Port guide: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

West Australian

15 hours ago

West Australian

Shadows falling across the land

From the air, on our recent direct charter flight from Perth to Uluru, I am reliving journeys remembered on the land below. We break free of the sprawling boxes that are the Perth suburbs, follow Great Eastern Highway for a while, and then track north, over the salt lake systems around Bullfinch, near Southern Cross. And in a land journey not so long ago and not so far from here, I watched peregrine falcon chicks, sitting in a row in a cave in Baladjie Rock, as the mother came in and out to feed them. We fly on north of Kalgoorlie and just south of Lake Ballard, where British sculptor Antony Gormley installed the shimmering human figures of his sculpture Inside Australia. From the significant hump of Snake Hill, there are foot tracks between them, as visitors walk the salt lake and feel the space. My wife, sculptor Virginia Ward, is a friend of Antony's and worked with him in London, and at one stage there were maps spread out on our dining table as he looked for a suitable site. I have a personal, family-like connection to Lake Ballard. This is a good time to visit them, in winter. The captain has already told us the direct flight time is just one hour, 45 minutes, as we have a jet stream behind us. Uluru is so much closer to Perth than Broome is (which I still find amazing). The less-than-two-hours flight is in contrast to the road trips I've driven below. We are flying pretty much over Laverton, which is the start of the Great Central Road for me. First day, drive from Perth to Menzies or Kookynie; second day through Laverton and onto the GCR, to be camping the second night. The Central Land Council transit permit to travel the Great Central Road is for three days. I may be one of few people who have an 'I Love Laverton' sticker — but it's there on the back bumper of my old LandCruiser. From Laverton, the plane tracks pretty much along the Great Central Road. Tjukayirla Roadhouse, Warburton, Warakurna Roadhouse, Docker River and, before we know it, Uluru. It is largely due to the establishment of Warburton as a missionary settlement in 1933, as an outstation of the Mt Margaret Mission near Laverton, that the road is here. For a long time it was just a dusty bush supply track between Warburton and Laverton, but by the mid-1950s, it had become a pretty respectable, graded outback track. Things stepped up in 1958 when explorer-surveyor Len Beadell was sent to build a new road from Giles to Warburton as part of the Woomera rocket range project. The British government had created the Woomera Rocket Range in South Australia to test fire rockets across the remote spaces of WA, and access points to places like Giles were needed. I think the three-day drive between Laverton and Uluru is one of the easiest remote journeys for West Australians. Great Central Road is a big gravel but all-weather road. There is fuel, water, help and some sort of accommodation at intervals of about 300km. The road is being sealed but in 'parcels', with the stretches that are most expensive and difficult to maintain being done first. (So they aren't just starting one end and doing it bit by bit.) Forty kilometres east of Laverton was sealed in 2021 and the plan is to seal more near Cosmo Newbery in 2025. The 40km near Laverton was completed under an 'alliance contract' between WA Main Roads, CareyMC and Central Earthmoving Company, which together was called the Wongutha Way Alliance. 'Wongutha' means the broad group of local Aboriginal people that reside in the area, as the objective of the project was to maximise Aboriginal employment and business opportunities to help benefit local communities. Road design is in progress for the last 100km section between Warakurna and the border. Survey, design, environmental, geotechnical and heritage surveys are under way. The program is currently being reviewed to ensure completion of sealing by 2032. There are budgerigars in green-and-yellow flocks down there. One of the world's most popular pets, budgies are endemic to these deserts, but only in these natural colours. The big, dominant males always remind me of lions, with their big, proud, patterned heads. These vibrant parakeets are very social, flying in nomadic flocks, chattering away. They are superbly adapted for the arid and semi-arid regions of Australia, following rainfall and spinifex seed-setting. Budgerigar were first scientifically described by English botanist and zoologist George Shaw in 1805, and given its binomial name by ornithologist John Gould in 1840. In England, Gould had progressed from skilled taxidermist, handling species brought back by others, to renowned ornithologist. In 1837, after his second voyage on the ship HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin took his bird specimens to Gould for identification. Gould came to Australia himself in 1838, to study the birds here. The result of the trip were the seven groundbreaking volumes of his epic work The Birds Of Australia (1840-48). And just a fun fact, they have zygodactyl feet — two toes facing forward and two backwards, which helps them to balance, perch and waddle round the bloodwood trees. There are zebra finches meep-meeping in and out of bushes and gathering in flitty crowds round the edge of any water they find. The Great Victoria Desert is covered in spinifex — Australia's most prevalent grass. It is beautiful. This is largely ungrazed, unfenced land, and that is a rarity. We have flown over the Great Victoria Desert and Lake Throssell, named for George Throssell, the 13th premier of Western Australia, just as the desert itself was named by legendary explorer Ernest Giles in 1875 to honour Queen Victoria, the reigning monarch. We're heading well south of Great Central Road now, for the border. I'm following it all on with my phone in flight mode, as it uses GPS. We leave WA almost exactly over Surveyor Generals Corner, where our State joins South Australia and the NT. It was named to commemorate the three surveyor-generals who stood here on June 4, 1968, to inaugurate the monument which marks the junction of the three jurisdictions' boundaries. (They were Harold Camm from WA, H.A. Bailey from South Australia and P.J. Wells from the NT.) And then we are descending. Already. But my mind has already been down there, boots in the red dust. The first 800km from Perth to Kalgoorlie is on bitumen highways, then it's another 240km to Laverton on bitumen. Long sections of the Great Central Road are unsealed, corrugated and dusty, but well maintained. There is fuel every 250-300km on the Great Central Road — at Laverton, Cosmo Newbery, Tjukayirla Roadhouse, Warburton, Warakurna Roadhouse and Docker River. Distances east from Laverton are: Cosmo Newbery, 85km; Tjukayirla Roadhouse, 300km; Warburton, 560km; Warakurna Roadhouse, 786km; Docker River, 890km. Camping's easy and there's accommodation along the way. From the WA border to Uluru is about 240km. A permit is needed for three days on the Great Central Road. For the WA stretch, start at and click on 'Apply for a permit to access/travel through Aboriginal land'.

