Port Douglas and beyond

Sunday 1st November Daintree River and Cape Tribulation
Before I go into the day trip north to the ‘wild’ lands beyond the Daintree River, a quick reference back to the ‘Habitat’ centre. I forgot to tell you about ‘lunch with the lorikeets’. What was advertised as ‘a delicious hot and cold buffet in our Wetlands restaurant where you can interact with water birds, curlews, lorikeets ( a small multicoloured parrot), cockatoos and a host of other bird life soon turned into the avian version of the Battle of the Little Big Horn – and guess who were the Sioux! The advert was a little economical with the truth in that the restaurant really was in the middle of the Wetlands area and so accessible to any of the bird life that was hungry, mischievous or both. The food was really nice and in generous portions, which it had to be given that you were lucky if you had two thirds of what you put on to your plate. It served as a cheap way of feeding the birds and entertaining those of us who saw what was coming and ‘shooed’ the birds on to other people’s tables. One couple shovelled huge amounts on to their plates, found a table, went off to get drinks and returned to find three egrets ( a small heron) settling down to their buffet – staff did try to shoo them off but the birds were obviously used to this so just feigned going away until the staff moved on to another table. I heard a child wail ‘ it’s got my steak !’ and sure enough an ibis had slipped its beak under his arm and off it went. How good this was for the visitor’s digestion I don’t know for as well as having to have eyes in the back of your head, you had to have them in the top as well to be alert to the dive-bombing parrots. The lorikeets? Well , they didn’t turn up! They must have got well stuffed at ‘breakfast with the birds’. Come to think of it I should have seen the warning signs when I arrived earlier – shell-shocked visitors being loaded onto coaches and driven away moaning ‘never again, never again’. I’d have asked for my money back if I hadn’t had so much fun!

North beyond Port Douglas the country runs out of being ‘nice’ and starts to take on some of the challenges of the Northern Territory. I had signed up for a day trip to the Daintree National Park ( which includes the Greater Daintree World Heritage Rain Forest) in a four-wheel driven monster that was a cross between a truck and a coach. It was driven by Patrick, a cheerful Aussie who assured us of ‘a real Aussie day out’ including a ‘real Aussie barbie’ under the canopy in the rain forest. I was a little alarmed to see that Patrick had only two fingers left on his right hand, and wondered whether or not ‘croc’ feeding had been part of an earlier tour! In the end the tour was a little bit cotton woolish compared to my adventures in the Northern Territory but was very enjoyable none the less. We travelled for about an hour along the winding Captain Cook Highway to Mossman, a small town founded on sugar cane and timber, though no timber is cut any more because it is a protected area. The section of road between Mossman and the Daintree River hugs the coast between Rocky Point and the fabulously named Wonga Beach to give both spectacular views and some heart stopping moments as Patrick swung the monster perilously close to the edge – I’m sure deliberately! ‘A little near the edge there, folks’, he beamed. The Daintree River is another monster which runs out to the sea at Cape Kimberley, and alongside the aptly named Snapper Island which is clearly in the shape of a huge crocodile. At the River, Patrick shoves us into a boat and disappears, promising us cheerfully that he will see us across the other side (he is catching the ferry) if we are not swept out to sea or the boat is attacked by crocs. The pilot of the boat takes us on a one hour meander up and across the river in search of wildlife. It is distinctly absent , and we have to be satisfied with the glimpse of a fish easting another fish – I missed this – and a green snake hiding in a tree – I saw a bit of it. I felt a bit sorry for the pilot and the others in the boat ( some of whom have come all the way from Cairns for the day – an hour before I got picked up) as he kept saying ‘ well just along here usually lives a big croc called Albert ‘ but of course Albert is not at home today. I begin to think about Peter Pan and wonder if Patrick is aware of any ticking in his vicinity. I resolve to count his fingers when we reach the other side. We try all the known croc hidey-holes but they are all conspicuous by their absence. Some people spot some ‘logodyles’ but that joke soon wears thin. At last, as it is getting a bit hard to bear not seeing anything, we reach the other side. A grinning Patrick comes to meet us. He still has all his fingers, but it is only 10 o’clock. From the ferry point we climb steeply into the Daintree Rain Forest. The contrast with the Northern territory is stark. Incredible greenery – verdant is the only word that truly describes it – rich in variation, enclosed, humid, and occupying only 1% of 1% of Australia’s land mass! Over 20,000 years ago rain forest covered one third of Australia – but its demise cannot be blamed on the settlers ( white or indigenous), but can be blamed on global temperature changes. A mini ice age was followed by rapid rises in dry temperatures and the delicate eco balance could not cope with it. Australia’s remaining rain forests and mangrove swamps are all in a narrow band of land that hugs the North and East coast, squeezed between the seas and the Great Diving Range of mountains. And to cap it all, along came the European settlers and cut swathes of it down anyway! There was not much luck for the rain forest creatures either as the watchword of the day was ‘ if it moves, shoot it; if it stands still, cut it down!’ One of the points we did pick up was that rain forest soil is not very good – what the rain forest is good at is recycling; everything that falls is used to produce growth. The early farmers looked at the 30 to 40 foot trees and thought we can grow stuff there – no they couldn’t. The things that are successful – eg sugar cane – are kept going by chemical fertilisers.
