Sport: Rugby vs. Lawn Bowling

We just finished our second week here in Brisbane and this past weekend Andy and I had the chance to get out and experience two of Australia's best-known sports (well, okay, one is better-known than the other), Rugby League and lawn bowling!

As a follow-up to our lecture on sport (they use the singular here) as part of Australia's culture, Nat got the group tickets to the Rugby League season opener last Friday night. It was the Brisbane Broncos vs. the North Queensland Cowboys, and before the game Nat gave us a quick rundown of the rules so we'd know what we were watching. The game is composed of two 40-minute halves and played by two teams of 13 on a field a little larger than an American football field. Here's how wikipedia describes it:

"Frequently cited as the toughest, most physically demanding of team sports, the objective in rugby league is to carry or kick the ball towards the opposing team's goal line where points are scored by grounding the ball; this is called a try. After scoring a try, the team is allowed the chance to try at goal with a conversion - a kick for further points. The opposing team will attempt to stop the attacking side gaining points by preventing their progress up the field by tackling the player carrying the ball."

The main rules are that you cannot pass the ball forward and all members of a team must stay behind the player with the ball, or "on-side." Each team gets six tackles (or chances to stop the progress of the ball towards the goal). A tackle is completed when that player's progress is halted, or he is put to ground. As soon as it is obvious he has been halted, the tackled player puts the ball immediately back into play by rolling it backwards with his foot to the teammate behind him. An attacking team gets a maximum of six tackles to progress up the field before possession is changed over. Ball control is also important in rugby league, as a fumble of the ball on the ground forces a handover, unless the ball is fumbled backwards. The ball can also be turned over by going over the sideline. One of the things that makes the game so exciting to watch is that play rarely stops. As soon as the sixth tackle happens, the other team grabs the ball and starts working its way down the field towards the goal. It moves much quicker than American football, as the clock rarely stops.

There are two other codes that are played in Australia: Rugby Union and Aussie Rules Football, and in each region of the country, one of them tends to be favored over the other. There was a huge turnout for our game . . . a little over 45,000 people packed the stadium, which has a capacity of 50,000. Of course during the games there are many beers consumed (this is Australia after all), but surprisingly very little violence breaks out, and it seems like the Aussies have a lot of fun with the rivalry between fans. I'm already making plans to find out how I can watch the games online from the states.

On Saturday Andy and I met up with Nat and her partner, Ken, to participate in a sport of a gentler nature: lawn bowling! This sport has a long history in Australia, but used to be enjoyed only by the old-timers who dressed in their neatly pressed whites. Beginning about 10 years ago, lawn bowling started to become trendy with the hip crowd, and there are now greens in all of the cool neighborhoods. In fact there's one just down the street from our apartment in New Farm.

Before we arrived at the green, Nat and Ken took us for a drive to the top of the tallest mountain (hill, really) in Brisbane, Mt. Coot-tha, for a view of the city. Brisbane is a hard city to orient yourself to because of the way the river zigzags through it . . . it's hard to figure out exactly which side of the river you're on at any given moment. Seeing the city from above helped to get a feel for how it was laid out. After a few pictures and a little souvenir shopping it was off to bowl.

The green Nat picked for us is called Booroodabin, but is affectionately known as The Boo. It's located in the Newstead suburb and has been in operation since 1888; it's Queensland's oldest bowling club. After a few pointers from the staff we got started . . . barefoot and beers in hand, Ken and Nat vs. Andy and Philip. I'm proud to say that Andy and I lost by only a few points . . . not bad for our first time! The object of the game is to get as many of your balls as close to the "jack" (a small white ball placed at the other end of the lane) as possible by rolling them down your lane. The lanes have no markers or barriers between them, so it gets pretty entertaining when your balls start crossing into your neighbor's lane and vice versa. Andy and I have decided we need to bring lawn bowling to Portland . . . a plan is in the works.

It's Sunday night now, and after a lazy day in which we walked to James Street, yet another cool neighborhood close to us, we are gearing up for another week of lectures. Hope everyone is safe and well at home.

~Philip

Rugby League game at Suncorp Stadium

The students cheering on the Broncos

Ken, Nat and I at Mt. Coot-tha

Andy and I with Brisbane in the background

Brisbane from Mt. Coot-tha with the coastline
in the far background

Here's a look at how the river winds its
way through Brisbane.

The Boo!

Nice form, Andy!

Trying to visualize my ball rolling to the
left, where it's supposed to be rolling!

Nat multitasking

He didn't spill a drop of his wine.

Nat confirming that yes, all three of the closest
balls are theirs.

Ken planning his next move . . .

Brisbane and Straddie

Right now I sit in a concrete block room in a backpackers’ hostel on North Stradbroke Island (“Straddie”). The room is spare—very spare—but there’s a surprisingly tasteful abstract oil painting on one wall. Strange.

