I'm lucky enough to have some quests to complete, or achievements to unlock, during my month in Australia.
1. Find the resting place of my Uncle David.
My Mum and her family moved to Australia for a few years when she was nine. They moved around a lot, and eventually came back to the UK. Her older brother returned to Melbourne when he was 17, and died there (very suddenly I think) at the age of 28, of a brain tumour. He only visited the UK once while he lived in Oz, and though he stayed in touch with his family, information about his life is sketchy. Until recently I thought I was going to have to trawl through various records to find out where he might be buried, and I'm not even sure what year he died in, let alone where he lived. I talked to my Grandma the other day though, and she knew more than we thought - that he was cremated, and scattered in the "Herb Garden, South Yarra" and that he has a headstone there. I'm not sure how accurate this is; the Web isn't being very forthcoming with useful information right now, but it's more to go on than I had before.
2. Forge ties between Edinburgh and Melbourne Open Knowledge Foundations.
Since there's an OKFN Hack days after I arrive in Melbourne, and not even far from where I'm staying, I've registered to take part. Should be fun.
And some less questy, more general things...
Check out some of the places my Mum and her family lived.
I have a pretty long list of addresses across Victoria and South Australia, to see which still exist and what they're like.
Maybe attempt to bump into relatives or family friends.
This will be tricky though, as my UK family don't seem to know where anyone on the upside down side of the world is any more, how to contact them, or whether they'd be interested in meeting. The ones we do know are in Perth, which I'm not going to be able to get to. There are quite a lot of them around in Australia and New Zealand though, so hopefully more data will emerge.
See Ayres Rock.
Duh.
See the main cities on the east coast, like Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra.
Expensive and time-consuming, but doable. I also want to go to Tasmania.
And things that need doing that aren't to do with being in Australia:
1. Find the resting place of my Uncle David.
My Mum and her family moved to Australia for a few years when she was nine. They moved around a lot, and eventually came back to the UK. Her older brother returned to Melbourne when he was 17, and died there (very suddenly I think) at the age of 28, of a brain tumour. He only visited the UK once while he lived in Oz, and though he stayed in touch with his family, information about his life is sketchy. Until recently I thought I was going to have to trawl through various records to find out where he might be buried, and I'm not even sure what year he died in, let alone where he lived. I talked to my Grandma the other day though, and she knew more than we thought - that he was cremated, and scattered in the "Herb Garden, South Yarra" and that he has a headstone there. I'm not sure how accurate this is; the Web isn't being very forthcoming with useful information right now, but it's more to go on than I had before.
2. Forge ties between Edinburgh and Melbourne Open Knowledge Foundations.
Since there's an OKFN Hack days after I arrive in Melbourne, and not even far from where I'm staying, I've registered to take part. Should be fun.
And some less questy, more general things...
Check out some of the places my Mum and her family lived.
I have a pretty long list of addresses across Victoria and South Australia, to see which still exist and what they're like.
Maybe attempt to bump into relatives or family friends.
This will be tricky though, as my UK family don't seem to know where anyone on the upside down side of the world is any more, how to contact them, or whether they'd be interested in meeting. The ones we do know are in Perth, which I'm not going to be able to get to. There are quite a lot of them around in Australia and New Zealand though, so hopefully more data will emerge.
See Ayres Rock.
Duh.
See the main cities on the east coast, like Brisbane, Sydney and Canberra.
Expensive and time-consuming, but doable. I also want to go to Tasmania.
And things that need doing that aren't to do with being in Australia:
- Two freelance projects, due on 5th June and 1st July.
- Finish my PhD literature review...
- Make a poster for the Semantic Web Summer School.
- (Eep).
Post a Comment