That brings me to pigs! How you might well ask. Well, the idea of the early settlers was to introduce species from Europe that they were familiar with. Remember the rabbits? The pigs were ok to start with but then started making a bolt for freedom – well , the convicts got theirs so it only seems fair in a way. There are now more feral wild pigs in Australia than there are people! 20 million and growing. I don’t want to dwell on the sex life of pigs particularly, but if you will allow me to mix up my examples they breed like rabbits. Only they are bigger and more destructive, and have become a huge problem. They are serious threat to habitats, including the rain forests, across Australia. Forget global warming, try global ‘porking’ ( if that doesn’t sound too rude – I did say I wouldn’t mention the sex life of pigs!). Patrick, our fount of information – we had perfected asking him questions on straight bits of road told us that someone had suggested hunting them down and when he had stopped laughing and reminded them of the size of Australia he did say that if 80% of the pigs were slaughtered tomorrow they would be back to the same numbers within two years! Get your head round that one!
We spent an hour at the Daintree Discovery Centre, which is like a ‘beginners guide’ to the Rain Forest. It was a real forest section that had had walkways etc placed strategically to enable guided tours to take place. We climbed the 26 metre tower – good for me – to look at the tops of the canopy. I was disappointed not to find David Attenborough there, whispering…
‘Here, high in the Daintree Rain Forest, a group of tourists is witnessing the natural behaviour of Australanicus Patrickus ,or as he is commonly known, the Two Fingered Driver. Australanicus Patrickus is a solitary creature which has a fierce territorial rivalry with Ignoramus Pacificus, the Single-Digit Sloth. Both creatures are only found in this part of Australia, and are sometimes seen gesticulating furiously at each other as they pass close by on one of the many forest tracks ’
Our actual rain forest guide David did his best to put us off coming to live in the rain forest – clearly wanted it all for himself – and following a dire warning about the 80-90% humidity in the wet season waxed lyrically for twenty minutes of our allotted hour about the Southern Cassowary , a threatened flightless bird about the size of an ostrich but with shorter legs, and in particular delighted in showing us a ceramic model of a ‘cassowary shit’, from which he could identify what the bird had had for breakfast, where it had been, whether it had been properly toilet trained, and finally whether or not it was being pursued by predators at the precise moment of deposit. This was the perfect precursor to lunch which was ten minutes down the road, but if we had stayed at the centre much longer might have been regurgitated fifteen minutes later.
The ‘barbie’ was good as Patrick had promised. I must confess to not being the greatest fan of eating giant slabs of burnt flesh in the open, and as my family know well am a major hazard anywhere near barbecue equipment, but this worked. For a start it was not a ‘me Tarzan, me cook Barbie (what would Ken say!); you Jane, you serve drinks and make conversation’ situation. Patrick declined to hog the fire and handed it over to his female assistant whose name I did not get but was undoubtedly Sheila. We walked down through a woodland glade by a babbling stream to the Barbie site; the sun was shining, the sky was blue, the ‘mozzies’ were not yet astir. Perfect! Satiated, we staggered back to the lorry-bus for the trip to Cape Tribulation. Apart from Patrick dicing with death in the coast road it had been a pretty straight forward trip so far. The name alone gave Cape Tribulation a sense of expectation. Bring it on!
Captain Cook again I’m afraid! Discoverer extraordinaire he may well have been, but he was as capable of any of us of hitting a reef or two. I presume that ‘mapping’ the coastline meant toddling along it a safe distance, then putting ashore every so often so that the cartographers and estate agents could get out their theodolites and send the ‘stick men’ to climb the highest local hill and allow them to triangulate or whatever it is that cartographers do. They did not believe in wasting time and effort , so whilst they were up there they planned the sequence of tracks and dual carriageways that criss-cross the region now. No wonder that they think of Captain Cook as a hero in this part of the continent. The problem was that Captain Cook or whoever was on lookout at the time was so focussed on shouting ‘cooee’ to the stick man up on Thornton Peak ( except it wasn’t called that then – I think the cartographer recorded it as……………… ‘lookoutyouregoingstraightfortheughtoolate’ Peak.
The HMS Endeavour had run aground on Endeavour Reef ( what a coincidence), so the Captain and his crew had to stay in the area for six or seven weeks to get the ship repaired before they could go off and discover Botany Bay. Cook was so annoyed he named the area ‘That Bloody Reef That Nearly Buggered Our Ship’ but was forced by his publishers to change it to something more dramatic.
‘I want action, Jimmy, I want threats, I want fear, I want cyclones, I want your readers to imagine their lives hang by a thread’
‘How about Cape Accident?’
‘Too weak!’
‘Cape Damage’
‘Too French! Imagine you’re still there Jimmy. Think of all the problems you have overcome, the trials,..the….’
‘Tribulations?’
‘That’s it Jimmy! Cape Tribulation! Scare the crap outa them!’
There is a memorial statue high on one of the hills by Cape Tribulation to those brave men who climbed up through the thick forests ‘armed’ only with a long branch and a coloured handkerchief with which to wave to the cartographer thousands of metres below. The statue commemorates the most determined of them all, one of the Endeavour’s crew, a Welshman, David Wynn Williams whose ancestors still carry sticks for cartographers planning the flood defences of rural Lincolnshire.

