TRAVELING IN STYLE : Party Time Down Under

Certain cities have an air of sophistication, others run on th energy of power and politics, and still others simply reek of history. Sydney, Australia, on the other hand, seems primed to party.

And what a party is in store for 1988!

The United States a decade ago celebrated 200 years of independence after dumping a shipload of tea in Boston Harbor during the great Boston Tea Party to protest English taxes. Australia will celebrate its Bicentenary next year, dating from the infamous day in 1788 when 11 boatloads of prisoners were landed, establishing the world’s biggest and most remote penal colony on the continent’s southern shores. Having lost the 13 Colonies, England needed a new dumping ground for its social problems, and Australia became that place.

From such inauspicious beginnings, a wonderful nation has evolved--a continent of cities and beaches encircling an outback unparalleled elsewhere on the planet. Australia was settled not only by murderers and cutthroats but also by scalawags and pickpockets, embezzlers and prostitutes, ,and--not least--by the soldiers whose duty it was to guard the motley lot.

If you study the history from the Aussie point of view, plenty of those stalwart forefathers were victims of the biggest crime of all: poverty. Young girls were reportedly “transported” to Australia for such infractions as having spent their schoolbook pennies on candy, and lads were sent out for life for sneaking a ride on a neighbor’s pony, or for snitching a loaf of bread.

And what should happen but that their children would grow hearty and healthy under the warm southern sun, taller and sturdier than they ever would have become in the bleak northern motherland. Soldiers would marry prisoners, and their little families would prosper as landed settlers. Constables and other proper English officials would kiss their native soil goodby and stay forever in the distant land.

Aussies once shied away from talking about their humble beginnings, but it’s a different story today. Many of them are rummaging through the historical woodpile, trying to trace their own family lineage to a link with the country’s origins. Either a prisoner or a soldier will do.

“It’s a mark of distinction to find a prisoner in the family tree,” said Maureen Fry, a historian who conducts walking tours of Sydney.

One of the best-known women in Australia’s history is Mary Reibey, who helped found the First Australia Bank. She came to Sydney in 1789 as a 12-year-old girl who was banished to Australia for riding someone else’s horse.

The first ships from England carried 757 convicts and a military escort of 200. The original prison colony, The Rocks, remained a sorry mess for many years. Long after it had ceased being a prison colony, it was a squalid slum, where in 1900, plague struck and spread throughout Sydney.

Today, The Rocks has been restored and revised to a rustic elegance, its curving streets and stairways leading to quaint shops and friendly pubs and the Australian Bicentennial Authority head offices, with views of Sydney Harbour.

Jim Kirk, chairman of the Australian Bicentennial Authority (and the retired chairman of Esso Australia), says he has three goals for the Bicentenary celebration:

“I want the celebration to be self-supporting. In fact, we expect to generate $3 for every dollar we spend. I want us to leave something tangible behind: educational programs, roads, restoration projects, attention to our national heritage.

“And I want to have a hell of a good party.”

With that sentiment, Kir seems to symbolize the festive side of the Australian national spirit--the love of a good party.

There are others involved in the plans for the bicentennial who would rather focus on Australia’s needs and problems, but not Kirk. “Australians are a fairly cynical lot,” he says. “I want the Bicentenary to instill in them that this is a damned good country.”

One unsung Australian offered the suggestion that a moment be designated in 1988 when every Aussie in the country will stand up and say something good about Australia.

Another party plan is to designate an “extra day” in 1988, possibly Feb. 29 since it’ll be Leap Year, and set that day aside for street parties. “I mean a street party on every street in Australia,” Kirk says. He thinks big and his vision encompasses all of Australia, though the essence of enthusiasm for the 200-year celebration does seem to be in Sydney.

One of the most spectacular events to commemorate the Bicentenary will be the visit of the Tall Ships, signifying the nation’s maritime herigage. They’ll include topsail schooners and ketches, square-rigged ships and barkentines from around the world.

From the Pacific, the Tall Ships will call at Brisbane, Melbourne and Launceston. Others passaging the Indian Ocean will reach Fremantle, Albany, Port Lincoln, Adelaide and Melbourne. They’ll sail on to Hobart, Tasmania, and from there participate in the Tall Ships Race, setting out on Jan. 14, 1988, en route to Sydney Harbour.

