We met Tony & Glenda in Tasmania in 2014...fossicking secluded beaches at Mt Willem NP for little things.
Told by firemen their house had been lost in the Blue Mountains fires only to find it still standing...most holidays in Oz deserts in Matilda their converted vehicle with attached van...fascinating couple...kept in touch...now living at Safety Beach near the Sikh enclave of Woolgoolga...212 kms south of Mullumbimby. Spending a couple of nights with them on our long drive back to Sydney.
True friends are those that no matter how long between drinks...we pick up as if we have never been apart.
And so it is with Tony & Glenda...super fit bicycle riders...Glenda the driving force behind a garden centre...Woopi Gardens...Tony a handyman of extraordinary skill...transforming their beach house into an us with open arms.
Tony is also a Swiss trained chef having worked in top Brit restaurants...lavish meals...cold beers...fine wines from Denise & gins from me...sharing tales that only true friends can do.
Beaches & Nature Tours...the 1930s wreck of The Buster exposed by high tides from the floods with surf washing over...flying foxes by the thousand...sunrises with surf pounding the reef out yonder...native
Meeting NSWs largest in Woolgoolga...North Coast New South Wales...visiting two temples and the Sikh Museum...truly an education and revelation.
Australia is a land of immigrants...waves of various ethnic groups arriving on our vast shores colouring our 50,000 year indigenous palate with ever increasing diversity since European occupation in 1788...in recent decades waves increasing from Asia and the Subcontinent.
Sikhs came from the Punjabi regions of NW India in the mid 19th Century from 1849 following the fall of the Sikh Empire...mainly brought by the British to work the sugar plantations of North Eastern Australia.
The Hindustani Times reports that the past decade has seen a massive surge of student migration from Punjab, rather than skilled migration.
The rush Down Under on student visas is seen as a passport to permanent residency. Lack of employment opportunities in India and the lure of better lifestyle are the driving factors.
According to the 2016 census, Punjabi is one of the languages in Australia, with 132,499 individuals identifying as
The Hindustani Times reports that Australian immigration law has toughened up considerably since 2009. Skill lists, visa rules, and permanent residency requirements have changed rapidly. Despite that, the huge influx of new Sikh and arrivals has continued in a steep upward trajectory in the last decade, with Victoria emerging as the destination of choice for many of them.
In Victoria, with Melbourne as its capital, was home to 52,762 Sikhs, followed by New South Wales (31,737), Queensland (17,433), Western Australia (11,897), South Australia (8,808) and Canberra (2,142). Northern Territory and Tasmania have a smaller population of under 700 Sikhs each.
The next Census was in August 2021, so I look forward to seeing the rise of Sikhism reflected therein.
It is reported that the Sikh population in Australia had increased by 75 percent in only 5 years between 2011 and 2016.
Sikhism is regarded as the fastest growing religion in Australia and the 5th largest religion following Christianity, Islam,
Sikhism is still predominantly in the Punjab state of India but exist on every inhabited continent, with the largest total immigrant population being in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
Interestingly, Canada is the country that has the highest number of Sikhs in proportion to the population in the world at 1.4 per cent of Canadas total population.
Even Niger in West Africa has about 3,000 0.2 per cent of the population, which appears to be the majority of Sikhs in West Africa for some reason.
The vast majority of Sikhs in Europe are in Western Europe, UK with about 0.68 percent of the population while Iceland had 0.03 percent of the population.
