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The mango doesn’t roll far from the tree.

This evening i went to the Cooktown Hotel for a meal. Fewer tourists and more locals. I had brains. I’ve always loved sheep’s brains and these were exquisite and I told the chef that my mother would have been proud of him, so delicate and tasty was his dish. He was chuffed. Pretty cool to see people chuffed.

Esmond, who lives in a remote community some 30 ks away, graciously introduced himself and we discussed the Cowboys and the delicacy and commitment of Craig Bellamy and his garnering a ‘team’ of players. We discussed Donald Trump and Esmond’s estimation of the folly of testosterone-filled men. We discussed being lead to the wrong places by politicians. We discussed the allure of Sally, the quite beautiful blond haired white as white skinned bar attendant and how she is admired and the limits that are placed on that admiration. We discussed the different languages that Koori people from Mossman speak - an exchange he had with another young indigenous man, saw them both subtly articulating the difference in words for footwear they both knew but had different words for and they both had different words for a deaf man who had some significance to them. 

Esmond also spoke of the importance of taking a cab home and the inherent responsibility of the driver. He was quite poetic when he spoke of it and he was deeply engaging as he spoke of it as a thing of grave importance. He spoke of accidents that had happened when a dozen would sit in the tray of a ute. The power in the two hands of the driver seemed to him, an awesome responsibility.

Esmond, when speaking of culture, and he included the Chinese and others in this, said, “A mango doesn’t roll far from the tree”. Esmond was a very gracious man and an engaging raconteur. I had a really lovely evening.

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Pushing further (or is that farther?) north

Travel up the hill to Millaa Millaa on the Atherton Tableland and enter a paradise. The temperature was an exquisite 18º for a while there. Valhalla. Beautiful lush farming land with rain forest in between. A favoured environment. I could live here.

Stumbled across a wind farm in Ravenshoe. Must admit I’m a big fan, unlike Joe (living on a preposterously privileged, lifetime politician’s pension/super/whatever it’s called, arrogant, cigar smoking, ‘poor people don’t have cars’ [WTF!] now living the high life in the US [where everybody has a car, the poor too because the US public transport system is so pathetic they have to] wanker) Hockey. Sorry you think they look ugly Joe. I think otherwise and you have the sensitivity of the Marquis de Sade.

Very well chosen spot. The wind, oh, the wind. A brilliant thing.

After a kip in a Mareeba Park (shit sleep the night before) and refreshed, it was off to Cooktown on the Mulligan Highway, where the road is straight and long, making its way through exquisite vistas of a vast, lonely landscape. Rivers and creeks filled with sand then out of the blue, a water-filled river. The most populous creature in this country must surely be termites. The nests started on this road; huge edifices, like a tall person in a fat suit covered in mud.

Ensconced in the the Seaview Motel in Cooktown and dinner at the Sovereign Resort. Seafood basket too greasy but tasty. The waitress, one of the young international working travellers wasn’t human. Didn’t e gage with her customers at all and I felt like i wasn’t a person; I felt like I was some inanimate thing.

A mixture of bad and good luck the next day. The sunset riverbed tour wasn’t operating because I was he only one who wanted to go on it; the museum closed at 1.00 pm about a minute after I arrived; the cafe at the Botanical gardens where i went to have lunch wasn’t serving lunch (the wrong season?). The views from the Grassy Hill Lookout were quite spectacular though and the short walk to Finch bay, a lonely beach if ever there was one, was a delight.

Beware the danger of the gardens!

The history of Cook’s getting marooned here for a time is a fascinating one. I picked up a volume by Iain McCalman called The Reef A Passionate History, twelve ‘extraordinary’ tales of connection with the Great Barrier Reef, Cook’s being the first. Looking forward to getting through it all. It’s fine stuff from the start.

A finer experience for dinner tonight but more in the next chapter.

This blog is almost three weeks behind because the internet is a sad, sad thing on the road. I’m currently in Broome. I’ll do my best to catch up. 

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Once a jolly swagman camped by a croc infested river

Des left to return home today and I potter. Marked some student work, wrote to students with notes, did washing, had fish and chips for lunch, had a 2 hour kip and dined at the one pub open because it was the labour day holiday. I left the next day, not having touched a mango.

The Bruce Highway, at least from here north, is farcical. Lots of roadwork being done but one imagines this should have been done decades ago. Cane fields to the east and low mountains to the left. Despite the road, there is beautiful scenery to be seen.

In Innisfail, first night in the swag, by the river that I’ve since been informed has crocs in it (the caravan park people didn’t mention a thing) is the most uncomfortable night’s sleep I’ve ever had.

Went to dinner at the RSL. There were 3 customers there and i was one of them. Innisfail! A hopping’ town.