The climax to the visit of the Tall Ships will be a Parade of Sails at Sydney on Jan. 26. On that date a special fleet of square-riggers is scheduled to assemble in Sydney after a monthlong voyage from Portsmouth, England.

“Our goal is to conduct a people’s celebration,” he says. “The authority is correcting ideas proposed by people and groups all around the country. It will subsidize events that are worthy that otherwise might not happen (such as those in remote towns in the Outback), but basicaly we’d rather help experienced entrepreneurs stage events, such as the Militayr Tattoo that will tour the country.”

Another event is a Bicentennial Birthday Beacon through the night of July 18-19, lighting beacons around the perimeter of Australia (clockwise, starting in Sydney) one after the other. They figure that the lighting ceremony and attendant party would make its way around the nation in about 10 hours.

Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip will spend about three weeks in Australia in the spring, according to Buckingham Palace, with Prince Charles and Princes Diana visiting in January.

The government’s big-ticket item for the Bicentenary is a traveling exhibition. “Per capita, that’s the most expensive item on the agenda,” Kirk says. “But it’s the most essential, especially for the country people, the ones in the Outback for whom this might be their only link to the celebration.”

The exhibition theme is “Where we come from, where we are, where we are going.” Estimated cost is $35 million to $40 million (Australian). Admission will be $3 (Australian).

The exhibition will crisscross the country, staying from two to four days at each destination.

This, the biggest road show ever to tour Australia, will be transported by 25 semi-trailers and a fleet of four-wheel-driving vehicles and caravans--60 vehicles in all--traveling 12,400 miles, carrying a tent city to 34 regional centers. It’ll be a combination of a 600-seat theater, food halls and a museum.

World Expo ’88 in Brisbane, the largest and longest-running venture of the Bicentenary, will be the first international exposition in the Southern Hemisphere in this century. More than two dozen countries and 30 international corporations have signed on as participants so far, according to the Expo director, Sir Llewellyn Edwards. Nations include the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, China, Japan, France, Italy, West Germany and New Zealand.

Edwards expects 7.8 million visitor-days during Expo, April 30 to Oct. 30, 1988. Expo is expected to generate $1 billion (Australian) and provide 14,000 jobs. The theme is “Leisure in the Age of Technology.” Thousands of hours of entertainment will include daily parades and fireworks, jazz, circus acts, festivals of the world’s cuisines, an amusment park and high-tech exhibits in modular pavilions; a $12-million futuristic monorail will tie it all together.

Bicentenary enthusiasm seems to be spreading beyond Sydney and Brisbane. The rest of Australia is starting to get interested in the celebration and requests for bicentennial dollars are on the increase.

Heritage 200 is a bicentennial project designed to honor 200 notable people for their outstanding roles in Australia’s development. A related project, “The 200 Greatest Stories Never Told,” is a search for Australia’s unsung heroes and heroines, ordinary people who may not have made the history books but who nevertheles did something special. Nominations are being taken.

Also on the arts and entertainment agenda are special tours, broadcasts, dance rojects, new Australian plays, a circus spectacular, art exhibits, international festivals and a host of regional and local celebrations.

Aug. 6 to Nov. 19, there will be an Around Australia Yacht Race measuring 7,400 nautical miles. A balloon race across Australia is set for April 1-14 and a $1.5-million Australian Bicentennial Golf Classic at Royal Melbourne is scheduled Dec. 8-11.

Trees are being planted and parks are being developed. In Sydney alone, multimillion-dollar projects include the massive redevelopment of Darling Harbour and a new ferry system.

Calendars of bicentennial events are available from the Australian Tourist Commission; telephone (toll-free) 800-445-4400.

Gaye Hart, bicentennial director of community events, sounds a cautionary note. “I would not like to see this as an affirmation of what Australis has done as being terrific,” she said. “I think the Bicentenary should be an opportunity to take stock, to build to a better future.” She worries that the celebratory focus of Kirk and the other leaders may disenfranchise some Australian minority groups.

Kirk, however, believes that the mainstream events have enough room to accommodate the special interests, and he wants a party.

“I want the Bicentenary to generate some excitement about Australia and let the program fulfill that excitement,” Kirk says. He estimates that foreign visitors in 1988 will number 2 million.

Posters lining the Bicentenary office walls in Sydney read: “Live It Up Down Under” and “I’m Coming to the Party.”

That’s the idea. From the Great Barrier Reef to Ayers Rock, Australia is having a party and everyone’s invited.