Cape Tribulation itself is the last point an ordinary vehicle can reach using the coastal route to Cook Town. From Cook Town itself to the most Northern point in Australia, Cape York, is described in the Lonely Planet guide as ‘one of the greatest 4WD routes on the continent’. It recommends that you don’t tackle the hundreds of kilometres of ‘roadway’ on your own – take two vehicles it says in case one gets stuck. When something is described as ‘character testing’ I know it means stay clear! Thank goodness we are not going that far – but Patrick says the ‘lorrybus’ would cope with the route and has done in the past. I think again of his fingers. The road is quiet but at Cape Tribulation the car park is heaving. We have half an hour, so I choose to sit on the beach and watch. There are only about 50 people on a sweeping u-shaped beach. The sand is golden, the vista is idyllic, palm trees are swaying, coconut husks litter the beach, the rainforest –covered hills are the backdrop - but again there is no-one in the water – stinger season. I feel disappointed. On a beach without even being able to paddle in the sea is a bit if a waste of time for me. I think of great UK beaches - and there are some, Norfolk springs to mind – and feel a bit cheated at coming right to the other side of the world to have my expectations unfulfilled. I am sure there will be other beaches but this one is ‘sold’ as one of the best spots in Australia. I am not unhappy when the half hour is up. On the way back down the coast Patrick surprises us with a quick call at an ice cream factory in the middle of nowhere! Yummy! We have to get the ferry back across the Daintree River and while we are queuing up Patrick tells those who do not already know about the five year old boy taken by the croc in February on this river. (It wasn’t Albert, but a ‘newcomer’ the locals did not know about). The boy’s family run a firm doing wildlife trips like the one we have been to today, and their home fronted the river. Patrick is sure the boy had been warned of the dangers, but all it takes is a momentary lapse. The parents, distraught as they were, did not want the croc killed but it was captured and taken to a ‘secret’ location in a wildlife park so that others could not seek revenge. It made me think about the fragility of life, and how a momentary lapse – walking out into the road without looking; it doesn’t have to be in ‘dangerous territory’ – can mean the end of it. It is a bit of a salutary moment for us all and the bus goes silent. Then there is a child’s voice asking a question. ‘Did the dog make it?’ Patrick picks this up immediately . ‘Yes it did. Yes it did. I suppose there has to be some positive in that.’
Mossman Gorge, our last stop is ‘owned ‘ by the local Aborigine community, who live in a ‘commune’ nearby .Their houses are far from the ones I have described in Port Douglas in more than distance. They are in negotiations with the local council about extending the car park for the gorge, but a stumbling point is who is going to have the car park fees. The Gorge is picturesque, and there are children and young adults swimming in the fast flowing waters despite notices advising them against this. Patrick notes that they are relatively safe as the crocs do not like the water temperature – it is too cold – but he does say that people have drowned in the wet season when the flow quickens. In the car park a Monitor Lizzard - the size of a cat – checks out the picnickers. As we leave the area and pass the Aboriginal housing, a group sitting beneath a tree – it is raining – raise their arms in a farewell salute. I think of it as an investment for the future when visitors will bring money into their community. I am tired when I get back. It has been a long day. I thank Patrick. I cannot bring myself to ask him about the fingers. Probably better I don’t know.

Monday 2nd November Adelaide
Up in the middle of the night to catch the flight from Cairns at 6.20am. I am being picked up at 3.20am. I set two alarms. I watch Arsenal demolish Tottenham , then am amazed to see that City vs Birmingham is on live at 2am. I manage to watch the first half, but at nil-nil it is not a thriller. I still don’t know the score at this point. It throws it down – the Tropics really do have torrential rain – as I leave, and after a 2 hour plus flight I am glad to land in sunny Adelaide. I check in my hotel and by mistake am given a cupboard instead of a room. On closer examination I discover that this is an upgrade cupboard as it has a ‘mini –bar’. I resolve if necessary to sleep in the mini-bar if it is more spacious than my bed. I am only here two night so I can’t be bothered to make a fuss. Us Brits hey! I settle down with my guide – and very nice he is too – and note that I am now in South Australia. (‘In South Australia I was born! Heave away! Haul Away!’) and that Adelaide is a big city of over a million people. Frankilry has described it as Milton Keynes with sun. We will see. Captain Cook did not get here as far as I know, but could have saved a lot of time by getting a map from the Information Centre which is what I did. ( The youth in the Info Centre was a nice young man on a sort of work placement which meant he knew nothing about the area – a theme I will pick up later). The ‘founder’ of Adelaide (for ‘founder’ read man who snatched the land from the Kaurna aborigines) was Colonel William Light. He drew the plans for the city in 1836 in between cycling in the local Mt Lofty Ranges ( ‘shoulders back there lovely boy!’). It is described as a city within a park as there are lots of surrounding ‘green’ areas. It is easy to get around as it is in a ‘grid’ form like New York. I plan to do a tour tomorrow – self organised. This afternoon I spotted an area on the map called O’Connell Street and the info sheet said there were some interesting eateries there. I hailed a taxi, and the guy said that it was a fair way as he had to follow the one-way system. I asked how much it would roughly cost and when he said about $12, I said I would give him $20 for him to take me on a slightly longer route to pick up the odd key site. The next twenty minutes were entertaining to say the least. The cabby was a WAM ( White Australian Male) who prided himself in his historical knowledge – but I am not sure which history text book he got his information from. He started off ok with the announcement of the population of Adelaide, but when he tried to go into its foundation he started to go off the rails big time. For a start he said the city had been named after Queen Adelaide and he thought there must have been a queen or something of that name in British history. He then took me through Victoria Square and noted that he thought she might have been a queen too. He explained the gird formation of the city and noted that Captain Cook had designed it. He continually pointed out buildings to me which was impressive until I realised he would only point out those with the names emblazoned in ten foot high letters on the front of the building. It was fun and I was a bit disappointed when we reached O’Connell Street. He was a nice guy. Just a pity he did not know a bit more about his city. Still, he was head and shoulders above New York cabbies who must be some of the most miserable souls in the world of cabbies. I could not imagine this guy parking in floodwater at Pennsylvania Station and leaving his fares to get their own bags out of the boot in the pouring rain as one loving soul did to Mary and I when we were leaving New York last year to travel to Niagara Falls.
