A selection of photos from week two of the AIUYF can be viewed below, as well as some video clips from the AIUYF talent night!

Anna and Rishu spoke about the AIUYF on ABC Radio Sydney

Mulloon Creek Natural Farm - demonstration of natural sequence farming

Uluru

A tour of Aussies and Indians - there had to be a game of cricket!


Irfan enjoying some Kangaroo tail for lunch

On the last night of the AIUYF, the students held a talent night to show off some of their very impressive musical and dance skills. The highlight was probably the Bollywood dance number performed by a mix of Australian and Indian students. You can watch clips from the talent night below.
The Bollywood show - Indian and Australian students

Nimit and Nikhil performing Koi Kahe (Dil Chahta Hai)

Group of Indian students performing a song

Prateek performs a dance

Indian students perform a dance

Curtin Springs

As a part of AIUYF'08 were conducted a series of lectures and workshops, presentations and demonstrations of some measures taken by various groups to achieve a sustainable systems approach or to see that all/most of the output of their activities is used as an input to some other activity, thus giving a circular view to the entire chapter.

The end of the first week signified the end of the series of official lectures and workshops and most of us were excited as this embarked us on a sort of a holiday week. But things often don't go as planned and that is what precisely happened this time. The second week had much more to offer in terms of learning and experiencing than the first week.

Out of the many places that we visited in that short span, one place which remain neatly etched in memory is the visit to the Curtin Springs. On the face of it, it was a stopover for dinner, with the owners of the place (The Severins) to tell us some informal stories about their family history and the place. Not in my wildest of imaginations had I imagined that a person can actually achieve what the owners of this place have in the last few decades.

The land was first taken up by Paddy DeConnley in the thirties and was known as Mt. Conner Station. Around 1940, Mt. Conner Station, together with the vacant Crown land became known as Curtin Springs and was leased to Abraham Andrews. Curtin Springs derives it's name from the late John Curtin who was then Prime Minister of Australia. The Severin family took over the lease in 1956 and still operate the station today.

It is truly astonishing and astounding to realize that how they have managed to convert a barren land into their home and more so as a home for thousands of tourists who flock to this place situated as a jewel in this otherwise barren piece of land.

Peter Severin, his wife Dawn and their son Ashley arrived in August 1956. The infrastructure at that time consisted of two bough sheds, a galvanized shed, a galvanized kitchen, a galvanized iron building called the bathroom and a galvanized toilet, all approximately 1 km from the current homestead.

As history has it, they arrived in a Vanguard and a Bedford truck half full of supplies and all their worldly goods . Peter stopped the car and got out. Family history says that after explaining to his young wife that this was where they were going to live, she replied, “Boy...I have got news for you...and it's all bad...”

Dawn couldn't drive but Peter made sure he took the keys out of the car, just in case she decided to learn!!!

In the first year, they saw 6 people- two stock and station agents, two friends who needed to find out if they were still alive and two tourists. The current bough shed was built and became their home for three years. They then built the tin house and then the stone house was built in 1967-68. The stone house is built from 150 ton of stone, all quarried from the property.

Their initial herd of 1500 head of cattle arrived in late October 1956, after walking for 6 weeks from Tieyon Station, just 300 km away!! The heavens opened up and they received an inch of rainfall. The blessing didn't last long with there being no rainfall for the next 9 years. Peter purchased a “Southern Cross No 2” percussion boring plant ans commenced to look for more water points. This resulted in many bores producing salt water or no water at all. By the time the drought ended, they had only 400 head of stock left. It took several years and the commencement of good seasons ahead o restock to 4500 head.

By this time, Ashley had returned home from school in Alice Springs and blended in with all the operations then in progress. During these good years many things occurred

● There was a 10 year programme for the eradication of the diseases TB and brucellosis.
● Mustering changed from horseback to helicopters
● Road trains to drive the cattle to market rather than weeks of walking
● Telephones and fax machines couple with computers – improvement from pedal radios!

The family, too underwent a huge change in lifestyle which began with a necessary diversification during the drought. Len Tuit had commenced his regular tour operation from Alice Springs to Ayers Rock and back in 1958. This service was run twice a week.

Peter and Dawn installed a fuel dispensing pump and a 500 gallon underground tank to store the petrol because in the summer the petrol used to boil in the 44 gallon drums. They started a small grocery store to cater for the requirements of the ever growing number of travelers. Dawn started to provide morning and afternoon cups of tea and scones. They also obtained a liquor license to provide alcohol for the thirsty traveler.

