Hall of Remembrance, Yad Vashem

Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

Atop a hill overlooking golden Jerusalem, Yad Vashem brings us face to face with the Holocaust and the millions who perished during the Nazi era in Europe. It is a profound and poignant place, both beautiful and terrible, lovingly created so that we never forget the unforgettable.

A stunning new museum, mostly underground, replaces the one I visited, presenting the story of the Shoah from a unique Jewish perspective, emphasizing the experiences of the individual victims through original artifacts, survivor testimonies and personal possessions. At the end of the museum’s historical narrative is the Hall of Names - a repository for the Pages of Testimony of millions of Holocaust victims - a memorial to those who perished.

A boxcar donated by the Polish government at Yad Vashem

Boxcars arrive at Auschwitz

In the new Hall of Names, Yad Vashem



Yitzhak Perlman returns to Cracow

Simon Srebnik returns to Chelmno

Dreamtime Country

In this part of the country you'll see Ghost Gums, with their gleaming white trunks; with any luck, a parrot, like some feathered rainbow, will scream at you from the branches and high in the sky, a wedge-tailed eagle will swoop, in lazy circles, looking for a tasty tidbit

The vibrant colours of the Australian Outback

Years ago, when I was living in Melbourne, I came to know a genial character who was known as Bill "Nugget" Morton. A chunky, balding man in his sixties, Morton was a spinner of yarns, a teller of tales. Back before the First World War, he'd ridden his bicycle from the city up into the Dreamtime country, Australia's strikingly beautiful outback. After a thousand miles of hard riding through the heat and dust, Nugget arrived in the outback's unofficial capital, Alice Springs. He worked for a few years riding with cattle along spinifex trails, putting his savings ultimately into his own spread, building himself a wattle daub homestead and importing a city girl for his bride. His life was one long adventure - and after making a fortune in cattle and minerals, he left the land he loved to retire in greater comfort in the big city.

In those faraway days, the outback was peopled with characters like Nugget, most of whom would drift in and out of the Alice to take on supplies, booze it up and then disappear for another year. The place was, until a few years ago, little more than a shanty town, with a main street, a couple of pubs, some stores, a police station (with black trackers on constant call), some camels wandering about, the Flying Doctor Service and a railway terminal. Underground water sustained the town and made it green, an oasis of sorts in a parched environment. Scattered amongst the trees were the houses of the folk who lived there - railway men, mostly, police, the doctor, government workers, shopkeepers. The town was a tiny flyspeck in a vast sea of spinifex, a green garden in the red centre. Its few visitors didn't linger too long, because there was nothing much to do. I couldn't help but reflect, as we approached Alice Springs after a smooth jetflight from the south, that old Nugget wouldn't know the place today.

Budgerigars nest close to Alice Springs

Alice Springs today is a thriving town of neat homes on tree-lined streets, contemporary air-conditioned hotels and motels, restaurants, galleries selling aboriginal bark paintings and boutiques catering to the tourist with a variety of Australiana. And recently, a train dubbed the Ghan made an appearance, to provide travelers in these parts with a lazy and very luxe way to travel, away from the heat and dust. But the place is more than that; it is your stepping-off point to the wonders of the Dreamtime Country. The traveller who has eaten his fill of Sydney's luscious rock oysters, who has surfed at Palm Beach, cuddled a koala, seen Aida at the opera house, might well ask: okay, how can I top this? The answer lies to the north and to the west, in Australia's last great frontier. There's beauty here to equal Sydney's thrusting skyline and its brilliant blue water - and it's much easier to get here than it was in Nugget's time. Today, a jet will get you there in a few relaxed hours. Once you've arrived, prepare yourself for sights the like of which you have never seen before.

Alice Springs today; the Ghan leaves the Alice for Darwin

You can make your way to Australia's Dreamtime Country (the aboriginals call their past the Dreamtime and recall it through tribal dancing and ritual and in paintings left long ago on the walls of caves) on your own, or with a tour group. If you're travelling alone, book well in advance. If you take the package tour, one trip you'll make is to Ayers Rock. You'll fly from the Alice in a small plane via the Macdonnell Ranges, which sweep in a boomerang arc, east and west of the town. Originally around fifteen thousand feet high, the ranges have been eroded over millions of years and deep gorges have been cut by rivers long since gone. The highest peak in the range is 5,000 feet high. There are spectacular red-walled gorges here (you'll visit one later) but, for the moment, you'll admire it from the air as you wing your way towards an even more remarkable sight, Ayers Rock.