While I’m here studying sand island ecology with the students, Philip’s unfortunately back at our apartment in Brisbane recovering from a stomach bug that’s been going around. Poor guy.

One consolation for Philip is that his surroundings are pleasant. Our apartment is a charming, decent-sized studio located on the ground floor of a modified “Queenslander” house. Designed for the warm, humid climate of this part of Australia, a Queenslander is raised off the ground and has a wrap-around verandah (or at least a well-shaded front porch) plus large windows that swing wide open to circulate air around the house (see picture below). Outside our apartment is a small garden with subtropical plants and a barbie (barbecue). A couple of nights ago we made delicious T-bone steaks—yum. What we enjoy most about the apartment, however, is having a bathroom all to ourselves. It’s also nice not having to live out of our luggage. An added bonus is our neighborhood: the urbane yet laid back “New Farm” suburb. Down the street in one direction is a beautiful riverside park, a wharf for the city’s public ferry, and a cultural center called the “Powerhouse,” an old power station refurbished to house performance spaces and cafés. In the other direction is Fortitude Valley, home to Chinatown, nightclubs, and hipster hangouts of various sorts. Also on our street is a lawn bowls club. You don’t have to be a member or even wear proper bowling whites to play, so Philip and I plan to go next weekend with Nat (our coordinator) and her soon-to-be-husband Ken, who’ll teach us the ins and outs of this once outdated but now retro-cool sport. The students, meanwhile, are living in homestays, and it seems they’re enjoying settled life as well.

We’ve been in Brisbane for about a week now, and so far we like it. It doesn’t have Sydney’s harbor and beaches or Melbourne’s sophistication, but it’s big enough to be interesting and small enough to be comfortable. A river winds its way through the center of town, and fortunately it’s no longer flooding the way it was back in January. When Nat drove us to our apartment, she pointed out one building after another that had been flooded. The river is still a bit swollen and muddy colored (due to all the silt that’s washed in), but overall, it’s remarkable how back to normal the city looks. Most of the buildings Nat pointed out look perfectly fine; you would never guess they’d been inundated just over a month ago. Sadly, it doesn’t look like Christchurch will recover from its own recent disaster any time soon. When we were there a couple of months ago we could still see some damage from the September quake, but apparently the latest quake was far more destructive. Fortunately Chet, the bed and breakfast owner we befriended in Christchurch, didn’t suffer any injuries. He’s also lucky to have an artesian well on his property, so he has plenty of water not only for himself but also his friends and neighbors. We wish him the best . . .

Over the past week we’ve been attending lectures at the downtown office of Global Education Design (GED), the company owned by Nat's family that manages our program. I don’t have the energy to share everything we’ve learned, but our lectures here in Brisbane have covered Australian politics (the students were fascinated to learn how a parliamentary form of democracy differs from our own), immigration (a “whites only” policy was in place from 1901 to the 1960s), and memorialization of 20th-century military campaigns (the World War I debacle of Gallipoli looms especially large in the national psyche). We also paid a visit to the Queensland state parliament, a grand 19th-century building whose every feature reminds you of Australia’s ties to Britain, from the design of the House of Representatives (modeled exactly after the House of Commons, down to the use of the color green) to the enormous stained-glass Queen Victoria who stares down from a grand staircase. In one of the more stately rooms there’s also a cushy red seat that can be occupied by only two people: Queen Elizabeth or the governor general (the queen’s representative in Australia). When we were done with our tour we bumped into the speaker of the house, who had just returned from a trip to Alaska. A typical politician, he made sure to shake each of our hands and ask what states we were from. Nice fellow.

As I said earlier, I’m now on Straddie, an island consisting almost entirely of sand about a 45-minute ferry ride off the coast. We’ve been exploring each of the ecological zones of the island, our favorite so far being the mangrove swamps and mudflats by the bay. Yesterday all of us trudged through the mud and at one point intentionally twisted our way down so we could lean all the way back from our knees without falling over. It looked like we were all in a limbo competition. Of course, we all missed Philip. Hopefully he’ll be better soon!

~Andy

Classic Queenslander in our neighborhood

Mangroves on Straddie, with roots above ground to get more oxygen

Among the mangroves

Exploring the mud flats

Stingray print

Nat doing the mud limbo!

Marni and John

Me too!

Searching for a lost shoe

Anna-Brooke with rescued shoe

Straddie surf

Flooded road--yet again

Here are some of my favorite scenic shots I've taken with my "good" camera.