Inside Jeff Bezos' ‘wedding of the century' in Venice

Sydney Morning Herald

a day ago

Sydney Morning Herald

Inside Jeff Bezos' ‘wedding of the century' in Venice

And there will be another seven vessels of various kinds to provide transport for guests, who are expected to include the British actor Orlando Bloom and his long-time fiancee Katy Perry, Mick Jagger, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Oprah Winfrey, Eva Longoria and Leonardo DiCaprio. Bezos' fellow tech titans Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are also expected at the multimillion-dollar shindig. As befits a man worth $US230 billion ($355 billion), Bezos has booked the most luxurious suites in Venice's finest hotels for his guests. They include the Aman, a five-star hotel on the banks of the Grand Canal that boasts private gardens and Rococo works of art, as well as the equally swanky Gritti Palace, the Danieli, the Marriott and the St Regis – where Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner will reportedly stay. Her father, Donald Trump, may even reportedly make an appearance at the wedding. A short distance away from the Grand Canal is the Belmond Cipriani on the island of Giudecca, which is expected to host Lady Gaga, who is rumoured to perform for the newlyweds. Loading Wedding celebrations and cocktail receptions will reportedly be held in Palazzo Pisani Moretta, a historic building in the heart of Venice, as well as the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a Renaissance building, and the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido, the slender island that separates the Venetian lagoon from the Adriatic. The wedding is likely to cost around $25 million, according to one detailed breakdown. The sum includes up to $1.5 million for flowers and the decoration of the various venues, up to $4.5 million for wedding planners, $3 million for the hire of the venues, $1.5 million for the catering and $2.3 million for the bride's dresses. There will also be mooring fees for Bezos' superyachts and the cost of providing lavish gifts for the guests. Luxury hotel suites will make up around $3 million of the overall cost, according to Manuela Pivato, the founder of an online publication called MyFairVenice. She told D Donna, an Italian women's magazine: 'A suite at the Hotel Cipriani costs about €14,000 [$24,768] a night and the hotel recently restored 13 of its top suites.' Hair and make-up, not just for the bride but for her guests, will also cost a bomb. Loading Pivato added: 'For George Clooney's wedding, 50 hairdressers came from Rome. We can estimate a cost of around €500,000 [$890,000].' The two possible wedding venues – the Fondazione Cini on the island of San Giorgio and the Scuola Grande della Misericordia in Venice itself – are both large, meaning that they will need a wealth of flower arrangements and other decorations. Pivato said the overall bill for three different locations could easily reach $1.5 million. Between 35 and 50 sleek wooden water taxis have been hired out for the event. Mario Gasparini, a water taxi operator, told La Repubblica newspaper: 'The exact routes are being kept a secret. We will only discover who our passengers are and where we are taking them the day before the wedding service.' The lavish affair is expected to bring revenue to the city, with water taxi operators earning about $26,000 each over five days. Gasparini says the event should be embraced, adding: 'Most Venetians are not protesting – it is just the usual 150 communist extremists who are opposed to everything.' The wedding ceremony itself may be held in a complex of historic buildings known as the Fondazione Cini on the island of San Giorgio, opposite St Mark's Square. Fireworks will light up the sky as the couple say their vows and exchange rings. Last week, activists climbed to the top of the bell tower on the island, let off coloured smoke bombs and unfurled a giant banner with a large red cross scrawled across the word 'Bezos'. They hung a similar banner from the Rialto Bridge. The protesters were from an umbrella group called No Space for Bezos, a slogan that plays on the billionaire's ownership of Blue Origin, the space rocket venture. In a statement, campaigners said: 'Venice is not for sale, it is not for rent, it should not be the backdrop for the wedding of one of the world's richest men. 