Placenames in Australia and New Zealand named after famous people

Flag of Australia

 I wondered about how many places in Australia and New Zealand are named after famous people. My first thought was Victoria after Queen Victoria. My second thought was Melbourne, after her minister, Melbourne.

I did a search with Gemini and was delighted to find a whole lot more, especially Tasmania and Cook.

Australia

States, Territories & Capital

• Victoria: State named after Queen Victoria of Great Britain.

• Queensland: State also named in honor of Queen Victoria.

• Tasmania: State named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, who was the first European to reach the island in 1642 (formerly Van Diemen's Land).

• Brisbane (Queensland): Capital city named after Sir Thomas Brisbane, Governor of New South Wales (1821–1825).

• Sydney (New South Wales): Capital city named in honor of Thomas Townshend, 1st Viscount Sydney, British Home Secretary.

• Melbourne (Victoria): Capital city named after British Prime Minister William Lamb, 2nd Viscount Melbourne.

• Darwin (Northern Territory): Capital city named after naturalist Charles Darwin by his former shipmate Captain John Clements Wickham of HMS Beagle.

• Hobart (Tasmania): Capital city named after Robert Hobart, 4th Earl of Buckinghamshire, British Colonial Secretary.

Major Cities & Regions

• Adelaide (South Australia): Named after Queen Adelaide, wife of King William IV of the United Kingdom.

• Perth (Western Australia): Named by Sir James Stirling after Perth, Scotland, in honor of Sir George Murray, British Secretary of State for War and the Colonies (who was born in Perthshire).

• Townsville (Queensland): Named after founder and sea captain Robert Towns.

• Alice Springs (Northern Territory): Named after Alice Todd, wife of Sir Charles Todd, Superintendent of Telegraphs during the construction of the Australian Overland Telegraph Line.

• Flinders Ranges / Flinders Island: Named after navigator and cartographer Matthew Flinders, who first circumnavigated mainland Australia.

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New Zealand

Major Cities & Regions

• Auckland: Largest city named in honor of George Eden, 1st Earl of Auckland, First Lord of the Admiralty.

• Wellington: Capital city named after Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, hero of the Battle of Waterloo.

• Christchurch: Named after Christ Church college at Oxford University, heavily associated with British politician and founder John Robert Godley.

• Nelson: City named in honor of British naval hero Vice-Admiral Horatio Nelson.

• Picton: Town named after Sir Thomas Picton, a British general who died at the Battle of Waterloo.

• Gisborne: Named after William Gisborne, New Zealand Colonial Secretary (1869–1872).

• Palmerston North: Named after Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, former British Prime Minister.

• Hastings: City named after Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India.

• Napier: City named after Sir Charles Napier, British general in the Anglo-Sikh Wars.

Geographic Features

• Cook Strait & Mount Cook (Aoraki): Named after English explorer Captain James Cook, the first European to circumnavigate and map New Zealand.

• Tasman Glacier / Tasman Sea: Named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman.

• Foveaux Strait: Named after Joseph Foveaux, Lieutenant-Governor of Norfolk Island and administrator of New South Wales.

• How many more do you know? Please contact me through comments. 

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Red Clay Colours to see on holiday - not only London and Singapore, but especially Australia's the stunning red sand gardens

Pictures from Wikimedia Commons. 

Other pictures are in Flickr and Facebook.

 I love colour. Doesn't everybody? Unless they are colour blind.

One of the joys of travel is seeing colours. Here are some of the best, by location and time of years.

My favourite colour is red.

AUSTRALIA - red sand earth

I read about the red sands in Cranburne, near Melbourne. I am British, not Australian, so I had to look up which Australian state Melbourne is in to find it on the internet. Then I remember that Melbourne was a minister of Queen Victoria. So Melbourne is in Victoria state.

UK - red brick

Where else can you see red earth? London has red clay made into red bricks. Hence the redbrick universities of England. They are in regional towns or cities with red bricks. As opposed to the grey stone blocks of illustrious Oxford and Cambridge. So the term redbrick university has come to mean slightly second rate. 

SINGAPORE's red earth

Singapore also has red soil. It enhances the greenery which grows prolifically in the tropics, especially in the rainy springtime afternoons. But the bright pinks and oranges and red of the flowers and flowering trees distract attention away from the earth. I notice the red earth most when it scatters across the path leading down to the railway station, at Cashew MRT.