Uluru

Ayers Rock, or Uluru, as the native Australians call it, looks like a large orange pebble as you approach it now; it is, in fact, the rounded sandstone tip of a huge sandstone "iceberg" which sleeps silent under the red earth. As impressive as it is from the air, it really must be seen from the ground, for, chameleon-like, it changes colour - dark crimson at sunrise, variously pink, purple and brown during the day and crimson again as the sun sets. After your plane lands, you'll explore this monolith, from the caves at its base, with their Aboriginal paintings, to the rounded summit, fourteen hundred feet up. Along the way, your guide will point out the natives' sacred places, used once for secret rituals and now abandoned, remembered only by the oldest men in the tribes. There are many sacred totem places scattered throughout the centre and the north, and time was when a stranger encamped on or near them at his peril. I remember Nugget telling me of the night he camped, in all innocence, on such a sacred place. During the night, a dozen warriors crept up to his camp; he escaped with a head wound from a nulla nulla (an aboriginal club) and thereafter carried on his skull a hole the size of a quarter as a souvenir of the occasion.

From the summit of Ayers Rock, you get a panoramic view of the surrounding countryside-and you'll see a pale mauve jumble of boulders in the distance. This odd range is Mt Olga. If you half close your eyes, you'll swear you're looking at some strange Byzantine temple, its many domes shimmering in the sun.

The Olgas

Next day, you might like to visit a cattle station where, under the watchful gaze of an Aboriginal guide, you'll learn how to throw a boomerang, test your skill with a stock whip and, if you're so inclined, ride a horse along outback trails. While you're here, you'll get a taste of pioneer days, right down to Damper, the outback bread cooked in hot ashes.

Another trip you'll make is to the Macdonnell Ranges, which you saw earlier from the air. This time, you'll go by coach, for a closer look at the gorges which are a photographer's delight. Standley Chasm, the most famous, has walls 240 feet high and only 12 feet wide; when the noonday sun casts its shadows deep into the gorge, the walls turn blood red, vivid contrast to the sliver of blue above. In this part of the country you'll see Ghost Gums, with their gleaming white trunks; with any luck, a parrot, like some feathered rainbow, will scream at you from the branches and high in the sky, a wedge-tailed eagle will swoop, in lazy circles, looking for a tasty tidbit. Here, too, far from the sea, are tall palms which fringe Palm Valley waterholes- a sight almost as odd as the wild camels which roam much of the interior.

The Macdonnell Ranges; a Ghost Gum; wild camels; a saltwater croc lies in wait

Further adventures lie in store for the traveller who journeys north, from Alice Springs to Darwin, the outpost town on the country's far-north coast. You can fly there from the Alice, or from any major capital - or take the Ghan. Darwin, named for the scientist who visited these shores aboard the Beagle, rewards with an ambience that's straight out of a Somerset Maugham story. The place was hit by a hurricane some years ago and almost flattened, but with true Aussie spirit it quickly bounced back as vital and as offbeat as ever.

Flame Tree glows up north

The north country, with Darwin at its centre, has great herds of buffalo drinking at rivers which are alive with crocodiles. Once Nugget was crossing just such a river in a dinghy with his dog. A huge croc almost swamped the boat as it leapt out of the water to snatch the dog with its powerful jaws. You'll meet buffalo and crocodile hunters here, and, in all likelihood, Japanese pearl fishermen, Australian cattlemen and uranium miners, American rice growers, French nuns from Noumea, Chinese cooks and Aboriginals sitting in the shade of the flame trees. The new, rebuilt Darwin has something for everyone if you have the time and are looking for an experience out of the ordinary.

Across Australia on the Indian-Pacific

This remarkable woman, with her long skirts and button-up boots, lived in a tent and treated the natives like family. They, in turn, called her Kabbarli, grandmother. She transcribed their legends, did her best to prevent them eating their new-born babies, learned 117 different dialects, buried eleven of her Aboriginal friends in the sand hills with her own hands. Ill health forced her return to the city, where she died in 1951

On the logo, an eagle links the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean

It takes three days, it's occasionally tedious, often fascinating, sometimes even hypnotic. You cross this island continent from one side to the other, from the shores of the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. The aptly named "Indian-Pacific" is one of the world's great trains and the crossing is, surely, one of the world's great journeys.

