Gove beach on Arafura Sea 

Episode 7

The trip was full of eventful little episodes like this , but we saw lots of wonderful pockets of rainforest , complete with parrots and all sorts of bird life.  After fording other small rivers and creeks, we arrived at the first aboriginal outstation.  Here I met the very old aboriginal painter, who was waiting for his supplies of bark.  However, a problem had struck him.

His tractor had run out of diesel on the beach at the next aboriginal outstation, and he asked if  we would take him there and give him some diesel.  Of course, this was no problem, so he climbed into the front seat with us, and I hoped he would tell me something about himself.  He spoke very little  English,  but his vibes were of a very gentle person.  As we drove along the track, suddenly two emus were flushed out of the bush --- and they were big ones!!  “Look at that!!” the old man cried, “ I’ll come back later and get those”.  The emus were running wildly along in the bush, almost parallel to the Toyota,  so I got a really good look at them. They were fast, but they were destined for dinner.

We eventually arrived at the next aboriginal outstation to find no-one at home.  But ,in the distance, along a beautiful, wild, sandy, hot, beach, we could see a group of people, and Andrew told me that these were the aboriginals from the out-station we had just called at, and they were gathering their native foods, which were seafood and yams etc.  We dropped the old man at his tractor and started back to the first out-station. Here we picked up a few aboriginals for the ride back to town.  When I asked them how they were going to get back, they told me they were going to take a small plane (these 4 or 6 seaters are used almost like taxis), and the aboriginal outstations have their own small airstrips

A Gove beach 

Episode 6

The next day I went over to the Art centre and bought some bark paintings, which were quite expensive. I also bought some other artefacts, but as everything was expensive, I couldn’t buy as much as I would have liked.  Then Andrew suggested that we take a trip out to one of the aboriginal outstations, as he had to deliver some bark to one of the painters.  This was for a commission he was having done for an American gallery.  This sounded like a great idea to me , but as he gathered up his aboriginal offsider, he was checking off a list……..have we got the winch ----have we got the ropes ----have  we got 20 litres of water----have we got spare diesel ?  At this point I started to get a bit nervous, after all, this was only going to be a day trip into the bush, wasn’t it?

Once again, I climbed hand-over-hand into the Toyota and off we went.  As I said, the roads are all Bauxite ( the stuff they are  mining to make aluminium and the reason Gove exists at all ) and drove for some considerable distance …the land is all flat and the trees look all the same , with a few little palms and bushes. Andrew asked his offsider “Now, where do we turn off?”   The man replied that we had to look out for Pandanus palms and the tall ant-hill.  “There it is!” shouted Andrew.  Great excitement allround , and I kept looking for a road off this landmark, but all I could see were a couple of wheel ruts and a lot of bush.  However, that didn’t deter the Toyota,  so off we drove into the practically unmarked wilderness.  The first creek we came to was a decided challenge. “Isn’t this the creek that Wills got stuck in last week?” asked Andrew.  We took to the bank at high speed, as the other side was so steep and slippery, that if you weren’t travelling fast, you could forget it. The Toyota just surfed through the creek, with the water lapping at the top of the bonnet.  Luckily for us, we came through with flying colours on the other side. Whew!!

Gove Painting 

Episode 5

 Andrew was there to meet me. What a relief it was to see him, but a bit of a shock too.  He was very tall, about 35 years old or so, with bare feet and this huge old Toyota land cruiser. He was the curator of an Aboriginal Art Centre, and a very well educated person, but it seemed unusual to see such a person wearing no shoes. However, he greeted me enthusiastically and put my gear into the Toyota , and boy, was I glad I had on my “Crocodile Dundee” clothes – cotton shirt and pants—as the climb into the Toyota was quite a hand-over-hand experience. I’ve never driven in anything so big, complete with bull bars to run down any roving wildlife.

Anyway, we went onto the aboriginal reserve area,  where I was going to stay with Andrew at his house.  On the way, we met one of the leading aboriginal figures of the region, a man whose name escapes me, but who was in a famous Australian band. Andrew introduced him to me as the person who had given me permission to be on the aboriginal land.  The people living in this area are all aboriginals as the only Europeans at this time were Andrew, his wife and children. The houses were made of galvanised iron  I think, with louvres running up and down the whole length of the walls of the houses, so they can be opened up to let the air in.  They all looked tidy from the outside, with mesh on the windows to keep out the mosquitos and flies.

The  Art Centre was pretty swept up for a facility of its kind in a remote area, complete with air-conditioning for the works of art. I think a lot of Government money, plus money from other sources, has gone into making this a unique development.