But Australia's Botanic Gardens have the most carefully cultivated contrast of red soil and green plants shaped into circles to create a pattern which looks stunning when photographed from overhead in the air by a drone.   

Red Sand Gardens, Australia

The Royal Botanic Gardens are in Cranbourne, south of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. 

If you look up Royal Botanical Gardens, you will find that Kew in London, another in Scotland, bear the same name. So does Australia's Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney.

Useful Websites

https://www.rbg.vic.gov.au/cranbourne-gardens/

See picture 71 in

https://za.investing.com/magazine/affordable-consumer-drones-produced-these-incredible-photos/?utm_source=Outbrain&utm_medium=cpm&utm_campaign=003cfa9c7ade48eb5866b8247d77cc5641&utm_content=Drone+Shows+What+Nobody+Should+Have+Seen&utm_term=MailOnline

I have not copied it here because I presume the picture is somebody else's copyright.

Please share links to my posts.

Oddments of the week - the upside down house, disappearing pictures on a sandy beac

 Tassenheide, Germany. Built 2008 in Germany, on the northern coast, as a tourist attraction. 

The town also had a giant red sneaker.

Sneaker Attribution: Löwe 48

USA

WonderWorks, Orlando, Florida, USA

Huashan Upside down house. From Wikimedia Commons. Author 吉爾

Upside down house

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trassenheide

dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-10519213/Pictured-Casa-Loca-upside-house-thats-drawing-tourists-Colombia

Sand art, Torquay, Melbourne, Australia, by artist Edward.

.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10529425/Banksy-like-artist-Edward-creates-regenerative-art-Victorian-beaches

Frank Talk About Learning Esperanto If You Need Another Language

Problem
You want to meet and speak to new people. English is rapidly becoming the international language, the go-between language.

However, England presents two problems. It is hard to learn. You can have misunderstandings.

Latin is a great basis. Handy for learning the names of plants, and medical terms, but nobody speaks it.

Esperanto was invented as the miracle go-between language in a city where people spoke different languages, seen as a way of putting both speakers on equal footing, neither person being superior to the other.

Unfortunately few people spoke it.

With global communication, you can now have pen-pals worldwide. With meet-up comes another opportunity. A chance to meet others who speak Esperanto - staying in your own city. You can set up your own Esperanto group on Meetup.

I just saw an invitation to a meet-up in Reading, England, a university town, west of London, on the train line or drive from London. Then I found more, in London, England, and Melbourne, Australia. Others are in Washington DC and the USA. You can set up your own group in your own city or neighbourhood.

I tried to learn Esperanto years ago. It seemed such a good idea. So much easier than learning another language.

But I had nobody to speak to and eventually lost interest.

If you are in Reading, you have an Esperanto group to join. I gave a talk on Esperanto to a Toastmasters club (HOD) in London, and was immediately approached by two members of the audience who were keen to know more.

It's another skill and novelty to add to your c.v.

It works for you if you cannot learn languages or are short of time. Something you can do on the train.

But you need to have a goal in mind, such as a regular meeting, learn an exchange with somebody in another country or city, going to an Esperanto conference, offering to teach it to others, introducing it as a teacher to a primary school.

Teachers have toyed with the idea of simplified spelling for teaching English. (We already have that - it's American English, promoted by Webster in his Dictionary and schoolbooks - and what a success story that was.

To me the next logical step is teaching Esperanto in primary schools.

Are you looking for something to do when alone on the train - learn Esperanto. Want to meet people at the weekend start an Esperanto club.

Esperanto Museum Vienna Austria
If you are interested in the idea, whether or not you want to learn, if you are visiting Austria, you can get museum entry as part of a city museum tour pass.

Useful Websites

esperanto
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto
https://www.viennapass.com/vienna-attractions/globe-esperanto-museum
https://www.duolingo.com/course/eo/en/Learn-Esperanto-Online
https://www.meetup.com/Reading-Esperanto-Meetup/
https://www.meetup.com/Melbourne-Esperanto-Meetups/

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker.

