Queensland, Australia

The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever:

The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever:

To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
…..

to be walking meditatively
among green timber, through the grassy forest
towards a calm sea
and looking across to more of that great island
and the further tropics

Les Murray

It took about four hours to fly from Sydney to Mackay (via Brisbane), the second flight being propeller driven, with entertainment provided by a group of children who were either destined for a boot camp or a consignment of crocodile fodder for one of the Queensland amusement parks.

Then, once we got to Mackay, I had to learn very quickly that automatic cars do not need two feet, unless you want your passengers to exit via the windscreen….

We started to get to know The Sunshine State….  One leaflet I picked up exhorted us to Journey astonishingly, explaining that From iconic places to close encounters with wildlife; from adrenalin-pumping adventures to camping escapes among sandy shore, mountain gullies and colourful deserts, Queensland’s parks have something for everyone…..

I also read, in Top tips for a great Queensland holiday:  Before beginning a driving holiday, plan your trip….. 

Err, I mock not….  I did plan.  But perhaps I didn’t really take into account the scale of the map I had.  We had a great time – a fortnight of tropical delight – but my Toyota Corolla clocked 2,361 kms, much of which was on the Bruce Highway…..  Everywhere is far, in Australia.  Sarah, our younger daughter, had said she was moving to Mackay, near Brisbane… Mackay is 1,000 kms from Brisbane! 

And when you are on the Bruce Highway, the scenery only changes slowly: after miles and miles of sugar cane, you get miles and miles of scrub spiked by Eucalyptus.  Overhead, various kites and eagles float in and out of your vision.  In the bush, occasional kangaroos vie for attention with various cattle.  Then, for a while, you see the sea…..  And every so often you cross a river, or a creek, or a bridge, or a creek…. Dead Man’s Creek, Alligator Creek, Crocodile Creek, Chinaman’s Creek, Five Mile Creek, Nine Mile Creek….. [And be aware, the Queensland Government  issue this warning… Swimming in creeks, lakes, rivers and dams is fun, but there are hidden dangers, which can cause serious injuries……  Be careful. It is not the same as swimming in a pool…..  Look out for crocodiles and other dangerous marine animals.]

Queensland has much to offer – snakes, spiders, crocodiles, cassowaries – but there is plenty of space.  It is nearly 8 times the size of the whole of the United Kingdom , though the UK has nearly 14 times as many people (which means that the UK has a population density 88 times that of Queensland).

So it takes a little getting used to!  But Eungella, an hour or so from Mackay, or the smug-druggling marina, or the historic Eimeo Pacific Hotel - an enviable reputation: “lunch with a million-dollar view“. It is has been in the same family for over 70 years; We acclimatize, gently perspiring in the heat, and topping up with 50 Lashes….

We drift up to Eungella, seeing no platypuses, but enjoying the rain forest, the views down the Pioneer River valley, and swimming in the Wheel of Fire Falls, up the Finch Hatton Gorge. 

We drive to Cardwell at the Beach, from where we take the forest drive and hike up to the Attie Creek Falls, before dropping down to the Spa Pool, where the water bubbles and swirls in the rain…..

Next stop is Cairns, via the Atherton Tableland, and the Waterfalls circuit, and some extraordinary fig trees.  We are looked after in great style by friends just off the once gated Gillies Highway, their garden filled with Honey Eaters and Sunbirds, their fridge filled with beer…..

Then Port Douglas, where the Sunday Market says buy me! With every hat, shirt, and honeyed banana…..  

Then Daintree, where the crocodiles are camera shy (I learnt to my cost that Crocodile Watching lacked a comma), 

but where our guide, whose grandmother settled here in 1901, exuded a certain local authority, especially when indicating a three metre long python….

We then went island hopping, from Green Island, a coral atoll off Cairns teeming with Chinese, and Common Noddies (no less beautiful for this), to Magnetic Island, so called because the buses suck all the metal from your pockets….  To Hamilton Island and the deluxe Whitsunday group.

Here, I have to say, as a celebrité manqué, I felt most at home.  Little reminds me more of home than a view of the tropics at sundown, palms swishing to the wingbeats of hungry cockatoos, fruit bats gently darkening the dusk, beers served in the middle of a swimming pool from a thatched bar with underwater stools….

We took a day trip to Whitehaven beach.  There was a storm breaking on the horizon, and I was struggling to squeeze myself into a stinger suit, but, even so, this was the most beautiful beach I’ve ever seen…..

Seven kilometres long, and is entirely squeaky white silica.  The sea is blue, and the beach is fringed with palms – there are NO buildings! 

The storm faded; sunshine broke through; we swam without getting stung. Then it was time to board our cruiser again, and leave the scene to the magic of a tropical evening.