Andrew’s house was originally the Mission House, probably built in the 1920’s and  louvred from wall to ceiling. It had power and a proper toilet and there were ceiling fans.  I spent the evening, after a meal, watching videos of aboriginal corroborees, and that was very informative

“Don’t worry if you have no position: worry about making yourself worthy of one. Don’t worry if you aren’t known and admired: devote yourself to a life that deserves admiration.”
― Confucius, The Analects

This is where Gove is

Episode 4

Off  to Gove Peninsula.  I was a bit worried about this sector. I had been trying to reach the man I was going to stay with, but couldn’t get him by phone,  and the one time I did get through , I left a message with a woman who didn’t speak much  English.  Anyway, nothing ventured, nothing gained.  I took the flight from Cairns, in the afternoon, on a smallish plane,  and had a lovely scenic flight over the Great Barrier Reef – the plane flew relatively low and I could see the reef very clearly, the sea was emerald green and smooth, and the reef was a darker blue. I was so lucky with the weather, as it had rained off and on in Cairns. Then we flew over Cape York Peninsula, which is pretty drab and barren and largely uninhabited. However, one interesting thing I saw was a large circle, with smaller circles inside it.  I don’t know what it was, but it looked like some sort of target for out-of-space reconnaissance.  The crew couldn’t enlighten me, either. Then we flew over the Gulf of Carpentaria, which I seem to remember is the Arafura Sea…what a lovely smooth, pale blue,  silken colour, the sky and sea merged to become one. It was very difficult, looking at it, to recognise where we were flying…in the sky or in the sea.  Then we flew over Gove Peninsula and the terrain was all drab green with great streaks of red earth.

The airport at Gove at least had a sealed all-weather landing strip, but the airport itself, at that time  was just like you would imagine ,very basic , and the luggage was tossed out  of the plane into a wire enclosure, with no roof.  So, if it rained , you can imagine the joy of your bags getting drenched by a tropical downpour.  By now, some 20 years later, the airport has been been upgraded.  None of the roads were sealed, but were very good, as the bauxite, which the aluminium is extracted from, is very smooth, and as the weather was  still unsettled, the dust hasn’t gotten bad yet……

Kuranda North Queensland 

Episode 3

The next day was Sunday and I had booked to go on Ye Olde Train trip up to Kuranda, a small city set in the mountains inland from Cairns.  In fact, Ye Olde Train was, in fact, far  less delightful than the trains from Shorncliffe, Brisbane, which were my daily ride to school and work.   These elegant, somewhat shabby, antique, carriages were right out of a Western movie, but we didn’t even like them, admire them or appreciate them.  Who needs fancy woodwork and real leather seats  and real mirrors when you are being pulled along by a coal fuelled train, manned with real train drivers  and genuine men, who shovelled coal into them to keep them movin’ along…..

 I came back from Kuranda via the Sky Rail , in gondolas , over the top of the rainforest.  This Skyrail journey was seven and a half kilometres long, across the tops of  the mountains (the Atherton Tablelands, I think). I loved every minute of the ride – we went right over the tops of the trees, over huge mountains and gorges, waterfalls and lakes, then a spectacular ride to the getting-off point , which must have been a couple of kilometres.

The following day, Monday, I was due to fly to Gove in the afternoon, so I had to fill in Monday morning.  I took a boat ride around Cairns Harbour, what a load of junk that was.  Really, all the commentator had to describe were the naval patrol boats moored at the wharves and you can imagine how interesting that was.  And four or five different types of mangrove trees growing along the muddy reaches of “the harbour”.  At least we saw a couple of lonely crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks, and I overheard a nice little story being recounted by the boat driver to one of his friends—he was telling him that, in the week before, a tour operator had taken a load of tourists over to Green Island (a tourist resort) and had dropped them off.  The tourists came running back, saying there were crocodiles on the beach. The tour operator said “rubbish” and went and checked anyway, and, sure enough, some crocodiles had escaped from a nearby crocodile farm and were marching up the tourist beach….

All in all, I got the impression that Cairns is a nice little northern city .   I think they must have a great public relations team working for them, as the ads we see here in New Zealand are about a vibrant, exciting city, with lots to see and do. I didn’t get to any of the resorts, which judging by their photos, are truly great holiday places, in fact , tropical paradise.  

Cairns Lagoon

Episode 2

The first bus tour I took was to Port Douglas, some ninety minutes by coach from Cairns. The countryside on the trip was flat and boring, and when we hit the coast road it improved a bit, but none of it was in any way spectacular. I suspect that I am spoiled with the great scenery we have around every corner in New Zealand.  There are no surfing beaches right along the coast of the north, as the Great Barrier Reef shelters it.

I only saw half a dozen swimmers, along the miles and miles of coastline, and I suspect they were tourists.  These coastal waters are infested with the box jelly fish stingers, which can kill you, and salt water crocodiles, which have the delightful ability to stand just beneath the surface of the water, on their tippy toes, balefully watching you for up to an hour. There is no mention of this in any of the tourist guide books for the area, and I saw in the local Port Douglas newspaper that a couple of tourists had been hospitalised just that week with stinger injuries.  There are large bottles of vinegar on all the beaches, as “first aid”, as the vinegar can help neutralise the stings.

However, back to Port Douglas. It looks just like all of the other small tourist towns you see dotted along the coast of Eastern Australia. As I was on what was really a “whistlestop tour”

I didn’t get to see any of the lovely resort areas, which I am sure, would rival Bali.  I spent an hour or so looking around the shops, eating an icecream and waiting for the bus ride back to Cairns. However, I did enjoy the ride, until the bus driver, who was running late, dumped all of the tourists in the centre of Cairns instead of running them back to their  hotels, as he was supposed to..   He didn’t count on me!! All of the tourists got shoved off to find their own way back to their hotels, but I just sat there and demanded that he take me back to the apartments. He didn’t like it at all, but tough!!

To be continued…..