FEBRUARY 4, 2022 – Even back then Sydney, capital of New South Wales, was the big, splashy city of “Down Under.” I spent several days there, impressed by its busy harbor, cosmopolitan feel, world-class modern architecture—including the harbor-front Opera House (and a recital inside)—and expansive botanical garden. But naturally, I was drawn to . . . “big nature” two hours west of Sydney—the Katoomba area of Blue Mountains National Park.
The “Mountains” aren’t so much traditional mountains as they are spectacular cliffs and buttes, with waterfalls tumbling recklessly from dizzying heights. The “Blue” was a ubiquitous haze from oil emitted by the jungle of eucalyptus trees that covered the region (much of it destroyed by fire in 2019-20).
I spent several days exploring the park, but the highlight was an eight-hour hike with a Kiwi dentist and his wife—six-month vagabonds in Australia—an Englishman, and a student nurse from Sydney named . . . “Debbie” (of course!). The five of us discovered much in common—including navigational disorientation after the sun went down. Being lost after dark in that area is no joke, but our joint efforts with a mix of humor led us “home” to the youth hostel near the “Three Sisters Aboriginal Place,” a rock formation with special significance to Aboriginal people.
A letter home reported that Debbie (II) and I talked till 3:00 a.m.; that she’d grown up in a very isolated community and never before encountered an American; that my nationality, therefore, was a curiosity; that I felt as though “America” was being interviewed; that I’d had difficulty separating the real America from the ideal America—not to mention my own biased view; that “my intellectual honesty was tested rigorously.”
Through the scope of time, I realize how unusual that conversation would be in today’s world, where information penetrates instantly every corner of the globe. How impossible it would be for an American of 2022 to be “a curiosity” in the sense I was 41 years ago.
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After my Blue Mountain adventures, I headed east back to Sydney . . . to finalize arrangements for my 2,696-mile train trip west to Perth . . . before leaping off the edge of the world.
In purchasing my ticket for the 67-hour train journey, I experienced a “first.” Back in Sweden, “Nilsson”—“son of Nils”—is the seventh most common surname, but outside Scandinavia, even among people of Swedish heritage in Minnesota, my name is spelled every which way—“Nillson,” “Nilson,” “Nielsen,” “Neilson,” or god forbid, the Anglicized, “Nelson.” Never before or since, however, had I seen the Aussie version.
Despite my slow, deliberate annunciation—“N-I-L-S-S-O-N”—for the Indian Pacific Railway agent in Sydney, there it was on the ticket: “NALSSON.” By this juncture in my Australian travels, my spelling should’ve been tuned to the Australian ear, which hears an “i” as an “a.”
Thus, it was as Mr. Eric Nalsson that I boarded the train that would carry me in ironic luxury across Australia’s rugged Outback; across the plain of . . . another planet.
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© 2022 by Eric Nilsson