Holocaust Love Story At Auschwitz - to read Before and After Visiting Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia or Melbourne - Background Reading on Auschwitz

Problem
In Poland you inevitably learn about the Holocaust. You will hear about the holocaust from a guide on even a standard city tour as you pass a museum or site, or the guide us asked by fellow tourists about the other tours. A trip to either the capital of Poland, Warsaw, or the pretty, small, historic city of Krokov, where the Nazis quickly invaded from nearby Germany and set up their capital in the small city which they preserved, whilst bringing in Jews from all over Europe, just across the border to Auschwitz.

A recently published book tells the love story of the Jewish tattooist of Auschwitz, "Lale" Sokolov (1916-2006), who fell in love with a girl called Gita from his home country, Czechoslovakia, now the Czech Republic. They both survived the camp - he sent food to her.

After the war, he searched for her. They found each other, married, and emigrated as far away as possible. They lived the rest of their lives peacefully in Melbourne, Australia.

Sokolov was the surname which Lale adopted when he lived in the Czech Republic, under Russian rule. His birth name had been Ludwig Eisenberg. He was forever the survivalist, inconspicuous.

Everybody will share the understanding of the love story and man's feeling of guilt and fear about the controversy over a potential accusation of collaboration.

In addition, what stands out for me, as I am a keen polyglot, is the vital life-saving factor, the tip, that he survived because he spoke so many languages.

He spoke many languages, like the late relative by marriage of mine who also came from the Czech area. The tattooist was a clever man, but also living in the Czech area surrounded by several other countries. He had to speak other languages to be understood by foreign visitors. Also he had the outgoing personality which impelled him to learn languages, as well as the native wit which allowed him to learn languages. If he had not spoken all those languages, he would not have been chosen to do that job, as a tattooist which saved his life in two ways. It kept him off the lists of those who would be gassed. He was given extra food.

The newspaper account also includes one sentence which makes no sense: 'he died before learning that his parents had died". He could not learn after he died. Do they mean 'without learning' or 'before he could learn', I presume so.

I see that the writer of the article has a European name, Ritu Prasad. Maybe the bilingual translator confuses before and after, gets the time sequence wrong, meaning, 'after learning' or 'just after learning' which implies that the shock of the news hastened his death.

My last thought is that the writer means 'before we/they i.e. the researchers learned'? Such errors and ambiguities are increasingly frequent nowadays.  You don't have to be foreign to confuse a clause, attach a description of the subject as an afterthought, after the object of the sentence. In this case, two whole sentences are linked.

What's wrong with the sentence structure? Lack of a sub-editor? Cost-cutting? Carelessness? Race to publish first?

Grammatically, a case of a missing subject, attaching a sub-clause which appears to belong to the subject of the sentence, he, instead of the missing subject of the attached second sentence 'we learned instead of learning).  If you have to read a sentence twice it's badly written.

However, you may be interested in both the BBC article and the book:

Helpful Websites:
http://www.bbc.com/news/stories-42568390#_=_

Author
Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, teacher of English and other languages.

Australia, London, Melbourne, Melbourne Cemetery, Healesville - what's the connection?

I was looking at this wine bottle label and trying to trace the location and names of the places mentioned, Healesville in Victoria, in Australia? This moscato is sparkling and different muscat grapes vary. Let's nor worry about that now - it's enough of a challenge for us in the UK to work out where to find Victoria. After a brief diversion into what I've just been told about Rutherglen Muscat, which I'm typing up because I want to remember it, I shall tell you what I've found about Melbourne, Healesville and the snooker gravestone.

Northern Victoria is also known Rutherglen Muscat, a sweet wine. 

(You may know Rutherglen muscat. I am informed by my local UK expert, that the local clone is Brown muscat making red not white musket. Some wines are made in a solar system like sherry blending vintages and flavours to get a consistent flavour over the years. A third local characteristic is raiseined grapes in an area with lots of heat and not so uch water.

I've been to Australia, to Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, but Healesville?

Let's start with what I know, Victoria in London is named after Queen Victoria and Victoria in Australia must have been founded and named after her in her era.

Australia, Captain Flinders, His Map and That Cat

The name Australia is related to the English man, Captain Matthew Flinders, who mapped Australia and gave Australia its name. His statue was placed on Euston station in London this year (2014). See pictures of Flinders and his cat statue in my earlier post by doing a search for the word Euston.

