Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge #17 – A Visit to Perth, Australia Edition

Our Visit to Perth, Western Australia

This week’s Hump Day Zentangle Challenge #17 is dedicated to the lovely city of Perth in Western Australia. During our world travels, and even on our two prior trips to elsewhere in Australia, we have met very few Australians who have been to Perth, a metropolitan area of over 2,000,000 residents. This could be because Perth comes in at number 3 on the list of the world’s most isolated cities with populations of over 100,000. The closest city of any size is Adelaide, Australia, at a distance of some 2,136 kilometers (1,327 miles).

The Perth, Australia Central Business District viewed through the foliage of the Mediterranean climate Perth enjoys.

We have visited Perth on all 3 of our visits to Australia because, unfortunately, Western Australia has a high incidence of a deadly cancer, mesothelioma. At least 90% of the time, mesothelioma is caused by asbestos exposure. Western Australia was the site of a major asbestos mine. Dr. Excitement has dedicated a significant part of his medical research career to the treatment of mesothelioma. Therefore, he collaborates with Perth-based mesothelioma medical researchers.

A beach in the Perth suburbs with the beautiful blues of the Indian Ocean.

The Perth metropolitan area is located at the juncture of the Swan and Canning Rivers, forming an estuary that empties into the Indian Ocean. In addition to the wide river, there are miles of beautiful soft sand ocean beaches.

King’s Park overlooks the Perth, Australia Central Business District which was built along a wide section of the Swan River.

One of Perth’s jewels is Kings Park, overlooking the Swan River and the Perth Central Business District. Two-thirds of the 400 hectare park has areas dedicated to preserving the natural bushland habitat.

There is also a curated Western Australia Botanic Garden which boasted beautiful spring flowers during our visit. (Remember, Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere so the seasons are reversed from those in the Northern Hemisphere where most Boomeresque followers reside).

Some of the Australian spring flowers in Perth’s Western Australian Botanic Garden in Kings Park.

Our Perth friends are grandparents and showed us a wonderful part of the park, the Rio Tinto Naturescape, dedicated to the education and enjoyment of the wee set. I found myself thinking that our now 30-something sons would have loved the climbing, hiding, and exploring opportunities of the thoughtfully designed space.

And some more spring flowers from Perth’s Western Australian Botanic Gardens in Kings Park just because they’re so pretty.

Kings Park Honour Avenues in Perth, Australia

One sobering and moving aspect of Kings Park is its Honour Avenues. The land battles of World War I (1914-1918) were fought far from Australia, but in those years, Australians considered themselves very much a part of the British Empire. Surprisingly, to me anyway, Australia’s six colonies did not become an independent federated Commonwealth until 1901, and did not sever all vestiges of British governance until 1986. Australia remains a member of the British Commonwealth nations. Indeed, the Australian flag still displays the Union Jack in the corner.

In addition to the Union Jack representing Australia’s historic ties with Great Britain, the Australian flag also contains the Commonwealth Star below the Union Jack, and the stars of the Southern Cross, a constellation of the Southern Hemisphere’s night sky. The stars are have an unusual 7 points. (Image by Ian Fieggen, Wikimedia, Public Domain)

Australia paid a particularly high price in the Great War to End All Wars (that didn’t). The grim statistics are that from an Australian population of under 5 million, 416,809 men enlisted. Sixty-two thousand of those men were killed, and 156,000 were wounded, were exposed to poison gas or became prisoners of war. Most were buried near where they fell and the remains of others were never found.

In 1919, the friends and family of Perth soldiers who made the ultimate sacrifice and never returned to their homeland dedicated 404 trees in Kings Park to their loved ones. Today, close to 1,800 trees along three Honour Avenues in Kings Park are dedicated to Perth servicemen and women who died in service to their country.

But two of some 1,800 plaques and trees dedicated by the loved ones of those who fell in service to Australia. These 2 young men both were killed in action in Bullecourt, France, on the same April day in 1917. One plaque is dedicated by a great-nephew, the other, by a grieving mother. One of Australia’s most famous generals, John Monash, felt that British commanders were needlessly sacrificing Australian troops in “hair-brained ventures, like Bullecourt and Passchendaele …”

In our travels, we have visited World War I battlefields in Flanders (Belgium) and at Gallipoli and Suvla Bay in Turkey.  ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) forces bore the brunt of command mistakes at Gallipoli and Sulva Bay.

If you want to listen to a song by a Scots Australian, Eric Bogle, epitomizing the bravery and tragedy of the Australian experience in World War I, google “And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda” sung by Joan Baez. I’d provide the You Tube link, but I don’t want to run afoul of any copyright laws. (It must be a residual lawyer thing.)

Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge #17 – Australia Inspired (For Me, but Not Necessarily For You)

I suppose it’s not exactly a shocker that my Hump Day Zentangle Challenge this week is inspired by our current visit to Australia. However, I realize that not everyone has been to Australia nor is willing to fly for many, many, many, many hours to get there.  

Although my composition this week references Australian features, this week’s challenge is to produce a composition that in some way references a cultural or historical theme with which you identify or for which you have an affinity. For example, while I am not inclined to tangle the letters PHL given our recent misadventures there, I could have picked the Liberty Bell or a cheesesteak, an overrated  food item for which Philadelphia, my home city, is known. Someone from the Netherlands might choose a wooden shoe shape; while, a Londoner might channel Big Ben.

I was going to try to tangle the six 7 pointed stars on the Australian flag. When that exceeded my skill level didn’t work well for me, I lowered the bar and tangled one seven pointed star, representing the Australian Commonwealth (see above), and two boomerangs.

I also added color to my composition, mostly Sakura metallic Gelly Roll pens, (affiliate link), but also some  Prismacolor Premier pencils (affiliate link) on the Sand Swirl tangle in the lower boomerang. Other than the one 7 pointed star, the others are a tangle I named Spangles, but which might be too objective to be official. The border on the top boomerang is Betweed. The inside of the top boomerang is Petosky Stones by Jane Reiter. (An affiliate link means I might earn a small commission from Amazon if you make a purchase using my affiliate link.)

I look forward to seeing the cultural/location icons you choose for your strings and how you choose to tangle them.

Please Share Your Hump Day Zentangle® Challenge Creations!

Please share your responses to this week’s challenge with us in the Hump Day Challenge Facebook Group and/or on your Instagram, Twitter  or Flickr feeds. Use the hashtag #hdchallenge17. If you’re not a member of the FB group, ask to join and I’ll add you.

There are other ways to share your work: We also have a Pinterest group board to share our Hump Day Challenge responses. Email me at suzanne@boomeresque.com if you’d like me to add you as a contributor to the Pinterest board or you can mention that in a comment with your Pinterest name below.

If you have your own blog and are posting your challenge responses there, leave the URL to your blog in a comment below so people can paste it into their browser and find your post. (PS: The first 2 times you comment, I will have to moderate the comment. After your first two comments on Boomeresque, your comments will appear without moderation.)

Feel free to share your work for this or any challenge at any time—even next week, next month, next year, ad infinitum. Participation in the challenges need not be linear!

Tagged as: australia, hump day zentangle challenge, Kings Park, Perth