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Waltzing Matilda
There are, according to authoritative sources, more than 3,000 varieties of gum trees in Western Australia but no Koala Bears. It doesn’t seem right that a state of Australia which boasts of being larger than the United Kingdom, Japan and New Zealand combined does not have those little furry creatures with which this country is so well identified. They live on the east and the Nullabor Plains, it seems, are just too hot and dry for them to cross on their own.
Among our successful natural habitat discoveries has been real Australian people; they can be found away from shopping malls, the Kiwi shop in Joondalup, the Wanderers softball club and other areas usually inhabited by the approximately 100,000 New Zealanders who live here, and one such place was the Guildford Heritage Festival. This was as Australian as it gets, brightly coloured, polished and chromed 1962 R & S series Valiant cars complete with venetian blinds in the rear windows alongside the Western Australian Historical Cycle Club with a half dozen or so penny farthing bicycles and other wheeled contraptions which resembled the ones on we used to ride to school. We hardly thought that historical. Then there were such things as a display of restored vintage tractors and agricultural machinery, 1920’s to 1940’s shearing equipment, vintage wireless gramophones and the Australian 10th light horse display.
We missed the Perth Volunteer Rifle and Artillery Regiment firing of replica guns. They were scheduled to put on shows at 12.30 and 2.00pm, but actually did them at 11.00am and midday, and although we missed out we were told that there was such a commotion when the guns went off that startled birds flew everywhere, among them great big white cockatoos. That seemed to amuse the Australians.
There were a few other Kiwis there besides ourselves; members of the Aotearoa Maori Club, Perth, performed a few songs, although one of them (the people that is) looked Asian which was a most curious thing. Still, it was nice to hear for the first time in a year or so the Maori language and the familiar songs of home. If that was comforting to a couple of travelers, then distinctly odd was the Souleiado French Dance Group which followed. Adorned in period costume, including silly bonnets, under the baking sun grown men and women earnestly danced around the maypole, did funny things with sticks and finished with something that looked akin to Morris dancing. Worse, they made young children do the same and we were transfixed, particularly when they placed a sheep (a stuffed toy one, not the real thing) on the ground and looked to be engaging in some form of suspicious behaviour as they circled it.
We went in search of police to report them, but they were dressed in tartan frocks standing in a circle playing Waltzing Matilda on the bagpipes. This was too much so we fled, missing the Australian lace Guild’s display of handmade bobbin lace, the Bead Guild’s demonstrations of beading, stitching and stringing and the Calligraphy Guild doing whatever calligraphers do, and that is most definitely not what Caligula did. Or at least we hope not.
By the time we reached Lilac Hill Park, the Calamunda camels had gone back to Calamunda, the Home Workshop Machinists’ model engineering had run out of steam and the Aeromodellers of WA with their static display of model aircraft looked distinctly forlorn. The Morsecodians Fraternity of WA Inc was all out of telegraphy and their advertised takeaway souvenir copies of a Morse code message were nowhere to be seen.
There was nothing left but to visit the old gaol which was full of historical memorabilia, but almost none of it related to the housing and treatment of convicts. Instead, there was a collection of garden implements and a ladies side saddle, and a one-bedroomed cottage where someone from the Historical society tried to convince us fourteen children were raised. Worse, one of these people tried to claim that, with the exception of only one person, prisoners transported from Britain were thoroughly bad people, and that the practice of transportation stopped in 1850. Kaelene was having none of it given her great grandfather was dispatched from the County Tipperary gaol in 1851 for a minor offence involving stealing a sheep.
But if there was one good thing to come of the day, it was being bailed up to be surveyed, the surveyor earning our immediate approval by, without promoting or encouragement, ticking the box to indicate that we were in the under 50 years of age bracket. “Would we come back to another heritage festival?” she asked. On the basis of that flattery, “Strewth yes,” we replied.