iDIDJ Australia Didgeridoo Cultural Hub

[Peter Lister]

Hi again Dan,

Heh - do you think we're the only ones here now ??

I think I recall us chatting over the phone. Had quite a few visitors from overseas come through Sydney over the years but can't always get together with them. I tend to have a pretty full private life - maybe a little selfish now I'm getting older and at times a bit of a recluse. Guan and I have done a few things together - he lives in Melbourne so he's quite some distance away but we both have something of a common science background and came to didj in a similar fashion. Of course he's younger and smarter and happier.......

Yep, Australia is fortunate in having a relatively small population and so there is a situation where one can get to know a lot of people in any chosen discipline quite easily, but I think what you say is also true in that it's easy to cross over into other areas and work with noted people in a completely different field. That's a great thing for all sorts of research here because one can work across disciplines in a way that's not normally possible. Distance is the only tyrrany in this regard - it's a "wide brown land" so getting together sometimes is difficult and places like Arnhem Land are a long way away from where I live near Sydney. This can have its' drawbacks too though - if you don't want to be harrassed by "wanabes" then that's a problem, but there is always a remote corner to slink into if you need to get away.

In my own work I can combine my love of the country and travel, with my knowledge of botany and my interest in culture and in this way I've indulged my interest in Oz ethnobotany. Travelling about gaining plant knowledge from Aboriginal people has been a lot of fun and has built a personal knowledge of this landscape I otherwise would not have been privy to.

Most aussies live in the cities and while there has been an increase in the numbers of people travelling about the country there is this remarkable lack of knowledge of the country generally - in particular, northern Oz. It's remote, the climate is harsh and as a general rule, Australia is a tough country where people still get lost and die with very little effort - even close to the cities. As an example of this lack of knowledge there is currently a lot of debate about water resources here. The country is drying up at a great rate and we are wasting too much water. Some towns have run out of drinking water and it's on the cards for cities like Adelaide and Perth. One of the ideas mooted to remedy this situation is to bring water from the tropical north and the people that propose this do so ignorant that this is monsoonal country - it's above the Tropic of Capricorn !!. It has distinct Wet and Dry seasons and so while the rain falls heavily during the Wet and floods the land, this is a brief phenomenon occuring roughly between December and March. The rest of the year there is NO rain. In much of Arnhem Land not a drop will fall between May and October - 7 or 8 months with a single drop of rain. And so many aussies don't realise this 'cos they know nothing of the North. It's an amazing place - you can see from the photos Guan and I have posted how it changes. That shot of me with the young barra was taken in the dry season - the ones Guan posted of fishing are at the same location in the wet - those palms (Corypha elata - gulwirri) have up to a metre of water around their bases. This is the Arafura Swamp near Ramingining but it's no swamp during the dry - just a vast dry floodplain with the Goyder River running through it, becoming the Glyde and emptying into the sea. Where these shots were taken is about 30 kilometres inland, yet it's still under tidal influence !!

But while I do have a formal background in science I think I should have pursued my original interest in the arts, so this is more where I'm at these days. So I still work at a university with plants but away from here I like to spend my time enjoying and practising art. Of course I don't regret my choices but I wish I had more time to do both - life is way too short.

Hmm, this post is way too long, sorry folks....

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