Melbourne

Melbourne was named after Queen Victoria's minister, Melbourne, who was living in London and having an affair with a lady, immortalised in the line, 'would you like to sin on a tiger skin with Eleanor Glyn?'

Healesville

Healesville is an area north east of Melbourne, Australia. Healesville is named after one of its first VIPs. Ironically he was a teetotaller campaigning for temperance. I wonder if the vineyard realises that their address immortalises and recalls him?

What became of him? He was buried in Melbourne Cemetery. So were other VIP founders of Australia, or early members of the government.  But the most amusing gravestone in the cemetery is that of the snooker player below. 

Walter Lindrum, Australian Billiards Player

The grave is of Walter Lindrum in Melbourne General Cemetery. (I found the photo in Wikipedia when I researched Healesville.)

Enjoy contemplating this whilst drinking your Moscato, from Healesville, Australia. (The UK importers are mentioned in the previous post on this blog.)

Walter Lindrum OBE, Australian billiards player

Dessert Delights & Free Cookie Cutters For Your Xmas Tree Cake Top

Delicious desserts at the ADELPHI HOTEL - a tiny paragraph in the Daily Telegraph newspaper alerted me to this hotel in Melbourne, a city I visited some time ago. I remember it's long restaurant street with lots of Italian style restaurants and touts outside every door tempting you with offers of a free drink, free dessert, two for the price of one, ten per cent off. Now something even more tempting. A dessert bar.

In a hotel with a dessert theme. Bar stools like liquorice. Candy patterns on the carpet. Toffee apples on check-in.

Popcorn in bedrooms. A macaroon at turn-down time.

The hotel is a local landmark with a glass bottom swimming pool jutting out over the street.

I tracked down the hotel website on Tripadvisor and saw the photos by visitors. Finding the hotel's own website was surprisingly challenging, as I kept trawling down websites which wanted to book me a table.

Finally I found the hotel:

adelphi.com.aus

Then I found the restaurant with the menu and pictures of the desserts.
http://omnom.kitchen

One of the offerings is a variation on the French religieuse, or nun. A kind of snowman, or rather snow woman, made of profiteroles with a ruff of cream, which I had seen at a restaurant show in London. (Mentioned in an earlier post by me.)

Unfortunately I am unlikely to get to Melbourne in the near future, not for Xmas. But what can one do at home?

If you want inspiration for making your own desserts, sandwiches or a child's lunchbox, check out Grace Hall's creations.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/food/article-2610244/Packed-lunches-look-good-eat-Creative-mother-turns-picky-sons-lunchboxes-works-art.html

For special occasion birthdays, I like the cakes in Jan Asher's book.

Christmas/Hanukah cookie cutters
Getting ready for Christmas, I just bought two copies of Essentials magazine number Xmas issue from a Tesco Express in order to get the metal cookie cutters.
One set consists of a Christmas tree, six pointed wiggly edge star, and bell. The other set has a five pointed straight sided star, an angel (I thought it was a gingerbread man until I looked closer) and a J shape candy cane.

A six point star was on a mince tart at the end of the set meal at the Civil Service Club Xmas dinner.

The Xmas cutter will do for cutting biscuits or sandwiches. I plan to use if for icing shapes to stand up or lie flat on a fruit cake with a white icing top.

More Cutters From Morrisons
For only £1 in Morrisons you can get three large cookie cutters with a seasonal them in red plastic. The designs I was for three: Xmas tree, star, and another.


Chocolate Moulds
If you want to make something more elaborate, you can buy chocolate moulds for hearts and other shapes from China online from Ebay or in the UK from Lakeland (online and various branches including one in Watford. Lakeland has sets of mould for making your own chocolates and a larger mould for a train.

Back to where we started: The desert restaurant in the dessert hotel:

Adelphi Hotel

187 Flinders Lane 

Melbourne 

Victoria 

VIC 3000

Australia
Ph: (+61) 3 8080 8827
omnom@adelphi.com.au

Lakeland has 68 stores in the UK with a kinds of gifts and gadgets for the kitchen and home.

www.lakeland.co.uk/StoreLocator‎