During the extended drought, Peter took on contract work at Ayers Rock, which was administered by the NT Reserves Board. This included the cartage of material for the building of several motels, the first Ranger's house and garage, maintenance of water bore, water reticulation to each of the established buildings, building of the first aerodrome at Ayers Rock and general handy man.

Things stand a bit different now. All the water needed on the homestead is pumped from a bore into storage tanks for use. This storage provides a limited amount of available water at any point in time, thus leaving no scope for mistake/carelessness as a tap left on inadvertently means there is no water for anyone in the morning. The bore runs during the day and must be watched constantly, services regularly and prayed over intermittently.

The electricity is all generated on site with a generator running 24 hours a day. The generator is the heart and soul of the homestead settlement area, though a solar heating system is coming up soon. The generators are also watched constantly, serviced regularly. The cattle work is done primarily by the family with the aid of modern technology. 30-40 buses pull in off the road every day and they provide meals and accommodation to several thousand people a year. Supplies come primarily from Alice Springs or Adelaide with the truck coming in once a week contrasted with the 3 monthly camel trains. The mail comes Monday to Friday on the bus.

The story, though is not exactly a golden one even now, as the last few lines make it look so. Drought means destruction of the little crop that is grown and death of cattle. Even in good seasons, the crop is not out of dangers with the rabbits always looking for a chance to have their share of the feed.

“How do you tackle the rabbits”, someone asks. “Shotguns”, pat comes the reply.

Not many staff stick around for long owing to the distances involved which often lands them in a tight spot.

Even on the day we visited, not everyone knows, the people who were actually cooking, serving and cleaning were not the workers but their family members who had come their for a short visit. We met them and there was not a sense of irritability or anguish on their faces or reflected in their voice. They were all very sweet and seemed to enjoy serving the guests. Peter, even at 80 odd, is their most hard working person, they say. He is their labor, their engineer, their manager.

What makes their story so different to be told, and told again and again to as many people as possible. This is a story of dedication and resilience. Dedication to their land and resilience to fight against all odds to enable the land survive. This is a story of how the land is used as a resource and not abused for greed. This is a story of how the local resources are utilized at their best use and very little help is actually required from outside hands. This is a story of proper utilization with no scope for wastage or abuse lest they run out of resources. This is a story of adaptability, adaptability to different seasons, adaptability to different environments, adaptability to different moods of nature, adaptability to their ecosystem and managing it rather than destroying it. It must be reminded that every rabbit killed is the one which attacks the roots of the plant and not any arbitrary animal strolling on the ground. A perfect example of living in harmony with their environment. This is a story of reverence, of reverence to land, reverence to the life around and of reverence to the womenfolk, without whose support and toughness none of this would have been possible. These are the factors which are often neglected by humankind in it's greed to grow bigger not realizing that the in doing so, it is in fact killing the hen which lays the golden egg. What else could be a better example of a sustainable system than this one, where every part of nature, be it man, animal or land is a participant, every part is a resource, but none is the owner.

“What inspires you to live here with all the hardships around?”, I asked Mrs. Ashley Severin.
“This is my land. Is this not inspiration enough. I have this whole land as my family. When you go to your camp, do one thing, just move away from all the areas where there is light and have a look at the sky above. Then ask the same question and you will get the answer!!”

I still remember the words of that lady. In that one little evening, I saw sustainability at it's best, studded with the concept of land ethic and reverence and love for their land and nature. I wish I could describe what I wanted to in a better way to do justice to the achievement of the Severins, but I hope this will at least get some minds probing.

If one family can bring it's head together and decided to convert a barren deserted land into a habitat, what is it that 6.5 billion head put together for one good cause cannot achieve.