'As Venetians, we are ready to defend the dignity of our city. Those who expect Venice to be docile and subservient, happy to gather the crumbs that fall from the king's table, will be disappointed. What we did today is just a taste of what is to come.' The protesters have threatened to hurl themselves into canals to impede the arrival of Mr Bezos and his bride-to-be at their wedding ceremony. Tommaso Cacciari, an activist from No Space for Bezos, said: 'To block their arrival peacefully, we will jump into the canals that surround the venue, and we will also block the alleyways that lead to it. 'Bezos is not just any VIP – he is a multibillionaire who supports the world view of Trump.' Loading He added that by choosing the World Heritage city as his wedding venue, the Amazon founder was 'confusing Venice with Las Vegas'. While the activists have commanded plenty of attention, they have been sharply criticised by other Venetians, who say the city should be honoured to host such a high-profile wedding. Simone Venturini, Venice's councillor in charge of tourism, said: 'I struggle to understand how a private event like this, which won't cause any kind of stress to the city, can be considered detrimental. 'Each year Venice hosts hundreds of events, of every type. Is it Venice's fault that it is the most beautiful city in the world? We should all be proud that the wedding of Jeff Bezos will be held in our lagoon.' He said the protests and banners had been organised by 'the usual' Left-wing activists who have campaigned in the past against giant cruise ships, mass tourism and the entrance fee for day trippers which was imposed last year. He also asked whether the spray canisters that the activists had used to create their banners 'were bought on Amazon'. The governor of Veneto, the region that includes Venice, also criticised the protests. Luca Zaia said that the banners strung from the bell tower on San Giorgio island and the Rialto Bridge sent an 'unacceptable' message to the world. Zaia told Corriere della Sera newspaper: 'The history of La Serenissima is cosmopolitan, a story of openness. We have warehouses that were built by Germans, by Turks, we have the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world. Our cuisine is influenced by spices that came from other parts of the world. Our history has never been about forbidding entry to anyone.' Loading The governor, a heavyweight in the conservative League party, said only around 200 guests have been invited to the wedding – a number that Venice can easily handle given that, during the busiest periods of the year, 150,000 tourists descend on the place each day. He added: 'What message are we sending? That Venice is not a welcoming city? That we are going to start squirting tourists with water pistols? Tourism is Venice's main business, it's worth €18 billion a year and we all benefit from it, even people who don't work in the sector.' The Bezos wedding will pump between $35 million and $50 million into Venice's economy, Zaia said. He conceded that there was a need for tourist numbers to be better managed as tourist hordes overwhelm an ever-dwindling population of residents. The city's population has dropped from 175,000 in 1950 to around 48,000. The governor said Venice had managed to host celebrity weddings in the past without much disruption, including that of George Clooney and British-Lebanese human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014. Unlike the impending Bezos wedding, the Clooney nuptials attracted barely a whiff of dissent among Venetians.