I made the trip from Perth to Sydney. I have travelled this way before, by air, staring down through wisps of cloud to what looks like a great sheet of wrinkled brown paper below. But I'd always wanted to cross the country by train, getting the look and feel and smell of the place, following in the path of the trail-blazers, many of whom left their bleached bones behind as mute witness to the hostility of the Outback. So by train I came. Along the way, I saw Australia's rugged interior, with its grazing sheep and pale gold pastureland. I saw kangaroos, too, and brilliant native parrots whose wings lit up the sky. But, more than anything else, I remember the wide, flat Nullarbor Plain; this strange, barren heartland is, truly, the Great Australian Loneliness.

Thursday 9pm.

Out here in Perth, capital of Western Australia, the day has been summer-bright, with a breeze whispering in from the sea. We have just boarded the train, a sleek, silver express made up of a dozen carriages, including dining car, lounge/observation car and sleeping cars, which offer single Roomette or double Twinette cabins.

In Perth - and ready to leave

Right on time, we glide out into the gathering dusk. Through the big window in my cabin, I see the lights of Perth flicker past. Soon, I see no lights at all-just a thin orange peel of light on the western horizon. There's a knock on my door, and our steward pokes his head in to greet me with a warm Aussie welcome. "Like a wake-up cuppa in the morning, Sir?" he asks. Then I crawl into bed and sleep.

Friday.

When the tea arrives at 6.30 next morning, we have already travelled over 650 km and rows of neat houses on gum-shaded streets announce our arrival at Kalgoorlie. As we pull into the station, the local radio is chattering on about some boisterous youths caught pouring paint over a revered town statue. Ah, rip-roaring Kalgoorlie, living up to its reputation, I think to myself. But out in the square by the station, all is calm and quiet. There's hardly a soul about. I walk along empty streets, trying to conjure up the past. This town was created by the gold rush at the turn of the century. It grew and prospered, attracting adventurers from all over, including the young Herbert Hoover, who managed a mine a few miles north. At one time, Kalgoorlie's Golden Mile was one of the richest and most rambunctious patches of real estate on earth. Echoes of those days remain in classic architecture, fading facades and rusting mineshafts. The stopover here is short, just thirty minutes. So I make my way back to the train, past the obligatory ANZAC statue, a trooper with fixed bayonet, turned to gilt by the rising sun.

Kalgoorlie: classic Australiana

Kalgoorlie sits on the very edge of a vast, featureless plain called Nullarbor, Latin for "no tree". To leave Kalgoorlie is rather like leaving port for the open sea. Very soon, the trees thin out and disappear, to be replaced by saltbush and spinifex, which covers the orange-red face of the plain like grey foam. This is the sea you now traverse. It stretches for hundreds and hundreds of miles in all directions. You stare out at it for hour after hour, seeing nothing, no sign of life, no animal, not even a bird. Just an occasional watery mirage shimmering on the horizon and the sun, a remorseless white eye in the sky.

Outside, it's baking hot. But the train is air-conditioned; my Roomette is cool and comfortable. In the sun's glare, I draw the shade and look around. This cabin has been well designed: lots of nooks and crannies for storage, small closets to hang things, a folding table, a comfy chair that turns into an equally comfortable bed, reading and night lights, a basin with hot and cold water, a foldaway toilet, ice-water on tap, a speaker for music en route. There's no shower (Twinettes have one) but there's one just down the corridor. Soon, our steward will announce the First Sitting for lunch. There are three separate sittings for each meal; I've chosen the Second Sitting, as it's timed just right for me. And the food aboard is just fine. The lunch that awaits me includes Chicken Soup, Egg and Asparagus Salad, Saute of Beef, Roast Turkey and Peach Melba for dessert. I'll probably order a chilled white Australian wine with my lunch, from the well-stocked bar.

As we continue on across the Nullarbor we pass, from time to time, lonely rows of prefab houses, lined up on the side of the track. These outposts, preposterous and incongruous in this environment, are for the men who must maintain the line. They flash past in an instant - Boonderoo, Mundrabilla, Mungala-and then disappear in a haze of heat. Like desert mirages, there one minute and gone the next.

A big red roo watches the train go by

At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, we reach the start of what is called "the longest straight" - 478 km of track without a single curve, the longest such stretch anywhere. As the sun sets, we reach Cook, where the engines take on more diesel fuel. Cook is the social centre of the Nullarbor, a neat little oasis with school, hospital and dance hall, shaded by peppercorn trees. Then we're off again, the setting sun behind us staining the plain blood red.