This evening I caught the tram to palindrome city Arizona – a place on the coast called Glenelg. I did not notice the palindrome bit (thanks Tess for pointing it out) at all. It is a small resort by the beach. By the time I got there (ostensibly to see the ‘stunning sunsets’) the surf was up, the clouds were over and it was c-c-c-cold! I took some photos, had a Thai takeaway, a nice ice cream and caught the tram back. If I get up in time I will go for breakfast on Wednesday. Sleepy, sleepy, Glenelg, is where the first settlers (*see above) came ashore to survey (**see above) the area and to establish Adelaide. They also embarked on the curious alteration to the English language that is ‘Strine. It was when the automated ‘tram voice’ announced that we were approaching ‘Jitty Road’ that my musings started. The Australian accent can by a bit ‘whining’ to say the least, so if you are telling an English ‘frind’ to stroke his/her dog before placing them in the cut-through next to the Vets you will cause confusion if you tell them to ‘Pat your pit in the jitty next to the vits.’

Tuesday 3rd November Adelaide
Well, I owe my ‘cabby’ friend an apology. Further investigation reveals that there was in fact a Queen Adelaide ( I still have my doubts about Victoria) who was the ‘consort’ (like Cruella and Charles) of King William IV! Sorry, mate! I have also tracked down the origins of the town that spells itself back to front – Glenelg. There was in fact a Lord Glenelg - or Drol Gleneleg as he preferred to be known. He originated from the Highlands of Scotland where the Scottish Gaelic spelling of the area was Gleann Eilg. I could not be bothered finding any more out about him. Giving a place a palandromic name is enough for me. Glenelg was the first chosen landing place in South Australia by Adealide’s founder Colonel William Light, and almost at once he planted some vines as he felt the first settlers had something to celebrate. News travelled slowly in those days, so there was not such a rush to open the first Post Office. That was delayed until 1849. Colonel Light’s first postcard read…
‘Hello mum. Got here ok. Would have written earlier but had a bit of a hangover from the wine we brewed. Am thinking of calling it Jacob’s Creek after a name on a bottle I found in the sea. The beach is fantastic. Not a German towel in sight. Have been quite busy founding Adelaide and stuff. Glen is not awake yet but would send his regards if he was. Have to go now as there is an angry black man at the door asking us for camping fees. See ya later as they say out here. Bill.’
The post card arrived in England in 1903.
The city is going mad, or if you believe the hype, the whole of Australia is going mad. Despite the fact that I am in Adelaide, it is ‘Melbourne Cup’ Day, and I can’t escape it. I should have spotted the signs at the airport at Cairns – my excuse is I was half asleep – when all the papers had pictures of horses on the front. For a moment I could have been forgiven thinking that I had been transported in time to the land of Gulliver’s Travels and the Huonyms. It is billed as ‘the race that stops the nation’ and even as a non-horse person I have to be impressed by the statistics. Richest and most prestigious 2 mile handicap in the world – prize money $5.5million – of which the winning jockey gets 5% ( $275,000) which is not bad for a day’s work! Australians go berserk and bet about $100million on the race, and a horse wins it. I decide to test out the ’race that stops a nation bit’ as when I was on my tour around Adelaide there were a hell of a lot of people not ‘stopped’. My first ‘vicitm’ is the receptionist at the hotel. There is even a telly in the background with what look like horses to me on it. ‘Who won then? ‘ I ask provocatively, giving no clue as to what I am on about. She looks at me then at the telly then at me again and says in a rather defeated voice, ‘I have no idea. I have only just come on shift.’ As if that is an excuse! The race has been over for at least an hour by my calculations. I turn to the lift just as a party of noisy Aussies get off ( note the stereotyping here). ‘How’d the race go ? I chirped thinking I had better give at least a little clue. ‘Shocking!’ said a woman. ‘Why, what happened ?‘ I asked. ‘No’, she continued, ‘ it was won by a horse called ‘Shocking’!’ I gather from the continuing conversation that this is good for the bookies as this is not a big favourite. It is a public holiday in Melbourne and lots of other Aussies take the day off and get drunk – they don’t need much of an excuse. The local radio has been featuring it and ‘spoof called’ an information centre pretending to be a Chinese business owner asking at what time he had to stop working as he had heard that the Melbourne Cup was the race that ‘stops an Asian’. The spoof worked for a while as he even asked if he could employ non-Asians to keep his business going during the race. I did not set out to avoid the race today, and even if I had tried I could not have done so. More of this later.