On the way back to the marina, our skipper pointed out a house amongst the forest near to Catseye Beach, George Harrison’s house.  He used to like playing his guitar in the hut in the garden….

As a lifelong Beatles’ fan I was fascinated, even though George Harrison died (I cannot believe this) fifteen years ago.  He and his wife Olivia came here in the 1980s, when the island was undeveloped, and made themselves a hideaway – natural materials, thatched roofs, swimming pool through the lounge, no-one else around (George had been traumatised by Beatle mania and sought isolation).  Ironically, this beautiful refuge was eventually spoiled by the cruise boats going past reciting, And on your left you can see George Harrison’s house…..

However, after George’s death, the house, named Letsbeavenue (with thanks to Tommy Cooper) was left to decline, nature reclaiming it slowly, until a year or two ago it was sold for $8.5 million, though the sale was not without hitches.  The prospective buyer refused to accept sub-lease clauses imposed by the owners of the island, Hamilton Island Enterprises Limited…..

Which may perhaps explain why the Whitsunday islands are as close to paradise as I will ever get.  Despite the developments, they retain exclusivity.  Since George set up a retreat here, Nicole Kidman has followed suit, and, recently, Taylor Swift stayed for a while, befriending a Cockatoo and playing to a select 100 at the Yacht Club.

This is a special place to stay.  The Qualia Resort has apartments with private pools and personal butlers (at £1,000 a night B & B!)  We opted for the more modest Reef View Hotel and had a stunning view of palm fringed tropical seas from our balcony, as well as complimentary use of kayaks and sailboats, paddle boards and snorkeling gear.  

The top place to dine is the Yacht Club, designed by Walter Barda and opened in 2009, splendidly perched above the Marina with breathtaking views across Dent Passage.  Alternatively you could spend the evening at Italian-style Romano’s, or at the Marina Tavern, a lively place to take the family. 

The Whitsundays won’t be the same as when George and Olivia first set foot here, invitees to the Australian Grand Prix by their friend Jack Brabham, but they still aren’t far from paradise…..

Ah well, ‘tis good to dream….  Back to Airlie Beach, a quick wheel change (slow puncture – it happens) and thence back to Mackay, and more dog walking at sunset on the beach…. 

Les Murray knows a thing or two. It could be a lot worse, especially when the sun shines and you feel that it's good.....

To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,

The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever:

Les Murray

 

Still my guitar gently weeps…..

Secret River, Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia

Swinging the Blues....

The river revealed itself, teasingly, never more than a bend at a time, calm between its walls of rock and bush…..  One reach resembled all the others: cliffs, a fringe of glossy green mangroves, green water.  Even the skyline gave no clues, each bulge of high land like the others, striped with shadows from clouds passing in front of the sun.

Kate Grenville:  Secret River

It was dark when we got off the train from Sydney Central.  We faltered down from the station in Brooklyn to the jetty, and stumbled aboard the Hawkesbury River Boat, almost literally into the arms of Neil, the only taxi driver left on the river (there were three, but one sank and one caught fire…. the boats that is, not the drivers.)  Without great ceremony the engine spluttered into life and we took off, into an almost limitless blackness, punctuated only by occasional green and red navigation lights.

Once out of the marina, Neil put his (good) foot down (his other leg sported a bloody bandage, the outcome of a work-related injury….) and the boat reared up like a colt heading for home.  Jittering across the dark waters, I was reminded of William Thornhill’s first encounter with the Hawkesbury River just over two hundred years ago.  Despite the difference in the boats, the river itself cannot have changed much. 

My brother gave me Secret River for my birthday, so I might know more about his secret retreat.  It is a story of the first settlers on the Hawkesbury River, with William Thornhill, a deported Londoner, his wife and children, taking centre stage, with a supporting cast of other Europeans who have staked their claims on the land, and a chorus Aboriginal peoples, who haunt the story, and indeed history.

Kate Grenville’s great-great-great grandfather, Solomon Wiseman, was the model for William Thornhill, and his name is commemorated in Wiseman’s Ferry…  The novel is an enlightening, though harrowing, story.  Life was hard, but the way the white fungus of deportees spread across the land, infecting the natural world, is most disturbing.  Yeah, if it had been me trying to live a life, I don’t suppose I would have behaved very differently, but it’s not comfortable reading….

However, even having read the book, I wasn’t prepared for what we were skimming across.  It is vast…..  Somehow I had envisaged a river like the Thames at Henley, perhaps a little more selvatico?  But this was something else, more like the Tagus than the Thames.  Or it is something else now.  A million years ago it might have resembled my expectation, but, like Port Jackson, this is a Ria, a river estuary, that, following eustatic change, has become more sea than river in some respects…..