~Philip

Kinchega 

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset at Kinchega

Sunset over the woolshed at Kinchega

Sunrise at Kinchega

The historic woolshed at Kinchega

The road into Kinchega

A big eucalyptus tree at Chowilla

The Murray River in flood

Water tower and eucalyptus tree
at Chowilla

Chowilla sheep station in flood

More Chowilla

The dunes near Port Elliot

Sunset in Port Elliot

Emu track in the mud

Chowilla and Port Elliot

After a great last day in the quaint mining town of Broken Hill, our group boarded the bus once again to make our way to the Chowilla sheep station near the town of Renmark. Chowilla station has been in the Robertson family since 1864, before there were any other European settlements in the area. Our hosts at the station, Jock and Lis Robertson, now manage Chowilla both as a working sheep station and as a tourist destination. The station is massive, covering 94,000 hectares (232,200 acres), and is bordered on one side by the Murray River which, much like the Darling, is in flood stage for the first time in over ten years.

After our trusty (and sometimes a bit grumpy) bus driver, Tex, navigated the coach down the unpaved and still partially flooded roads of the station, we were met by Jock, who guided us over the last stretch of road to our accommodations: the sheep shearers’ quarters that now serve as a guest house in between shearing seasons. The accommodations were sparse, consisting of bunk beds, communal showers with wood-heated water, and two toilets for the group to share. We stepped off of the bus to find Jock at the grill and Lis busy in the kitchen preparing that night's dinner. Lis had prepared a feast of homemade salads and potatoes accompanied by Jock's grilled lamb, beef and chicken, followed by a lemon pudding/cake with homemade preserves for dessert. I think we all agree that the food was one of the highlights of our stay at Chowilla.

The next day Jock took us out for a bus tour of the property with stops at various points of interest. It was hard to grasp the vastness of the station until we drove around all day and never left the property. One thing we all noticed was that even though we were on a station that was home to thousands of sheep, we only saw 2 or 3, and they were off in the distance. (We also saw a flock of emus running alongside the road, a sight we never get tired of!) The reason for the lack of sheep sightings is that because the land and vegetation are so fragile, each sheep needs a large area to survive without destroying the resources, which is why grazing has been such a controversial part of Australia's history. Today the station is part of the Bookmark Regional Reserve, whose aim is to combine production with conservation through responsible and sustainable grazing.

After another great meal and a good night's sleep we were off to Port Elliot on the coast of South Australia near Adelaide. After a week in the outback sleeping in shearers' quarters, using outdoor communal toilets, and living with ants, spiders and mozzies, Port Elliot was like paradise. Nat had booked us at a YHA Hostel, but it was like no hostel we'd seen. The structure was a recently renovated, historic hotel perched above the ocean with amazing views and clean, modern facilities. As soon as we arrived most of us quickly changed into our togs (swim trunks) and headed down to the beach for a swim and a game of frisbee in the surf. It was exactly what we all needed and everyone's mood was immediately lifted.

The educational reason for our stop in Port Elliot was a boat tour of the Coorong, where the Murray river flows into the Southern Ocean. Along the way we saw scores of pelicans and other native bird species, and even a lone seal that was hanging around a fishing net looking for an easy meal. We had a terrific tour guide for the day: Matt, who gave us some history of the area and with the help of some visual aids, showed us how the area changes during times of drought and flood (a common theme during our time in Australia), and just how much work goes into managing the waterways. After a lunch that started with freshly caught cockels cooked on the beach (I ate two . . . a first for me!), Matt took us on a walk across the sand dunes to a very special Aboriginal site that few people have access to because of its sacredness to the local indigenous people. It was a beautiful site with several middens, occupation sites where Aboriginal people left the remains of their meals. At some sites substantial deposits grew over generations of use of the same area, and some middens are a few metres deep. One of the middens here was especially sacred because it contained human remains, which were visible to us, but are often covered with sand depending on the conditions of the dunes. The area is closely monitored by the local Aboriginal people who work closely with the company that set up our tour. I think we all felt honored to be able to visit this site after all we've learned about Aboriginal culture in the last few weeks.

The following morning it was off to Adelaide for a flight to Brisbane, where we are now. The students have all settled in with the homestay families that they'll be living with for the next three weeks, and Andy and I have moved into our private apartment in the New Farm suburb of Brisbane. This is the first time since arriving in Australia that we are not living with the students 24/7. I think we both agree it's nice to have some privacy, but I did feel a little emotional seeing them all depart with their families, as we've grown pretty attached to them.

That's all for now; more on Brisbane and our trip this weekend to North Stradbroke Island in a future post!

~Philip

Our sheep shearers' quarters at Chowilla 

The bus got stuck several times . . . that's what students are for!

An Aboriginal site at Chowilla

Finding some shade for lunch

Some of the students at the beach
in Port Elliot

Relaxing after a week in the desert

Port Elliot

Our kids on the Coorong boat tour

Cockel feast!

I can't believe I ate two of these . . . and they
were delicious!

Pelicans

Melanie, Delaney, Dick, Marnie, 
and Philip crossing the dunes

A little fuzzy, but a great shot none the less!

Andy on the dunes

Going down the dunes is so much more fun than
going up!

Our hotel in Port Elliot

Finding a quiet moment

Another beautiful Australian sunset