The Age

a day ago

The Age

Inside Jeff Bezos' ‘wedding of the century' in Venice

And there will be another seven vessels of various kinds to provide transport for guests, who are expected to include the British actor Orlando Bloom and his long-time fiancee Katy Perry, Mick Jagger, Kim Kardashian, Kris Jenner, Oprah Winfrey, Eva Longoria and Leonardo DiCaprio. Bezos' fellow tech titans Bill Gates, Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are also expected at the multimillion-dollar shindig. As befits a man worth $US230 billion ($355 billion), Bezos has booked the most luxurious suites in Venice's finest hotels for his guests. They include the Aman, a five-star hotel on the banks of the Grand Canal that boasts private gardens and Rococo works of art, as well as the equally swanky Gritti Palace, the Danieli, the Marriott and the St Regis – where Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner will reportedly stay. Her father, Donald Trump, may even reportedly make an appearance at the wedding. A short distance away from the Grand Canal is the Belmond Cipriani on the island of Giudecca, which is expected to host Lady Gaga, who is rumoured to perform for the newlyweds. Loading Wedding celebrations and cocktail receptions will reportedly be held in Palazzo Pisani Moretta, a historic building in the heart of Venice, as well as the Scuola Grande della Misericordia, a Renaissance building, and the Hotel Excelsior on the Lido, the slender island that separates the Venetian lagoon from the Adriatic. The wedding is likely to cost around $25 million, according to one detailed breakdown. The sum includes up to $1.5 million for flowers and the decoration of the various venues, up to $4.5 million for wedding planners, $3 million for the hire of the venues, $1.5 million for the catering and $2.3 million for the bride's dresses. There will also be mooring fees for Bezos' superyachts and the cost of providing lavish gifts for the guests. Luxury hotel suites will make up around $3 million of the overall cost, according to Manuela Pivato, the founder of an online publication called MyFairVenice. She told D Donna, an Italian women's magazine: 'A suite at the Hotel Cipriani costs about €14,000 [$24,768] a night and the hotel recently restored 13 of its top suites.' Hair and make-up, not just for the bride but for her guests, will also cost a bomb. Loading Pivato added: 'For George Clooney's wedding, 50 hairdressers came from Rome. We can estimate a cost of around €500,000 [$890,000].' The two possible wedding venues – the Fondazione Cini on the island of San Giorgio and the Scuola Grande della Misericordia in Venice itself – are both large, meaning that they will need a wealth of flower arrangements and other decorations. Pivato said the overall bill for three different locations could easily reach $1.5 million. Between 35 and 50 sleek wooden water taxis have been hired out for the event. Mario Gasparini, a water taxi operator, told La Repubblica newspaper: 'The exact routes are being kept a secret. We will only discover who our passengers are and where we are taking them the day before the wedding service.' The lavish affair is expected to bring revenue to the city, with water taxi operators earning about $26,000 each over five days. Gasparini says the event should be embraced, adding: 'Most Venetians are not protesting – it is just the usual 150 communist extremists who are opposed to everything.' The wedding ceremony itself may be held in a complex of historic buildings known as the Fondazione Cini on the island of San Giorgio, opposite St Mark's Square. Fireworks will light up the sky as the couple say their vows and exchange rings. Last week, activists climbed to the top of the bell tower on the island, let off coloured smoke bombs and unfurled a giant banner with a large red cross scrawled across the word 'Bezos'. They hung a similar banner from the Rialto Bridge. The protesters were from an umbrella group called No Space for Bezos, a slogan that plays on the billionaire's ownership of Blue Origin, the space rocket venture. In a statement, campaigners said: 'Venice is not for sale, it is not for rent, it should not be the backdrop for the wedding of one of the world's richest men. 