COVER N. 449 - AUSTRALIA

Postmark: Fulham Gardens LPO SA 5024 23.04.2024 / Australia Post Adelaide Gateway Facility 5J Butler Blvd Adelaide Airport SA 5950 24.04.2024

Posted on the 23rd April; received on the 8th may 2024

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A cover with two postmarks, and strangely they both look to have been applied manually. Not that common. Anyway, Thanks a lot Koert.

Australia has been on my list pf places to visit for such a long time... I even thought of emigrating there, when I finished high school... I went as far as asking once for the price of an airplane ticket..... the response (this was 1977 or 78) immediately shattered all my dreams of one day learning to speak Koala....

I guess I was attracted by the extremely diverse nature and by what I thought was the quite pragmatic character of Australians... I really don't know how I had built that opinion, since I think I had no other contact with Australian culture than a rather episodic correspondence with a pen-pal and watching some episodes of  "Skippy, the bush kangaroo"... still, the fact is that Australia occupied a big place in my dreams and even if that place has now shrunk in inverse relation to my lifespan, the Island continent is still a place of wonder that I would really like to get to know in the flesh....

The two self-adhesive 45 cent stamps are part of a set of four, all with the same face value, issued on 08APR1999, themed on flowers. These stamps were issued in traditional gummed paper and self-adhesive formats.

The flowers depicted in the nice illustrations are the Australian bluebell (Wahlenbergia stricta), a locally widespread member of the Campanulaceae family (left) and the Snake vine (Hibbertia scandens), a member of the Dilleniaceae family, endemic to eastern Australia.

The 3 dollar stamp illustrated with a Christmas ornament ball  is part of the 2023 Australia Post Christmas issue, dating of 01NOV2023, which also comprised another two 65 cent stamps, also illustrated with season's motifs (Xmas tree and a letter to Santa).

The letter was originated at Adelaide, as proved by the postmarks, the capital of South Australia with a population in excess of 1,2 million.

Of note is the fact, brought to my attention by my Phantom friend, that the postmark from the Adelaide Airport was applied 3 days after the original mailling in Adelaide city. You have a sharp eye, Mr. Ghost who walks!

POSTCARD N.66 - Australia

Postcrossing postcard sent on the 11th January; received on the 26th January
Postcard image: Antonov 12
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It is not every week that I get two postcards from a place so distant as Australia. What's even more uncommon is to have different views of the same landmark on both postcards, but that's what happened, since a couple of days  after receiving Postcard I got this beautiful one with a general view of the Sidney harbour with the bridge and the amazing Opera building glowing in the dusk light. Thanks a lot for a beautiful card, Karen.

Australia is on my "most wanted" list and I'm sure that one day I'll be able to take a photo of the  Opera building myself and maybe go inside for a concert or so... (one can ever want....)

Conceived by Danish architect  and Pritzker laureate Jørn Utzon, Sidney's Opera House was inaugurated in 1973 after a complicated building process that started in 1959 but was to suffer several setbacks, including the mid course resignation of its chief architect in 1966.

In the end, after 14 years of construction works and a dramatic overspill of costs, the Opera was inaugurated and luckily so, because it is one of the most iconic buildings in the world, having been atributed World Heritage Site Status by the Unesco in 2007, and as such must have already generated notoriety revenues for Australia  that overshadow its 102 Million AUD pricetag, 

At another scale, this reminds me of our own beautiful Casa da Música at Porto.

Designed by Rem Koolhaas, another Pritzker award winning architect,  It was to be inaugurated in 2001 within the scope of Porto 2001 European capital of Culture, but it only opened in 2005 following delays in construction and a significant overspill in construction costs. Another common feature with Sindey's Opera is that Ove Arup was also one of the main building contractors involved.

 COVER N.63 - Australia

Postmark: SWLF CFCP 460. Sydney West Letter Facility. Sydney. Machine No 460.
Posted on the 30th December; received on the 26thJanuary
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A simple one stamp cover with a beautiful postcrossing postcard inside, for which I send my "Thank you!" to Karen.

The stamp used on it is part of a 4 stamp set issued on 22FEB21 (0,20; 2,70; 3.40; 3.50 AUD), celebrating 4 of the 66 RAMSAR sites of Australia. The Riverland Wetland in the State of South Australia is the site featured on the 3,50 AUD stamp.

Ramsar is the name of a city in Iran, where in 1971, an international convention for the protection of wetlands and of their resources was signed. Having entered into force in 1975, it has already adopted by almost 90% of the UN states.

