ps. Yesterday we even saw a whale spouting under the Golden Gate Bridge!

Thanks Kim. San Fran and Marin County over the bridge are gorgeous. It’s been clear and we biked all around. It’s defintely a fun place. I hope I got some photos.

Yeah Rachel it’s likely your experience might have been a bit different. The book seemed fun to me. And perhaps the audio helped.

thanks Brona. Interesting info. I think next year I want to read The Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes. Have you read that one?

The aboriginals were hunter-gatherers, but they did use various farming methods to ensure their regular supply of food. Protection of important plants and their growing environments, fire management and grassy corridors to herd kangaroos to make capturing them easier. They didn’t need fences; they lived on an island. To protect the plants they moved regularly to rest areas until the next season. It was a very seasonal, sustainable, ecological system. Not perfect or idyllic as they still experienced feast and famine times. But their relationship with the environment was not valued by the early settlers. The first fleeters nearly died whilst waiting for the second fleet to arrive when their crops didn’t thrive. They failed to see that the local aboriginals were trying to show them how to eat the native foods. The Europeans had no idea how to deal with this new land. Sadly they also brought smallpox with them on the first fleet and the local tribes quickly began to die.
It was a real tragedy full of miscommunication, misinterpretation and misunderstanding.

Thanks Kathy. It should be really fun this year.

Thanks Michelle. Yeah I’m starting to get into the Aussie Lit & history, which is fun to delve into. I think I want to read The Fatal Shore history of it – sometime. You would like this novel probably. It’s slow at first but does pick up!