In the night the occasional glim indicates habitation amongst the forest.  Eventually flashing lights direct us to my bro’s communal jetty, and Neil pilots us to a standstill.  Then, with a flash of the credit card, a churning disappearance into the night.

In the morning, we are laughed at by Kookaburras, who clearly feel that we are there to feed them, then we climb the rocks to the top of Bar Point, from where the convolutions of the river begin to make sense.  We are less than 100 kms from Sydney, but this is another world. 

Mangroves paddle at the shore, unkempt vegetation straggles up the steep slopes, chattered over by a variety of birdlife – Rosellas, Magpies, Crows, and, above them all, eagles wafting on the updrafts.  There are neighbours.  And there are no neighbours.  

A house that is left unattended may crumble away, hollowed by termites and overcome by plant life.  

It is surprising how many dwellings have been created here, and how some are occupied by coenobites and others by commuters to the metropolis and beyond…..

We could have stayed much longer, but not this time.  We are due upriver, to the Blue Mountains, so called after the haze of eucalypt oil that hangs in the air.  Past St Albans, Windsor, and Richmond, we leave the river (which, in the form of the Nepean, rises in these hills) and weave up the Bells Line of Road into the Hawkesbury Highlands.

We travel through Bilpin, and up to the Blue Mountains Botanic Garden, Mount Tomah.  This is glorious, beautifully organised, and, at 1,000 metres above sea level (and also just over 100 kms from Sydney) we get our first taste of autumn, 

both in yellowing leaves but also in the Bilpin cider that lubricates our lunch….. 

Looking out at the view, it is (paradoxically) inevitable that I compare it with home.  The United Kingdom is about the 50^th most densely populated country in the world (c255 people per square kilometre); Australia is about the 250^th, with just over 3 people per km².  When you think that England, rather than the UK, has approximately 433 per km²  (which is about 1,000 per square mile, and is about the same density as the city of Sydney) and that our home is barely 25 miles from the centre of London, this view across virtually untouched forest is a wonder to behold.

Not that the Blue Mountains are totally free from interference…..  We are in easy reach of the five million or so who populate the Sydney area, and the scenery, and trekking possibilities, are strong attractions, so there are buses and viewpoints, and cable cars, and hotels, many of which conglomerate around Katoomba, with Echo Point and The Three Sisters being the big draws.

Here, or hereabouts, I think is where I once caught an accidental glimpse of Ant and Dec hosting I’m a celebrity, get me out of here…  with some fly-bitten also-rans eating live bugs on the valley floor.  Nightmare.  But they weren’t there when we were!

Not far from here, at Medlow Bath, there is the Hydro Majestic Hotel, initially the Belgravia, founded in 1902; it has a stunning Art Deco foyer, and wonderful views overlooking the Megalong Valley.  Here you could have tea (High Tea Selection of finger sandwiches, petit pastries, homemade scones, clotted cream, homemade jam and your choice of tea & coffee $55.00 per person weekday $65.00 per person Saturday & Sunday) or stay for dinner (Experience the gourmet delights with dinner in the Wintergarden which showcases the fresh seasonal produce sourced from local suppliers within the Blue Mountains area), 

but once, at the end of WWII, its major attraction was the Saturday night dance.  Sydneysiders took the train up for the evening, and just maybe didn't return ‘til Sunday. This was how my sister-in-law Steph’s parents met: she was a nurse in Sydney, and he was recuperating from being a prisoner-of-war in Singapore’s notorious Changi jail. For him, after internment by the Japanese, the Blue Mountains must have been paradise.

Times change.  Pause for thought..... 

This is a wonderful world, but I can’t help but feel a twinge of guilt when I notice that Katoomba is the home of the Gundungurra Tribal Council Aboriginal Corporation.  The Gundungurra people inhabited this part of the Blue Mountains for millennia before white faces appeared on the scene, with our zip wires and 4x4s.  Strange to think again of the population density around here: you would think that in Australia, of all places, there was room for everyone?

I take a leaf out of Jack Davis’s book, Black Life….

Loving

What is living

Is it moonlight over water

soft laughter in the evening

a dog walking his master

or a rainbow’s curve

Looking at old photographs

lasting friendships

honeyed lips and fresh washed hair

If this is so then

I’m in love with life

And pause for thought....

*     *     *     *     *

Then it really is time to go.  There are dangerous creatures about....

And we have a 'plane to catch. 

Take her away, Skipper.....

Queensland here we come!

*     *     *     *     *


Well, I never felt more like runnin' away
But why should I go 'cause I couldn't stay
Without you, you got me swingin' the blues

(with apologies to Melvin Endsley, 1956)