is not really a clockface - it is a back lit piece made to look like a clock on an outside wall. We checked - no clock outside.


The mail room - unfortunately because of the low light it was hard to get a photo of the mail bags attached all around the edge of the desk. And I don't like to use flash. I used to deliver mail around a library at a university in my first job out of school.

The art room - at the back below the image of the girl was a place, on the rug,  for the models to sit

You can read more about the exhibition and Rone the artist here - ArtGalleryWA-Rone-Media Release

A previous exhibition was created at the Melbourne Flinders Street Station in Victoria, Australia. You can go here to see a video, which will give you a better idea of the detail in the exhibition - www.dezeen.com-Flinders Street station

You can also read more on his web page - Rone.Art

If you are in Western Australia and haven't seen the exhibition yet, I suggest you do. It is on till February (yes you do have to buy tickets). They even have a dining and bar experience. How amazing that would be! time-rone-agwa.com

We are fortunate to have Rone street art in Bunbury where I live in Western Australia. They are on a wall in a carpark. I have always thought how amazingly life-like they are considering they are painted on a brick wall.


A snapshot about Rone: Emerging from the fertile underground street art scene in Melbourne, over the past two decades, Melbourne-based artist Tyrone ‘Rone’ Wright has established an international reputation for his distinctive large-scale portraits and hauntingly atmospheric multimedia installations – which, since 2016, have pursued an increasingly ambitious scale.

Rone has carved a distinct niche for himself, drawing acclaim and growing audiences to his large-scale installations that breathe life into forgotten rooms, buildings and eras. More than just murals, these are collaborations with the very spaces themselves.

Rone’s work is held in permanent collections at the National Gallery of Australia and the National Gallery of Victoria. He is co-founder of Everfresh Studio, an artist collective based in Collingwood, Australia.    
..... with thanks to Art Gallery of WA for some of the information in this post. 

I hope you have enjoyed my share today of the Rone Time exhibition in Perth, Western Australia. Have you ever seen anything like this? Perhaps you would like to share in your comments. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. I value your comments and look forward to hearing from you. I will try to visit your blogs in return. Have a wonderful week. 
I am linking up to the link-ups below. Please click on the links to see fabulous contributions from around the world - virtual touring at its best!
   

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