I had set out to tour the city on my own ‘Adelaide Walking Tour’ vaguely based on one in the Lonely Planet Guide . I ended up walking for ages and covering serious amounts of ground but did see lots of the City which enabled me to come to the conclusion that Frankilry was being a bit harsh. As I said before Adelaide is very ‘green’ and I experienced lots of this today. I headed for the Torrens River and bypassed the Adelaide Oval where Sir Donald Bradman reigned before a pit lad from Nottinghamshire called Harold Larwood subjected him to ‘bodyline’ bowling. He was still one of the greatest batsmen that there has ever been. Opposite there is the University Oval and some lads were playing in an organised cricket match – full kit etc. I have been told that the Aussies take their sport very seriously and that they hate losing – especially to the ‘poms’ . These lads looked about 14 and were well engaged in the game. I saw one spectacular ‘caught and bowled’ before I moved on. Highlight of the morning stroll was the Botanic Garden. Too much to describe – the photos will be better at that – but certainly a place for Nigel and Linda to revel in, no sign of the allotment ‘gestapo’! I had had a coffee at the snack bar and was looking down a long avenue of giant Moreton Bay Fig Trees (trust me, they are BIG) trying to work out an angle for a photo when I suddenly thought I saw hundreds of giant yellow ants spilling across the path in the distance. I blinked and took a further look which revealed that they were in fact a line of kindergarten children in yellow bibs. From then on almost everywhere I went ( including the museums later) I was confronted by parties of ‘ants’ some very much under control and others not quite.
I headed out of the Botanic Garden and found myself next to the National Wine Centre of Australia, and enormous building in the shape of the slats of a wine barrel. People were getting out of taxis in their best ‘bib and tucker’ (I was in shorts and t-shirt) and heading up the long curving ramp to the main door. In for a penny I though and followed them. At the door a waiter dressed not unlike Renee from ‘Allo ‘Allo greeted me and asked with an element of mild sarcasm if I was attending one of the functions. To his credit he was helpful and when I asked if there was an area for visitors to look around he pointed this out. I took a quick look as I went up the stairs at the main function hall which was decked out for some big event. Another Renee at the top explained it was a charitable event for the Melbourne Cup. It was barely half past eleven and the race started at 2.45pm – there was surely some serious partying to go on in between. There was certainly an ‘Ascot’ element in the way the ladies were dressed. I spent half an hour looking at the exhibition which was very informative but my mind kept going back to the revellers downstairs. As I left the building the entertainment was just starting - a dance troupe, I tried to get the original Renee to tell me how much each of the punters was shelling out for this bash. He feigned ignorance, but did tell me that the charity was set up by two successful Aussie Rules footballers to support children with cancer, so I suppose they were entitled to their enjoyment for that good cause.
I visited the Adelaide Art Museum which had both indigenous art and European style art. I walked into one gallery where there was a huge portrait of King George III – he of going bonkers often fame – and blow me if it wasn’t the current Prince William staring back at me! I am glad for his sake that the ‘bonkers’ gene appears to have attached itself to his father rather than to him! It just reminded me also how far back this current royal family go. The current queen’s grandfather was the person who changed the name of the royal family to Windsor from Goethe Saxe-Coburg to distance themselves from their German ancestry at the time of the First World War. A swift walk along North Terrace bought me to the South Australia Museum where Captain Cook barred the way in – at least his portrait did. A lot smaller than I had imagined – no wonder he didn’t see that reef! Fabulous exhibits including lots of Aboriginal artefacts, but the bit that had me shaking was the South Seas galleries where they displayed some of the weaponry that was responsible for the demise of said Captain Cook. Give me a band of raging Aborigines any time versus the South Sea Islanders – at least the Aborigines didn’t slap you on a ‘barbie’ when they captured you. It’s not hard to imagine when you see this array of weaponry etc that in some areas of the South Seas – which includes Papua New Guinea - cannibalism was still being practised until relatively recently.
I then tried to find the Migration Museum, and ended up bumping into Larry Grayson. Well , to be truthful it was a statue of Robert Burns, but they had clearly got Larry to model for it. Robert was holding one of his poetry books in one hand and ‘shutting that door’ with the other. One of my favourite Burns poems begins ‘I’m a wee teapot, short n stout’. Why Robert Burns you ask? What connection has he with Adelaide or even Australia? None! Absolutely none! Apparently there had been a bit of a ‘do’ at the recently established National Wine Centre when they were trying to decide on a suitable subject for Adelaide’s first statue. Lord William Light had suggested they find a figure with connections with art and literature. Lord Glenelg who was a bit ‘squiffy’ thought he said to find someone who could fart through an aperture. He had been at university with Burns and remembered an old party trick of his with a teapot. QED. Everyone though it was everyone else’s idea and no-one wanted to admit they had been drunk. Thus is history made.
The Migration Museum was the best of the lot. Lots of personal tales of hardship, success, some failure. It is gob-stopping to imagine that between 1815 and 1930 some 52 million people emigrated from Europe - most went to the USA - 3.5 million of whom came to Australia. They still had to get past the ‘ White Australia’ test – which I tried in the museum and ‘failed’ as I was Irish and they could just refuse me on a whim. If you were black, Latvian, or politically known – forget it. As I have said before Australia was eventually pressured in to relaxing this attitude and repealing the law by economic factors – not enough labour was coming to the continent. One or two images stick in my mind. Families carrying two suitcases which held all they owned. Children taken from orphanages in England and ‘sent’ to Australia for a better life – maybe some did find it. Some more information about the ‘lost generation’ in an interactive display. Tales of whole families being ‘taken’ from an Aboriginal mother who had married a white Australian after being deserted by her original husband. Children who never saw their parents or siblings ever again. Very moving stories.