Courtesy : Akshay

-Nimit

Day 2 @ The Outback

We woke up early the next morning (6 a.m., or was it earlier?!). After rolling up the swags and sleeping bags and loading everything back in the vehicles, we had breakfast and made our way to Kings Canyon. The canyon is situated within the Watarrka National Park. Armed with water, hats and sunscreen, we began our walk around it's rim just as the sun was rising over it. The initial part of the 6 km, 3-4 hour walk was a steep climb (also known as "heart attack hill") but the view from the top was totally worth it - you could see the gorge below as well as the rest of the surrounding landscape. Further our guide Vicky then quizzed us on the difference between a gorge and a canyon, and we were informed that the Grand Canyon in the States is actually a gorge...."but we can let the Americans call it a canyon!" . The walk took us through high sandstone walls as well as a plateau of rocky domes. There were several lookout points and needless to say everyone was busy clicking photographs for large part of the time. As we made our way down to the Garden of Eden we crossed over from a rugged, rocky landscape and found ourselves surrounded by pretty thick vegetation - palms, cycads and ferns. The Garden of Eden was a sheltered permanent waterhole, and to see th sunlight being reflected in it in colours of red, yellow and green was just amazing. Further along the rim we crossed a point where you could see imprints of (sea) waves in the ground - a reminder of what was there thousands of years ago. Walking along the rocky dome formations, we eventually made our way back to the base.

From there we drove out to Kings Creek Cattle Station where we had lunch, and saw kangaroos at long last!! I must mention here that atleast as far as the vegetarians are concerned, we probably got the best food of the entire trip in the Outback :) A big thank you to the people from Wayoutback for that. Post lunch we drove down to the property belonging to Rob and Craig Ross at Oak Valley. On the way we listened to some really nice songs, courtesy Tom's CD. The one that had everyone humming was 'Hallelujah' from Shrek :)

By evening we reached the campsite, where again we spread out our respective swags and tried to figure out where some of the sleeping bags had disappeared! (eventually everyone had one by the time they hit the sack). People then gathered around the campfires and talked, sang songs, played games and had dinner which I still remember but it will take too much and too long for me to write about it! After that everyone gradually went to bed. And yes, the temperature did go below zero that night....
-Soumya

Photos

Day 1 @ The Outback

After visiting Canberra, we flew out to Ayres Rock from Sydney. The flight gave us our first glimpse of Australia’s Red Centre – an expanse of endless flaming red arid plains. One could almost draw an analogy to a red coloured heart that had brown and rust coloured veins streaking across it. It was an amazing sight, to see the desert stretch out for miles and miles below us, and the sheer redness of it was something you cannot believe until you see it. At the Ayres Rock airport we were met by the people from Wayoutback Desert Safaris. Wayoutback is a 4WD adventure tour specialist operating in Central Australia since 1999. It is also the only advanced eco-tourism accredited Tour Company based in Alice Springs and operating in the Red Centre. (This is the highest acknowledgement for environmental understanding, operational practices and cultural representation.)
We loaded our luggage onto the 4WDs and made our way to the Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park. This UN world heritage site comprises of the desert area around Uluru (Ayres Rock) which is probably the world’s most famous rock, and Kata Tjuta (The Olgas) which is a set of 36 domes, west of Uluru. These two sites are an area of spiritual significance to Anangu, the local Aboriginal people whose belief system (Tjukurpa) is closely linked to the landscape. The national park also reflects a system wherein the government has included the indigenous community as part of the land management system.
We were handed out our entry tickets, and browsed through the Cultural Centre to learn about the local Aboriginal law and religion (Tjukurpa, or the creation period). The Anangu speak Pitjantjatjara and Yankunytjatjara. They lived as nomads in the desert for tens of thousands of years ago. According to their Tjukurpa (law and culture), they believe that the world was created by heroic ancestral beings who created paths (Iwara) which today are an important element of Anangu belief and culture, both as means of travel and social connection and as a spiritual link to the past and its stories. As Anangu travel the iwara, they recount ancestral tales in the form of song cycles that take days to sing. The knowledge of tjukurpa is maintained and passed on through oral narratives, song cycles, ceremony and art. None is in written form.
After lunch we were addressed to by one of the park rangers who told us more about the region, the Anangu people, their culture and way of life. She also mentioned how the surge in tourists is affecting the landscape adversely.

From there, the group chose to undertake the full base walk of Uluru – 9.4kms. Rising 1,100 feet (348 m) above the Australian desert, Uluru (Ayres Rock) is easily the world’s most famous rock. However there has been considerable debate on whether or not it is a monolith at all and the world’s largest at that. Inspite of such debates, the fact that Uluru extends further below the ground than above it gives you some food for thought! The sandstone monolith gets its distinctive rust colour because of an outer coating of iron coating. Walking around the base of the rock was more an exercise of constantly gazing up at it, and marveling at the way it’s red colour contrasted against the clear blue sky. There were parts of the rock which spoke of ancient Anangu tales, and there were sacred sites for men and women. There was also a particular cave where we saw rock painting. We finished the walk just in time to see the sun set, and as we drove away from Uluru, the landscape was bathed in hues of red and gold. I’m pretty certain Lawren managed to capture that beauty in his camera, however he is still to upload his photos!