Cook: a lonely outpost in the middle of nowhere

Much later, around 11 pm, we pass through Ooldea in the darkness and leave the longest straight behind us. I would have liked to visit this little settlement which stands on the eastern fringes of the plain. It was here, in Ooldea, that the legendary Daisy Bates laboured for years, taking care of the Aborigines who gathered in the sand hills close to the track. Born in Ireland in 1817, this remarkable woman, with her long skirts and button-up boots, lived in a tent and treated the natives like family. They, in turn, called her Kabbarli, grandmother. She transcribed their legends, did her best to prevent them eating their new-born babies, learned 117 different dialects, buried eleven of her Aboriginal friends in the sand hills with her own hands. Ill health forced her return to the city, where she died in 1951. A settlement along the track has been named in her honour.

Daisy Bates

Saturday.

Breakfast is over now. We crossed the West Australia/South Australia border in the night, made brief morning stopovers in Port Augusta (boring!) and Port Pirie (equally boring- but we did catch a tantalizing glimpse of the blue waters of Spencer Gulf) and now we're racing up into rolling wheat and sheep country. A dusty yellow haze hangs over the scene. Horses stand quietly in the shade of eucalypts, sheep gather at waterholes, wheatfields ripple in the distance and the galvanized roofs of farm buildings flash like mirrors in the sun.

Rural Australia flashes by

As the afternoon wears on, the scene changes again. Now the terrain is rougher, with saltbush, tall grass and mulga scrub. There are plenty of kangaroos about; they stand, motionless, watching the train go by and then hop away. I see emus, too: a stately group of these big ostrich-like birds walks in single file along the dried up bed of a river, giving us disapproving looks as we disturb their promenade. And, every so often, flocks of pink and grey galahs take to the air and wheel above us, their plumage brilliant against the blue sky.

Kangaroos peep out as we pass by

We're in New South Wales now, near the state's western border. At 8 pm we reach Broken Hill, a large mining city. Lead, silver and zinc are mined here and then shipped to the smelters at Port Pirie. It's been a hot day; when I get out and wander about, the night air smells warm and dusty. But we don't linger. Another half hour and we're on our way. I have a last drink up in the bar, talking with fellow passengers-a teacher from Ethiopia and his French wife. Someone is tinkling away on the piano. The barman yawns. It is midnight.

Sunday.

Wheat and sheep country again, with lots of hills casting deep purple shadows. We are having breakfast when we pull into Parkes, a pleasant country town 446 km from Sydney. Just before lunch we reach Bathurst, the oldest settlement west of the Great Dividing Range. I see great stone houses here, standing in wooded estates, I see farmhouses standing atop hills and LandRovers kicking up the dust on side roads. An hour later, the hills become sharper and more timbered. We have reached the foothills of the range and are about to climb into the Blue Mountains for the hour-long descent into Sydney.

The Blue Mountains: blue ridges, as far as the eye can see

This is a whole different world: crisp air, tall timber, tree-ferns, mountain villages, historic gate houses and bridges built by convict labour, waterfalls that leap off cliffs to disappear into valleys far below and bright red, blue and green parrots that squawk at us from the branches of fruit trees. The Indian-Pacific stops briefly at Lithgow then races over the mountain ridges until it reaches the coastal plain below. With the mountains behind us, we thunder over the Nepean River Bridge, streak and rattle and howl our way through the dry western suburbs and reach Sydney's huge Central terminal at 4 o'clock in the afternoon, on time.

65 hours and 3961 km! It's been quite a trip.

Australia's Southwest

The beach is a sensuous curve of white sand, a sheltering expanse of flat rock with hidden rock pools that stretches out to sea for hundreds of yards (you can walk out all the way) and water the colour of melted opals

The beach at Yallingup

The question was, when I arrived in Perth, whether I should head north, or south. To the north, in the West's tropical frontier, I could see cattle roam, bananas ripen, pearls glow, crocodiles lurk and strong men wrest iron ore and diamonds from the hot red earth. But it was summer. The south beckoned with a gentler climate- so south I travelled, to where the giant karri grows and on to Albany, the mellow old town that sits at the foot of a mountain, dreaming of its lusty colonial past. But first I discovered Perth. This city of close to a million people claims to have more sunshine than any other city in the country- and official records uphold the claim. The place has a languid Mediterranean air, perfumed by the blossoms of native trees that are unique to this part of the continent. The city is well situated; the Swan River, dotted with black swans and sailboats, meanders past a thrusting contemporary skyline, past King's Park (which gives you a grandstand view of Perth) and on to the sea. Perth nowadays is a city of steel and glass and wide green spaces, but there are plenty of reminders of its formative years-in the slightly cheeky ambience of Hay Street, for example, or in the more formal and decidedly English face of St George's Terrace nearby. After a day or two of looking around, I rented a car so that I could more easily explore the countryside and set off southwards, hugging the coast. My first stop was Mandurah, 78 km from Perth. Here is an ocean beach and a quiet, enclosed estuary, where pelicans parade and where the locals go crabbing at weekends. You can picnic here in a park that straddles the water's edge and later drive to where new developments are being carved out of scrubby sandhills, overlooking the ocean. It's easy to understand why house prices are sky-rocketing in this breezy resort so close to the city. Yallingup, further south on the coast, beyond Bunbury and Busselton, is another world, far removed from the almost suburban Mandurah. If you travel this way in December/January, your road will be lined with the West's spectacular Christmas tree, which is heavy with yellow blossom. You'll see, too, tall stands of the famed Kangaroo Paw, which comes in different varieties- red, green or yellow.

