RIMarshallsDownunder

Greetings from Australia! This is an occasional journal of Bob and Linda Marshall during a 6-week journey to Australia and New Zealand. The journey includes several
phases, starting with a visit with some Australian relatives in Sydney during
our first few days; a 3-week stay in Wollongong during which I (Bob) will
become a visiting Professor of Social Marketing at the University of Wollongong
Center for Health Initiatives; several side trips to various places; a visit
with a cousin and other family in Melbourne, with some additional sides trips
in the Victoria and Adelaide areas; then finishing off with a self-drive tour around
the Southern Island of New Zealand. It promises to be (and in many ways already has been) a wonderful experience.

Well….enough of the preliminaries. Let’s get to it. We already spent four days exploring
some interesting and beautiful places; so there is already a lot to catch up on.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012:

The hardest part is getting here—although everyone did their best to make it tolerable.
It involved a 6 ½ hour flight from Boston 28 February 2012) to LA; then a 15-hour flight to Australia. The weather was a little rough in Sydney; so we landed in Brisbane to refuel then
continued on to Sydney arriving about noon on Thursday, 1 March 2012. Where did two days go over the course of this trip; something to do with the international dateline, I suppose!

Thursday, March 1, 2012:

We stayed in the Marriott Circle Quay at the edge of the main harbor downtown. It
provided easy access to many of the major attractions: the Sydney Bridge ( where
people walk across on top of the arching cables); the Opera House; the “Rocks”
(a renovated historic seaport section with restaurants, hotels and other sights). The weather provided frequent showers and muggy atmosphere so we spread our time between outdoor walks and indoor exhibits.

The Australian National Museum provided a wonderful display of contemporary and historic exhibits. One portrayed the “Cannery Road”, a trail carved through part of the western
outback, bringing livestock and other supplies to the population centers and
shipping routes—much like the cattle drive routes of the old west in the US. It described the impact of the trail on indigenous populations—especially the incorporation of the scarce and sacred water wells along the way. The indigenous art displayed the rich art of the inhabitants and various sacred and cultural artifacts.

One real treat involved the visits with our “cousins” Helen and Judy (and her 13-year
old daughter, Christine) who live in a nearby suburb. My great grandfather had four siblings who
moved to Australia; these “cousins” represent one group who live in the Sydney area. We visited with them in the Darling Harbor section of downtown Sydney and shared lunch—overlooking the National Maritime Museum and other nautical attractions.

On Saturday, 3 March 2012, the hired car came to pick us up and take us to Wollongong—about 1
½ hours south. The driver was local; so she filled us in on many of the sights and features of the area. She drove us along one section of the road called “Cliff Drive” a newly-built section of modern highway hugging the cliffs over the eastern shore to replace the previous, old road brought down by landslides and torrents of rain. The ride was pretty foggy, but we could see both the shoreline beneath us and the mountain range looming in the nearby forests. She dropped
us off at an apartment complex only a few meters from the Wollongong City Beach and near to the WIN athletic (rugby, I think) stadium. The city center is only blocks inland; so we have access to both features of the community. Not to downplay the nearby location of the Irrawarra Brewery…where we had dinner recently and a couple of local craft beers. The town has
a supermarket and a Woolworth’s (more of a Sam’s Club combination of food and
retail merchandise) store. We walked through the town center..a sort of pedestrian mall lined with stores, restaurants and other various retail and service establishments. We quickly learned about the Wollongong Shuttle….a free bus making circular tours through most of the significant areas including the university, harbor area and the hospitals. The shuttle runs both directions in a circular route; making it easy (and cheap) get most anywhere.

Monday, March 5, 2012

My first day at the Center for Health Initiatives at the University of Wollongong. Linda and I
hopped on the shuttle and easily found the new “Innovations” campus—laid out like a small group of modern buildings on an open “office park” setting. Here I met Dr. Sandra Jones, Director of the Center for Health Innovations and my key sponsor and colleagues during the 3-week exchange. By the way, the -main university campus, in contrast, is laid-out like buildings strewn throughout a “jungle” setting and connected by a series of paths and ponds. No “college green” or “quad” here, but an impressive collection of buildings set into the trees, vines and massive shrubs. Linda and I bought a “mobile” (aka cell phone) at the college postal store so we could stay in touch over the next several weeks.

Tuesday, March 6, 2012:

Today I returned to the Innovations Campus to set up my temporary office, arrange for a computer account in the university system and meet with a few people about mobile
communications technologies and health-related behavior change. That is a continuously developing topic; so I will pick up on it later. Tomorrow I am scheduled to meet with some graduate and post-doc students; then give a presentation to a community and local health agency group at a community meeting hall. I am presenting some examples of programs where we used a social marketing approach to behavior change in Rhode Island. More about that later…..