We made a stop at Curtain Springs Cattle station for some delicious dinner – the bread, soup, rice and vegetables were probably the best that the vegetarians had had in days! We also heard the history of the station, how Peter and Dawn Severin arrived there in 1950s, how they survived the initial years of isolation and drought, and how they diversified from the cattle farm to providing petrol, groceries, snacks and even liquor to the ever growing number of travelers frequenting the region. We were also told of how Peter was involved with setting up of most infrastructures in the area, including the chain used to climb Uluru. All in all, it was a very informative talk, given by a family that welcomed us warmly when we were pretty fagged out, and that meant a lot. Additionally this was also where we celebrated Bron’s birthday!

From there we finally drove to our campsite, where somehow we managed to set up the swags. A swag is a waterproof canvas sleeping bag type thing which comes with a foam mattress and you place a pillow, normal/traditional sleeping bag and blanket in it, and then have a snug sleep. And it truly does keep you warm. And yes, the millions of southern stars that gaze down upon you are a sight to behold, as are the shooting stars which just add to the charm of the whole experience! You could go on wishing upon a star all night….
-Soumya

The Canberra Chapter

Before I begin this post, I want to apologise for the lateness of it and the rest to come. We had no internet reception for much of the last week of the tour and were consequently unable to make our posts.

After arriving in Canberra on Saturday we rose early on Sunday morning to venture out to Mulloon Creek Natural Farms (MCNF). The two farms spanning 2300 hectares that form MCNF, are certified ‘A’ grade biodynamic farms. The vision of MCNF is “to be a model of restorative natural agriculture, growing bio-diversity and building environmental capital to be shared for the benefit of future generations”. MCNF achieves this model as it farms cattle, sheep, poultry and a variety of crops using a biodynamic system of agriculture.

Growing up in the country, the view of cattle, sheep and horses roaming paddocks as they graze was a familiar occurrence that I would encounter on a day to day basis. However, never before had I seen hundreds of chooks running free, squawking and flapping and genuinely enjoying themselves as they were farmed for their eggs. To make the picture even more unusual was the sight of two magnificent, Italian, big fluffy white Maremma dogs guarding the chooks. Tony (the owner who showed us around the farm), told us that the dogs are natural guards, who form a protective relationship with the chooks and scare away foxes and other predators. An amazing thing!!! I don’t think I will ever forget the chook farm and hope that it soon becomes a general farming practice. Not only were the chooks happier and healthier but the eggs also had much more omega 3 and other nourishing elements compared to the normal eggs we buy. The chooks also acted as a natural fertilizer of the fields they grazed in.

After checking out the chook farms and a eating a hearty lunch provided by Tony’s wife Toni, we went on a tour of part of the farm that is currently being rehydrated using Peter Andrews’ principles of Natural Sequence Farming. We all enjoyed the guided walk along the creek, which is a focal point of rehydrating the land to the state it was originally in before the past 150 years of extended degradation caused by unsustainable farming practices. The changes Tony, Peter and the MCNF team have made is an achievement that caught all our interest.

After our tour we were lucky enough to hear from Vanessa Morris, a passionate advocate for sustainable architecture. Vanessa is a former ABC radio presenter who was moved to change her lifestyle and profession after viewing Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth. She has had the good fortune to have undertaken Al Gore’s climate change leadership program and has also created her own business to encourage the use of solar energy. We all gained much knowledge from her advice about how we can involve ourselves in different programs and practices to create a more sustainable world.

I want to end this post in acknowledgement of Purvi, our enthusiastic, welcoming, and smiling friend. On our first day in Canberra, a group of us went to putt putt golf and ice skating. Purvi had the great misfortune to break her leg whilst ice skating, an event that devastated us all, as it took her away from us for the rest of the tour. I want to acknowledge what a brave and courageous person Purvi is because I don’t think many other people could have conducted themselves in the valiant way she did as she waited for her injury to be attended to. We have all missed you very much Purvi and hope you have a speedy and comfortable recovery.

Bron.

AIUYF on the radio

Listen to AIUYF participants Anna and Rishu on ABC radio program "Mornings with Deborah Cameron" on Friday 4 July at 10am. To listen go to http://www.abc.net.au/sydney/radio/