The machine applied cancelation tells us that the cover was processed in the Sidney West Letter facility, Sidney, Machine No 461, on the 30th December 2021 at 20h47. Sadly the Vignette in the cancelation is almost illegible and I can only make the last word of it - "Merry" - so it mst have something to do with Season's wishes. Any help regarding the exact wording of this slogan would be greatly appreciated, so if you happen to know how it fully reads,  drop a line in the comments box. Thanks.

POSTCARD N.64 - Australia

Postcrossing postcard sent on ?; received on the 22nd January
Postcard image: Sidney Harbour Bridge
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Some landmarks are so iconic that photographing them can be very challenging: finding a viewing angle that has yet to be tried; a lighting that has never been captured; an uncommon choice of focal distance,  all these are options that photographers usually resort to, but in such cases, it can be a daunting task because probably the same photograph has already been taken by someone else... same as music, I often think. The combination of the 7 notes is almost endless, but at some point a single phrase or part of it will invoke in the listener a  déjà vu (or déjà entendu in this case :-)) sensation.

Wanting as I may, I have never been to Australia; I have never seen the Sidney Harbour bridge in the... iron!. And yet I can easily identify it if not for anything else for having seen it year after year on new year's eve, under the lights of the fireworks, on TV.

that is, until now. I got this beautiful postcard from Claire (thanks a lot, Claire) and i thought, oh, nice, quite a fine bridge, but only later, after reading the card  and looking for a while at the photograph on it did I realize that this was the arch of the Sidney bridge, from and angle I was totally stranger to and with a choice of focal length that isn't the obvious choice when photographing large infrastructures.

Sidney bridge, designed by the British concern Dorman Long is the eight longest spanning steel arch bridge in the world, and  was inaugurated in 1932, following almost nine years of construction that started in 1923 and as I write, I'm wishing one day I'll be able to add to this blog entry its photograph taken by none other than me!

Stamps:

 Claire used an Australian Post pre-paid postage postcard with a printed stamp valid for "Posting in Australia and delivery worldwide" No cancellation mark was applied to it.

COVER N.29 - Australia
Postmark:  - 23JUN2021, DLC CFCP 453
Posted on the  23rd June; received on the 28th July.
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Melissa sent me Postcard 22 in an envelope, a gesture I do appreciate. Thanks Melissa.

The stamp used on it is part of a 4 stamp set issued on 22FEB21 (0,20; 2,70; 3.40; 3.50 AUD), celebrating 4 of the 66 RAMSAR sites of Australia. The Riverland Wetland in the State of South Australia is the site featured on the 3,50 AUD stamp.

Ramsar is the name of a city in Iran, where in 1971, an international convention for the protection of wetlands and of their resources was signed. Having entered into force in 1975, it has already adopted by almost 90% of the UN states.

The machine applied cancelation tells us that the cover was processed in Dandenong Letter Centre. Victoria. Machine No 453, on the 23rd June at 22h10. Sadly the cancelation is skewed, so the very nice vignette cannot be fully appreciated, but it shows an indigenous art drawing with the slogan ".... indigenous communities" any help regarding the exact wording of this slogan would be greatly appreciated, so if you happen to know how it fully reads,  drop a line in the comments box. Thanks.

POSTCARD N.22 - Australia
Postcrossing postcard posted on the 23rd June; received on the 4th August
Postcard image: Aerial View of Melbourne, Australia, at Dawn
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Thank you Melissa for the very nice postcard, and also for having gone through the trouble of mailling it in an envelope.

Melbourne, the capital of the Sate of Victoria, on the southeast coast of the Island continent. Australia, the land where once I thought I would go after finishing high school to star a living; the land where I had a pen friend when that actually meant handwriting and waiting a couple of months for the letter to arrive (even though it seems that nowadays things aren't much better judging by the 43 days Melissa's postcard took to reach my mailbox...).

Australia the land of all that exotic and dangerous fauna and of men who know the stars and the elements like no one else does, of the great barrier reef and the great red desert... it has always exerted an intense fascination on me and it still does... almost half way round the world... maybe one day... who knows...

Although sent in an envelope, Melissa's card  was also stamped with a 1.10AUD stamp which wasn't of course cancelled. It features a nice painting of a Laughing Kookaburra (Dacelo novaeguineae), the state bird of New South Wales. It is part of a 6 equally priced set (1.10AUD) of stamps issued both in self-adhesive and normal versions on 21 APR2021,  dedicated to the state birds of Australia. out of curiosity, the other state birds are as follows: 

Queensland - Brolga (Grus rubicunda)

Western Australia - Black Swan (Cygnus atratus)

Australian Capital Territory - Gang-Gang Cockatoo (Callocephalon fimbriatum)

Victoria - Helmeted Honeyeater - (Lichenostomus melanops cassidix)

Northern Territory - Wedge-Tailed Eagle (Aquila audax)