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Generational lament, fear and disappointment

Airlie Beach, just up the road a bit, is chock-a-block with high rise and drowning in tourists with nary a park to be had, even for a motorbike it’s so full. When i was there in 1977, there was a motel as i recall. A quiet.lovely place. No more. That motel may still be there, added to with new construction, a piece of the past struggling to be remembered. Another time, Airlie, another time long past.

We ride the short distance to Shute Harbour where the destruction by Cyclone Debbie is evident. Ironic (or merely coincidental?) that one of the loveliest parts of the country - the stepping off point to the Whitsundays - should be so dangerous. 

We arrive in Bowen for the night where our motel proprietress speaks of the power of cyclones in the area. In Cairns, during Cyclone Yasi, she tells us, 2000 body bags were ordered to be sent to Cairns. What was expected was a fearful storm, which it was but fortuitously didn’t end in the death toll estimated. 

A drink at the local pub is in order and we are served by young foreign workers. It is a fine scheme, as i reckon it, giving young travellers, with a finite time to stay, the opportunity to see the world and earn a few bob in the process. We are served by a Spaniard and an English woman and a group of English and Irish travellers come in for an afternoon drink. They’ve been fruit picking - eggplant and chillies and other delicacies. One very gracious and quite beautiful young English woman, took the time to speak to us about her travels. I would so, “Oh, to be young and travelling” but I’m old and travelling. The world is not a bad place to be in my shoes.  

It’s grand final night at the local pub, the Cowboys, the local heroes against the Melbourne Storm. It promises to be a wild night but ends for the northerners in disappointment. Completely outplayed. Pretty silent for a grant final. 

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To the coast and north

First stop out of Carnarvon Gorge is Rolleston, for fuel, where this chap, Brian, in the trike with the dog happened into the fuel stop too. He’s been doing this for years, ever since he had a kidney transplant, ceaselessly riding, raising money to fight kidney disease. He was there a moment then off.

We ride on to Mackay for the night and struggle to find a place to eat. My penchant for seafood isn’t satisfied and no one we asked - waiters, cabdrivers - could tell us where the best seafood was. We settled for a place too fine for our budgets. Nikki, our waitress, whose last day it is (am i going to meet only people with endings?) is off to study nursing. 

Mackay seems a young person’s town. It was filled with them that evening; vibrant, happy, partying people. Must be a town with a future.

In the morning we have breakfast by the waterside, where our waitress, a Ukrainian Australian speaks of the relationship between Ukraine and Russia, saying they are the same people but corruption, in government and other criminals, keeps them separate. Next to our breakfast stop is possibly the best seafood restaurant in Mackay. Sigh.

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The Gorgeous

Carnarvon Gorge is a beautiful place. At the Wilderness Lodge, cabins, innovative structures in their materials, are set sufficiently apart from one another, to give ample opportunity for Des and I to talk into the night about whatever nonsense or world changing ideas we may come up with, without disturbing anyone close by.

A short walk takes us to the rock pool where i swam with turtles (well I saw them dive into the pool from a distance and didn’t see them again) and dive bombing children. On the way there, this gorgeous blossom is growing. For all I know it may be a weed but one man’s weed is another’s treasured flower.

Boolimba Bluff is 6.4 k walk, much of it uphill. It’s worth it, despite my discovering calf muscles I had no idea human bodies possessed. Again, the heat played its discouraging part. We are odd travelling companions, Des and I. He’s capable at walking uphill and I’m hopeless and he’s hopeless at walking downhill but I’m not bad at it. In truth, I found the uphill walk very challenging and feared i might have to abandon as I progressed so very slowly. Relatively healthy i may be. Fit I ain’t.

The ancientness of this land and the massive power of the movement of tectonic plates and erosion are wonders to consider. We saw but a small section of what is there; it was impressive nonetheless.

Back at the Lodge for an abundance of g &ts and dinner, we meet travellers and converse about their lives and ours. Not all travellers are hugely interesting. (Note to self: take care in conversation.)

It used to be little old ladies one had to stop the traffic for. This time it was for an echidna, only the second I’ve ever seen.

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Before The Gorgeous

Pity Debbie, whose last day it is at the smaller Caltex in Chinchilla. She is being let go after nine and half years, as the shop closes and only a ‘pay at the bowser’ facility will remain. There was a particular sadness in her telling me this. Debbie has some years to go before retirement. She might find work, she says, cleaning at the local nursing care company. Her search may be a common one for uneducated people in the country; anywhere. It’s bitter nonetheless. 

We ride, Des and I, heat averse as we are, as if we are fleeing demons, opening up on the leg from Injune. The heat lived up to its promise. Stinking hot on the long Dalby - Chinchilla - Roma - Injure - Carnarvon Gorge day in the saddle. Road trains are long - anywhere between 36 and 52 metres - and are a treat to overtake. Des is nearly taken out by some fool in a sedan coming towards us, overtaking on a crest with nowhere to duck back into his or her side of the road. Braking and obscenities from us and piercing the air with middle fingers. The road to Roma is memorable for that alone. 

