Melbourne finale

A colleague in Adelaide had commented to Geoff that the drivers in Melbourne were far more aggressive than Adelaide or the Outback. We were rudely awakened to the fact that we were back in a big city as Geoff navigated at night through traffic reminding him of Jo'burg. We were back in Victoria's big smoke!

Our last few days in Melbourne were spent sorting out admin, including defrosting our tent and doing a load of washing. Geoff met up with a contact at Melbourne Water which was a really informative meeting on the state of the water industry in Australia from a clients' perspective. We also managed to host a dinner for friends at Walter and Brenda's place which was loads of fun. Our babotie, though unconventional, was a hit!

Maybe the highlight of our return to Melbourne was time well spent at the Immigration Museum. We had skimmed over this item in our guidebook, but had noticed Bill Bryson giving it the thumbs up in his travel log "Down Under". Considering the immensely cosmopolitan nature of Melbourne, the challenges faced by so many of our colleagues, friends and family in trying to move to Aus, and noticing the subtle tensions between the newer and established residents in Melbourne we wanted to see what the museum could teach us.

Our good friend Craig Peters, who had recently immigrated to Australia himself, joined us. The museum is housed in the old customs house, which is a beautiful building in and of itself. To summarise the museum focused on five key aspects of immigration:

1. Why do people immigrate - to help dispel the many myths about the assumed motivations for migrating.

2. The history of immigration to Australia, detailing the four distinctive periods of immigration, the sacrifices that they made to come across - contrasting the 4-5month sail on a clipper in 1850, against the 24hr modern day flight, against the 6-24month human trafficking journey undertaken by many refugees.

3. The modern day reality of the immigration office who's job it is to decide who should get allowed into the country and who not. The cost of being the most desirable country to live in in the world is apparently 15,000 new applications daily! The most powerful display was an interactive interview where by we were the immigration official interviewing potential immigrants. We would see and listen to acted responses (from actual interviews) to standard questions and then need to decide whether to allow them citizenship or not - and on what basis. Following the interview we would then be told the actual outcome of the interview. It was heartbreaking to hear the aspirations, tragedies and stories from so many people motivated by war, strife, opportunities, family connections etc. and to decide who can be allowed in and who not. We all agreed that this is a job none of us would be able to do.

4. The museum then focused on individual immigrants stories after arrival in Australia, and then on the contributions immigrants have made progressively made to Australia's identity - considering 98.5% of the country's population originated from immigrant stock!

5. Lastly, and most poignantly, the museum questioned what the Australian identity really is. Is it a single identity - as proposed for so many decades by the ANZAC generation, or is it a collection of distinct identities travelling in the same direction? Is the chinese immigrant whose family moved to Australia in 1850 for the gold mines, any less Australian than the Irish immigrants of 1920's? 

All in all it was a very moving and informative museum and we'd suggest a must see for anyone interested in history and anthropology. Craig was particularly moved by a section which described the costs of immigration - on losing community support structure, friends and cultural reinforcement, and often having to start again. Typically the first generation immigrants (ie born in the new country) thrive at the expense of their parents who may struggle to settle in initially - or for their entire lives. It explained a lot of the frustrations that we have seen throughout our trip upon visiting our friends abroad who have immigrated - permanently or even temporarily.

Lastly we felt this museum could be reproduced in the South African context too where immigration, whether from further north in Africa, Europe, or Asia has shaped our country and made it the unique broth of cultural identities that it is. Too often we forget that we are all immigrants to some degree and cannot profess prior authority over others in the country, but merely be stewards of it together.

With heavy thoughts and enlightened minds we were ready to move on from Melbourne to start tackling the next leg of our trip - Brisbane and the East Coast of Australia up to Cairns!