Later in the evening after my customary afternoon snooze (Donna, please note re my diary from January onwards!) I decided to pop down town and have a bite to eat. Mistake! It was crawling – sometimes literally – with groups of Aussies in various states of inebriation and undress. I should have spotted the warning signs on the tram which for the first time had ‘security’ men on it. Two very inebriated youngish women got on the tram at my stop and proceeded to further disheville themselves by kicking off the high heels and putting their feet up on the seats opposite. The security men seemed more intent on making sure no drinking took place on the tram, so the girls were left alone to chorus ‘ Have a great night!’ at anyone who got on or off the tram. Harmless enough but I was reminded of the old Australian proverb ‘ If all the women who attended the Melbourne Cup celebrations were laid end to end, no-one would be surprised!’ ( with apologies to Dorothy Parker!)
China town was heaving, and occasionally this was all over the pavement. I managed to find a nice hideaway in a Malaysian restaurant that was clearly a family run business. On splendid ‘sizzling Malaysian beef’ later I decided to cut for home! Wise decision I feel.
One final thing Adelaide. It has been cold – 20C compared to Northern Territory 40C. I have worn my jeans and a jumper for the first time. No wonder my bag is heavy if I have to bring all this stuff! Still it was good weather for my walking tour.
Wednesday 4th November Adelaide to Mount Gambier
I have a long drive ahead of me today as I travel the 500 or so kilometres to Mount Gambier which is the first stop on my three night Great Ocean Road trip to Melbourne. I have a few routine things to do so have set myself an 11am deadline for leaving Adelaide. I have to pick up the hire car, pst some cards and get some cash. I make the deadline comfortably, and head off to my first stop, the sleepy German town of Hahndorf ( pop 1879). The first day of my trip does not actually reach the Great Ocean Road, but it does go through some interesting and at times spectacular places, touching on the Coorong National Park which is mainly coastal. I reach Hahndorf at 12 noon and stop for ‘kuchen und kaffee’. Well, you just have to don’t you. It’s a German speciality and they would be offended. As I park the car outside a likely café, a very very loud siren starts to go off and people in the street start to run in all directions. Nuclear alert? Tsunami? Allied air raid? The girl in the café, who does not sound in the least German which is disappointing, tells me that the siren is for the local fire-fighters. She says they respond to accidents as well as fires and hopes it is not a fire. I have my coffee and cake outside and watch the fire engine speed off in the direction I will be going. I too hope it will not be a fire. When I go to pay my bill the girl more than makes up for her South Australian accent by demanding ‘ ihre papieren bitte!’ I show my driving licence and am let through Checkpoint Charlie. I am clearly thrown by the siren as I take the wrong turn and end up heading back to Adelaide. Luckily I can turn round after a few kilometres.
I plough on for the next hour or so to the strains of the Eagles – I pay particular attention to ‘Hotel California’ as I will be staying in my first motel in Mount Gambier. The land I pass through is tremendously varied. I can be in pastoral England one minute – green fields, cows grazing etc – then the next its ‘bush’ with the customary kangaroo signs ( I see none of course) – then mud flats and salt flats – then strange looking sheep – then vineyards, miles and miles of vineyards – then woodland. So I am not bored. At times the kangaroo sign changes to what I work out is a wombat. The advice is to go slow at dusk and dawn so I am ok to stick to the speed limit. I keep an eye out for any place worth a visit and see a sign that says Pelican Points. I know they can fly etc but this must be worth a look. About half a kilometre down a dust track I come to a car park. The sign says ‘Pelican lookout 10 minutes - please bring your binoculars.’ Bit of a problem there buddy, as they are locked in the boot of my car in Nottingham. Too much weight, see. I determine to buy some cheap ones that don’t weigh so much, even if I have to leave them in Australia. The ‘lookout’ is a wooden hut facing ‘pelican island, which is a good half a mile away. I strain to see if I can spot them and see some dots moving. I try to photograph them on zoom but it is all blurred. I think I can hear them! And then some of the ‘dots’ take to the air and head in my direction, taking up position in the thermals just above the lookout, and allowing me to get some decent photos. They must have known I had come a long way.
Back on the road I almost immediately see a sign that says ‘Welcome to Policeman Point’. I am in the process of deciding whether or not to stop when I see another sign that says ‘Thank you for visiting Policeman Point.’ I have passed two buildings! One of them looked like a derelict garage.
I retrace my steps past another ‘Welcome to Policeman Point’ sign and pull in to the ‘garage’. It is in fact a motel cum bottle shop. Inside I ask the owner if I can buy a sandwich. He says he can make me whatever and I opt for safety with toasted cheese, ham and tomato - an Aussie standard. I also ask for an orange juice - I have given up asking for ‘fresh’. He asks me if I want ‘arse’ in it! When I say ‘Pardon’ he repeats the word then goes to a large chest freezer behind the bar and fill the glass with – ice! I sip the orange juice while he sorts my sandwich. On the bar is a leaflet giving instructions on how to install the ‘Fluid-master 400UK Bottom Entry Cistern Valve’. I need the toilet but hesitate to ask for this in case I am attacked by this machinery. Eventually needs overcome fear, and by the time I re-emerge, there are two guys sitting at the bar supping beer. Outside I can see a really battered ‘ute’ so I presume they are local. The owner chats to them and they are on their way to Geelong to pick up something. Geelong is near Melbourne a good few hundred Ks away. They are talking cattle droving which one of them did as a younger man, and how one of their mates is having trouble with his girl who doesn’t like the time he is spending on ‘footie’. It reminds me of a programme I saw last night about the introduction of ballet and modern art to Australia in the 1930s when they were described by the Australian PM of the time Robert Menzies as ‘the work of perverts’. Some of the ballet company became stuck in Australia when war was declared, and married Australians. One married a farmer. The ‘dating agency’ promotion of this gave me some amusement .