I’ve not been to Roma since 1977, when as part of the Queensland Theatre Company’s theatre education team, I, with three other young actors and a tour manager, played the town to secondary school children. There was an outdoor cinema then. Neither time nor inclination to re-find it, if it still exists. I buy a pair of swimming togs and a floppy hat and we push on. 

The Carnarvon Gorge Wilderness Lodge is a gorgeous place. Quiet. Young English travellers as staff - very friendly and loving the place. Wine’s not too bad. I think I’m gonna like it here, to quote a not so brilliant musical.

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The heat is on

Des has chores to complete so we agree to meet in Toowoomba in the mid-afternoon.

I potter and come across a stately 19th century home, Glengarren, once grand, then abandoned and left vandalised and virtually destroyed, now restored, outside of Warwick. Jackie Howe, the legendary shearer after whom the singlet is named, sheared in the sheds here. It must have been a grand thing in its day. Shearing sheds, croquet on the front lawn as the servants fetched sandwiches. It sits off the Warwick - Toowoomba road.

From Glengarren, the distant, unheard traffic moves silently east and west between those two cities. The phenomenon is a pleasing one and something science might explain to me. Yes, I appreciate that I cannot hear sounds too distant - from another town for instance -  but I can see these vehicles and it’s rather magical that no sound reaches me from them. Or if I wait long enough, will they? Like hearing a cricket bat strike a ball later than seeing the ball struck. A slight delay that, yes, proves that sound travels slower than light (primary school science, of course) but the experience of it is a singular joy. Then again, I may just have crap hearing.

I’m in Toowoomba early and decide to visit the house, at 5 Wooldridge St, that I was brought home to after my birth too many years ago and lived till i was three.

Doesn’t look like it’s changed much. Behind it, I believe there is a rather stunning view. Houses around it revery flash indeed. It was then, in 1954, the humble cottage residence of the Toowoomba High School maths and science teacher, my dad. Still pretty humble. Perhaps my penchant for riding motorcycles around curves was germinated in those tender years. Feels like the whole family must have felt they were on a listing ship when you look,at that photo.

Des and I get away late in the afternoon and rock into Dalby in 39º heat. I can go no further as the glaring western sun is giving me a headache. We’re directed to the only motel in town with rooms (is there some racket going on here?) and eat at the recommended establishment, Col O’Shea’s Windsor Hotel. It’s sage advice. The food is beautifully prepared, the staff attentive, some of them international travellers on work visas and they tell us of their adventures over a pre-dinner beer. One local, Sally, has a tattoo on her left forearm. It is an aspiration about hope, a wise saying. She got it, she said, when she was in an unhappy place sometime in the past. Pity young people and depression. A trial for the too many who suffer it. Sally’s tattoo is a permanent reminder that she has a less troubled future. I hope she is more secure now. Certainly her attendance on us didn’t reveal anything but the professionalism and friendliness of her work and the grace of her agreeing to speak to us, even briefly, of unhappier times for her.

We drank too much, Des and I. Not a bright move for the next day’s long ride in the Qld heatwave.

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A run-in with the constabulary.

The aspiration was to meet with Des at his home in Hastings Point just south of Coolangatta but bush fires had closed the Pacific H’Way and I ended up taking the New England H’Way.

At Singleton, a gendarme pulled me over for a random drug test. The constable was a personable man of indeterminate years between 30 and 40 something (I guess) who seemed less interested in the drug test than he was about talking about my bike. He, too, has a Kawasaki 1400 GTR and rides it down to the snow each year. He asked about my assessment of its features. We concurred on its riding comfort and its being a demon (or divine, I’m not certain which) on the open road but that it indeed was a truck about town. Referring to my swag on the back he asked about my journey. When I advised him it was Day 1 of a several week journey around Australia, to Cooktown in the north, across Qld then up to Darwin, over to Broome and down the coast to Perth, across to Kalgoorlie and Coolgardie then however through SA and Victoria to home, “I’m so envious,” he said. I do think, despite his going through the motions (which seemed a little cavalier if I do say so myself) that he just wanted to talk bikes. And something about that pleases. I passed the test because I don’t live an especially interesting life.

The night ends up at Tattersals Hotel Motel, a shit hole in Glen Innes. The room smelt of cigarette (they banned smoking in rooms years ago but you can’t get it out of the furniture or the carpet) and the bloke at reception had the people skills of a cupboard. Pardon the mess of tenses in this paragraph but I eat somewhere else.

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Motoring in the country

Winslow Homer has been chased and found and a new chapter, a new chase begins.