Yallingup (like so many places in the west, it ends in "up" which comes from the local Aboriginal dialect) is approached through rolling, sparsely timbered hills. Suddenly, the road dips- and there ahead is a shimmer of sea. The beach is a sensuous curve of white sand, a sheltering expanse of flat rock with hidden rock pools that stretches out to sea for hundreds of yards (you can walk out all the way) and water the colour of melted opals. The surf here is gentle and the trees on the slopes overlooking the beach have been twisted into a witch's fingers by the prevailing winds. I stopped for a bite to eat at the Old Mill, close to Yallingup. Here, in sloping parkland, shaded by trees and serenaded by bush birds, is an old wooden mill, with a creaking water wheel- cool hideaway on a hot summer's day. You can watch a blacksmith and wood turner practising their craft, visit the mill's art gallery or walk through the surrounding bushland. Cape Leeuwin is about an hour away on the coast road, via the town of Augusta.

Cape Leeuwin and its lighthouse

A scenic drive takes you out past beaches whipped by a stiff breeze, past fishermen casting off the rocks, to the lighthouse which stands alone at the tip of the cape, surveying the junction of the Indian and Southern Oceans. This grey limestone tower stands 128 ft high and was built at the turn of the century. It's open for inspection on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but you must get your ticket first, at the Augusta Museum. From Cape Leeuwin, you have a good half day's drive, through classic Australian countryside, to the town of Denmark, passing through Pemberton and Walpole on the way. When you're just past Walpole, look for the sign that directs you to the Valley of the Giants.

Red gum blossom; Karri forest; Albany Pitcher Plant

Here you'll see the massive karri and marri reaching for the sky, eucalypts that rival the sequoias of California. Take time to seek out the local wildflowers, too- the beguiling White Pincushion, Purple Sarsparilla, Red Helmet Orchid, Pineapple Bush and Albany Pitcher Plant. Albany is east of Denmark, about an hour away. The town, which sits in the shadow of a great hill, has an English look to it, all grey stone and slightly weathered. There's a lot of green here, thanks to the frequent rains which sweep in from the Southern Ocean. Stirling Terrace and York Street, with their classic Victorian facades, strongly evoke the days of sailers and whalers and in the former colonial governor's residence, the Old Farm at Strawberry Hill, is a sampler sewn by Nelson's love, Emma Hamilton. You'll visit the old gaol, down by the waterfront, with its thick whitewashed walls. King George V slept here, so the sign says - although he was a prince at the time.

Stirling Ranges; twin masted ship In Albany Harbour

Beyond the gaol and the twin-masted sailing ship close by is the harbour, one of the three finest in the world. An even better view of the harbour and the surrounding country can be had from atop Mount Clarence, which looms large over the town. A sandstone sculpture sits up here; an ANZAC memorial, it was originally in Egypt but was repatriated after the Suez crisis of 1956. The view from the mountaintop is breathtaking, a 360 degree panorama encompassing the town, Princess Royal Harbour, King George Sound, the Porongurup and Stirling Ranges and the white sand beaches for which Albany is famed.

The rocky coastline near Albany

After sightseeing in the town, go past Middleton Beach to the Old Farm for Devonshire Tea, served in a long, low cottage that's fringed with hollyhocks. Beyond the town, away from the quiet beaches, is the rugged coastline that looks southward to Antarctica. Here is scenery that overpowers with its hostile beauty; giant King waves lash these rocks in winter and signs everywhere warn of the danger. Drive out here to see the Gap, the Blow Hole, the Natural Bridge, Frenchman's Bay and the whaling station, no longer in use. On the way back, you'll look across the bay to see the lights of Albany twinkling reassuringly; this town, founded by a group of soldiers and convicts from Sydney Town back in 1826 and the first settlement in the West, makes a great finale to a tour of Australia's out-of-the-way South-West.