The Southern sky
There are so many more stars to see in the southern sky than there are in the Northern hemisphere. The Southern Cross is easy to spot, and Orion is always very clear, but there are thousands of others. When you are in the bush with no light pollution, the sky is just magnificent.
Bogans
This is going to sound a bit non-PC, but in the eight years since we have been coming to Oz we have become more aware of bogans. The closest British translation is chavs, but it’s not quite the same. The average bogan is overweight, coarse, loud, underdressed and frequently drunk. In some areas they are hardly to be seen (eg in the remote rural areas) but in others......
‘Grey Nomads’
An Aussie phenomenon. retired people either sell up completely or invest in a mobile home of some sort, as well as their fixed address, and travel the length and breadth of their amazing country. Mobile homes can be anything from a simple campervan, ranging through smart caravans towed by 4WD vehicles, to full-on converted coaches complete with satellite dish and trailer behind towing the 4WD. Some people travel occasionally, some concentrate on avoiding the winter in the south and head up to the tropical climate in the north for the dry season, and others are permanently on the move.
We’ve met a lot of nomads and they invariably have interesting tales to tell about their travels, some sticking to the sealed (tarmaced) roads, and others more adventurously tackling the great off road tracks such as the Birdsville , Oodnadatta or Strzelecki Tracks in the Outback. Hopefully one day we’ll do one of these ourselves.
We learned this time that the Nomads have a great reputation for turning up in droves to help out whenever there is a catastrophe such as the recent floods in Queensland and Victoria, and the bushfires in Western Australia. There is very definitely an Australian culture of helping out those in trouble – this is especially noticeable in rural areas and has been very pronounced in the Australian response to the earthquake disaster in New Zealand.
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