A second bout, like some not unpleasant disease, of long service leave has come upon me and I’ve the last term of the academic year off, with the aim of riding my motorbike anti-clockwise around Australia. The rationale for that direction is to avoid the wet season in the Northern Territory.

But the leaving of teaching brings with it a grieving. My beloved Year 12s have now effectively gone. Some of these students I’ve worked with since they were tiny poppets in Year 7 and 8; we've had years of connection. If teaching is about relationship and for me it most assuredly is, this professional meaning has been ripped from me and I feel it acutely; the family has fractured. Each year this happens and each year i find it as emotionally difficult as the last. It leaves me flat and puzzled and weeping, as any departure does. So we return the following year and the process begins again and ends the same way. I am blessed of course. My students are gracious and loving and attentive and caring. All that is best, all that is admirable in people. Seeing them off to a wider, freer world is what must be done but it hurts that this aspect of my meaning, this connection with real people, has gone. 

And so I have these several weeks to travel and see the parts of the country I haven’t. To spend a few bob in country towns, to savour landscapes I’ve not savoured, to enjoy the sensuality of motorcycle riding and have conversations with people I’ve yet to meet. I go with my family’s blessing though with their apprehension for the vulnerability of a 15,000 km journey on a motorcycle and perhaps their envy, though if that is so, they have been gracious enough both not to state it and not to protest my absence for some two months. It is a time, I imagine, of deep reflection, 

And I don’t imagine it will be a breeze. Will I cope with my own company? Here we go.

I will journal, if there is such a verb. Surely not. I shall ‘keep a journal’. For that I acknowledge Charlotte Mackenzie, a dear student of English; a young woman  with a delicate and considering heart whom I taught last year. Charlotte gave me a hard-backed volume with a touching dedication. Much of what I write in that journal will appear in this blog. 

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On the Road to Delungra

Off the road from Bingara about 15 kilometres before Delungra, just west of Inverell, roughly in central New South Wales, a gravel path meanders, mirroring, as intended, the shape of the Rainbow Serpent, until, after passing reflection stations along the way, it reaches a tall yet modest, stone plinth bearing a plaque. At the base of the stone, encircling it, dried, native wildflowers and feathers have been placed. This is the memorial to the Myall Creek massacre.

In 1838, there at Myall Creek Station, a group of some twenty-eight aboriginal men, women and children, Wirrayaraay people, were savagely slaughtered by European settlers in the mistaken belief these aborigines were responsible for the killing of the settlers’ cattle. The history is a fascinating one and has captured my imagination for years but sat idly yet nigglingly there in the back of my mind without my having engaged with it in any detail. One of those, ‘I must get around to looking into that’ things.

On a recent ride, having spent the night in Bingara (of which, more in another post) I took this road on a whim and stumbled, as it were, on the memorial.  There was no one there but me that morning. All I heard was the song of the occasional bird and a light wind in the trees. It’s a lonely, quiet place which adds to its dignity, as it affords time for peaceful reflection on a history that was anything but that. I was struck by what it shared with the 9/11 memorial in New York. That American memorial is public and vast, as water cascades into the abyss in the centre of the bases of two huge buildings. It’s very moving as visitors reflect on the actions of an almost unfathomable hatred. Revenge for Western imperialism, interference and decadence, its perpetrators might say.

So it is at Myall Creek that revenge was the motive. Fascinatingly, after much back and forth through the courts, most of the perpetrators of the Myall Creek massacre were tried, found guilty and executed by hanging. The first time in Australia’s then young European history that whitefellas had been successfully tried for the killing of blackfellas. There were many other massacres on either side, with far greater numbers than at Myall Creek; part of the frontier wars that lasted the best part of 150 years from the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 until the 1930s, as yet unacknowledged by the Australian War Memorial in Canberra as legitimately waged warfare, from which to honour the fallen.

As I left the memorial to wander slowly back along the path of the serpent, the gentlest rain fell for the briefest time. A coincidence only but it was convenient to imagine it suggested weeping, in the same way that in New York, the cascading water is the unstoppable wailing of the grieving. So vastly different in scale but so similar in dignity.

Quiet weeping and shaking one’s head in puzzlement.

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Homer’s Weatherbeaten.

On view at The Portland Museum of Art.

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The model for Weatherbeaten, though the sea was calmer on my visit and the tide differed.

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The Episcopalian church opposite Winslow Homer's studio. The architecture here is fascinating.

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The studio from the back and to the side. Or is it the front and the previous post should have spoken of his back yard? Whatever, to use a slang yet eloquent Americanism.

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Homer's studio from the bottom of the front yard. An impressive view from here and from his front verandah.

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Ironically, Sharon who took this photo is petrified of snakes. At the fireplace in Winslow Homer's studio. On the mantle, the sign he would put outside in an attempt to discourage visitors when he worked.