‘You mean she can’t shear a sheep, can’t strip and rebuild a tractor engine, isn’t willing to lay barbed wire fencing , and can’t Barbie a ‘roo - and to top it all, she’s a facking ballerina! Sounds just right for Aussie farming!’
The sandwiches were great by the way. I followed another sign that said ‘ Surfing Beach’ and was the only person there for some time until a woman with her dog came along the beach. We waved from a safe distance but the dog barked at me – keep away it said.
My final stop along the way was at another sleepy place called Beachport. What a nice place it was. Deserted streets, as it was about 5pm. According to the ‘gumph’ on the beach notice-board it was a former whaling port and boasts the second longest jetty in Australia. Lots of photgraphable stuff as you can imagine. I went into the one hotel for coffee. They tried to persuade me to stay as it was curry night. I was tempted as it seemed such a nice place, but I had prepaid for my motel. I settled for the ‘scenic drive’ behind the town. It was spectacular especially as the sun was beginning to set and there were dark clouds hiding it.
Back on the road for the final stretch to Mount Gambier, I was getting tired and a little ‘road mad’. I drive quickly through a one horse town called Millicent, and feel guilty when I read the sign that says ‘Thank you for visiting Millicent’. Further along I see a sign for the ‘Millicent Wind Turbines Tourist Drive’. Who the heck would want to see that! I feel even more sad for the people of Millicent. Soon I reach a sign that brightens me up. It is for a place called Tatanoola. Before I know it I am singing…
‘Pardon me, boy, is that the Tatanoola Choo Choo?
Track twenty-nine? Is it leaving on time? ‘
I will need sectioning before this trip is over!
Mount Gambier does not have a mountain. It has some lakes – one of which is blue – formed from extinct volcanoes that would once have been mountains. I manage to get some spectacular sunset photos over the lakes. The local slogan is ‘stay another day’, but no thanks is what I think. The motel is better than I expect. No sign of Norman Bates. An early start for the Great Ocean Road tomorrow.
Thursday 5th November Port Fairy
Early start and glad to leave Mount Gambier behind. It is rush hour so there are three other cars on the road. I estimate it will take me two hours to get to Port Fairy allowing for stops on the way. I plan to see if to worth staying there or pushing on to Apollo Bay. I tune in to Ballarat FM and the news is depressing as they are covering the shooting of the five British soldiers in Afghanistan. It reminded me of the Cullin-la-Ringo massacre I wrote about earlier, as that was carried out much in the same fashion with the killings being carried out by ‘insiders’. So sad for the families.
I try to focus on the journey and what I might see. Not far out of Mount Gambier the road forks and I take the coastal route. Plenty of splendid scenery, and I am not even on the official Grate Ocean Road yet – this starts the other side of Port Fairy at a place called Warrnambool. I may not even get on to it until tomorrow. A lot of the place names have an English feel to them – Nelson, Dartmoor, Portland, Bridgewater. I envisage people trying to hold on to something precious so far from home. The countryside too is rolling hills with lots of cattle and sheep. I pass through a forestry area where the road signs suddenly change from kangaroos and wombats to – emus! I am sandwiched between the Lower Glenelg National Park and the Discovery Bay Coastal Park. It is not long before I actually see a pair of emus strolling nonchalantly along by the roadside. They are big birds! And they can be aggressive too. I take a couple of quick photos and move on. I am feeling quite please with myself when suddenly – more emus, this time a family group of four. And then shortly after that another three. I begin to see the point of the signs now.
By the time I reach the outskirts of Portland I am thinking about breakfast. As I roll down the hill into the town I pass a police car which turns on its flashing lights as I pass. I see in my mirror that he is turning round and coming up behind me. There is no-one else on the road so I figure he is after me and stop. He pulls up behind me and walks to the passenger side and indicates for me to open the window. Of course I have turned off the engine so I can’t do it straight away. There is a bit of a pantomime whilst I turn on the engine, open the window then turn off the engine again. I decide to risk going against convention and speak first, wishing the officer good morning. He seems to relax at this and responds in kind. He then asks me if I knew I was exceeding the speed limit. I reply no. He asks if I saw the 80kmph a bit of way back. Again I say no, but add that my mind was a bit focussed on stopping for breakfast. I suppose this was a bit of a risk as he could have me for driving without due care etc. He asks me if I had been drinking the night before. He seems a little taken aback when I say the last alcoholic drink I had was nearly three weeks ago in Singapore ( and that was a the result of a mix up in translation) – but a half grin comes on his lips. He still makes me blow in the tube. It is of course clear. While I am getting him my licence I wonder what the penalty for speeding is – an on the spot fine perhaps? His tone changes when he looks at my licence.
‘Irish are you? Born in Dublin?’
I tell him I was brought to England as a three year old.
‘That explains the accent, then. You on holiday?’
I told him my immediate plans.
Well, Paul, this offence – you were doing 95kmph in an 80 zone – normally attracts an automatic $240 fine (about £130) but as you seem like a nice guy, I ‘m just going to write you up a warning.’