'As Venetians, we are ready to defend the dignity of our city. Those who expect Venice to be docile and subservient, happy to gather the crumbs that fall from the king's table, will be disappointed. What we did today is just a taste of what is to come.' The protesters have threatened to hurl themselves into canals to impede the arrival of Mr Bezos and his bride-to-be at their wedding ceremony. Tommaso Cacciari, an activist from No Space for Bezos, said: 'To block their arrival peacefully, we will jump into the canals that surround the venue, and we will also block the alleyways that lead to it. 'Bezos is not just any VIP – he is a multibillionaire who supports the world view of Trump.' Loading He added that by choosing the World Heritage city as his wedding venue, the Amazon founder was 'confusing Venice with Las Vegas'. While the activists have commanded plenty of attention, they have been sharply criticised by other Venetians, who say the city should be honoured to host such a high-profile wedding. Simone Venturini, Venice's councillor in charge of tourism, said: 'I struggle to understand how a private event like this, which won't cause any kind of stress to the city, can be considered detrimental. 'Each year Venice hosts hundreds of events, of every type. Is it Venice's fault that it is the most beautiful city in the world? We should all be proud that the wedding of Jeff Bezos will be held in our lagoon.' He said the protests and banners had been organised by 'the usual' Left-wing activists who have campaigned in the past against giant cruise ships, mass tourism and the entrance fee for day trippers which was imposed last year. He also asked whether the spray canisters that the activists had used to create their banners 'were bought on Amazon'. The governor of Veneto, the region that includes Venice, also criticised the protests. Luca Zaia said that the banners strung from the bell tower on San Giorgio island and the Rialto Bridge sent an 'unacceptable' message to the world. Zaia told Corriere della Sera newspaper: 'The history of La Serenissima is cosmopolitan, a story of openness. We have warehouses that were built by Germans, by Turks, we have the oldest Jewish ghetto in the world. Our cuisine is influenced by spices that came from other parts of the world. Our history has never been about forbidding entry to anyone.' Loading The governor, a heavyweight in the conservative League party, said only around 200 guests have been invited to the wedding – a number that Venice can easily handle given that, during the busiest periods of the year, 150,000 tourists descend on the place each day. He added: 'What message are we sending? That Venice is not a welcoming city? That we are going to start squirting tourists with water pistols? Tourism is Venice's main business, it's worth €18 billion a year and we all benefit from it, even people who don't work in the sector.' The Bezos wedding will pump between $35 million and $50 million into Venice's economy, Zaia said. He conceded that there was a need for tourist numbers to be better managed as tourist hordes overwhelm an ever-dwindling population of residents. The city's population has dropped from 175,000 in 1950 to around 48,000. The governor said Venice had managed to host celebrity weddings in the past without much disruption, including that of George Clooney and British-Lebanese human rights lawyer Amal Alamuddin in 2014. Unlike the impending Bezos wedding, the Clooney nuptials attracted barely a whiff of dissent among Venetians.

Port guide: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

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Shadows falling across the land

Inside Jeff Bezos' ‘wedding of the century' in Venice

Inside Jeff Bezos' ‘wedding of the century' in Venice

Port guide: Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK

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Try Our AI Features

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Shadows falling across the land

Inside Jeff Bezos' ‘wedding of the century' in Venice

Inside Jeff Bezos' ‘wedding of the century' in Venice

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