When he returned with the warning, which was a basic reminder of the responsibility of all motorists to drive carefully, he then proceeded to tell me where I could get the best breakfast in Portland. His directions included the instruction to ‘throw a lefty’ at the roundabout where the road-works were. The breakfast was lovely, and made even more so by the traffic cop’s generosity. I looked at the local paper as I ate and saw that a colleague of his had been badly beaten by four men he had stopped in a car with false number plates. It‘s not all nice gentle tired English tourists.
Forty five minutes after I had finished my breakfast I entered Port Fairy. My first impressions were that this was another ‘Dodge City’. There is one main street, lots of motels, bars and restaurants. I was already beginning to think of pushing on to Apollo Bay before I reached the Tourist Information office. The first woman I spoke to was quite helpful, and suggested that it was asking a lot to stay two nights in Port Fairy – my original intention – so we settled on one night here. When I asked what was the ’24 hour’ plan for visitors she called Linda out of the back. Un fortunately Linda did not inspire confidence as she looked as if she had just got out of bed – three days ago! She scribbled on the town map indicating motels that were ok ( by whose standards I wondered!) and said that Something Island and Tower Hill were worth a visit. I found one of the motels quickly and at this point was glad to fall into the male stereotype and book a room at the first one I came to. It was fine.
After a quick wash n brush up I headed for Tower Hill, not exactly enthused by Linda’s description. How wrong I was. And how she very nearly put me off going with her casual ‘ it’s worth a visit’. It certainly was worth a visit. It turned out to be a State sponsored wildlife park. It was also ‘Emu City Arizona ‘. They were everywhere. One even ambushed me in the car park, but with a quick shuffle I avoided its angry glare. They can kill with that glare! Look what happened to Parky! I wandered about happily for a couple of hours, harassing stumpy-tailed lizards and watching harriers through my newly –purchased binoculars ( see tale re pelicans). I saw the signs for the Koala bears but also saw that they lie up hidden during the day time when it is hot. It was hot! I walked the rim of an ancient volcano and returned happy but tired to the car park determined somehow to let Linda know that she needs to sell this place a bit better. In the car park there were half a dozen people crowded round some trees taking photos. Curiosity got the better of me and I went over. I am glad I did for in one tree was a baby Koala and in the other its mother. The baby seemed to be having trouble getting into the tree where it mother was and the mother did not seem fussed enough to go and fetch it. She called occasionally just to let ‘junior’ know she was still there. After about ten minutes of furious clicking the crowd decided to disperse to lessen the stress that the youngster might be under. When I left ten minutes later he/she was still in the wrong tree. I had popped up to the information centre cum shop to get a t-shirt and told the warden behind the counter – who was a spit for Giant Haystacks of wrestling fame – and he just said ‘oh’ and went on with his task. When I came up with the t-shirt ‘Haytacks’ was looking through a bird guide. Suddenly his left hand squawked! He had a little bird in it and was trying to identify it with the book. The bird was none too interested in being identified and kept wriggling and squawking the whole time. He explained that it had flown into the glass window and knocked itself out. After a few minutes he pronounced that it was an immature Wood Whistler, and let it go. On the way out of the reserve I paused one last time to watch a family group of about six emus grazing. Very relaxing indeed.
Finished off the evening in Port Fairy with a walk around Griffin Island which has a light house of sorts , which according to Linda is ‘pretty crap’ but has a resident colony of shearwaters (like seagulls only not) which are a sight to see. When I arrive at the colony there is a note on the door saying ‘gone fishing for the day, back at sunset or thereabouts – if you are lucky, pal.’ I see one shearwater who has obviously been made to stay at home following some misdemeanour, and think well one is as good as a thousand and decide not to hang around in hope. I do a double take when I see some oystercatchers (at last a bird I recognise!) and then almost immediately see two that are all black! I know Australia is weird in the bird department as they have black swans, but this does make me stop. Later I discover that these are the ones they call oystercatchers, and the ones I know as oystercatchers they call pied oystercatchers. In my confusion I don’t see any of the catch any oysters. A little later on a bird that looks like a blackbird but is black and white taunts me from a bush! I already know this is a magpie lark. So yah boo to you matey! There are swallows around but they aren’t just swallows they are ‘welcome’ swallows. Look the same to me. Whilst the birds are enjoying their game of ‘fool a pom’, up pop two wallabies within spitting distance. This is where my brain really starts to get fuddled. Now wallabies come in all shapes and sizes. There are plain wallabies, rock wallabies, blues wallabies, jazz wallabies and Elvis impersonator wallabies. Whatever type they are, they are not – repeat not – kangaroos! One of the reasons for coming to Australia and braving the outback is to see kangaroos in the wild. So far I have seen ONE ( not counting the ones in the wildlife centre in Port Douglas), and I am now beginning to doubt that. What of it wasn’t a kangaroo after all but a kangaroo impersonator. What if it was a wallaby in a mask? Those of you steeped in the Sherlock Holmes stories will know of the Hound of the Baskervilles which was exposed by a long dead aunt of mine, Aunt Chrissie, in a single stop-the-world statement……
‘Sure it was never a hound after all, it was just a dog with a mask!’
I drown my building sorrows in what is billed as the ‘best fish and chips in Australia’ down by the harbour. Best I don’t know but pretty darned good. Nearly as good as sitting on the sea wall at Well-next-the-Sea!

Friday 6th November Port Fairy to Apollo Bay The Great Ocean Road (part 1)
According to my map and guidebook the Great Ocean Road proper starts at Warnambool and ends at Torquay, around 250kms of spectacular driving. The first 120km or so will take me to Apollo Bay where I intend to stop for the night. I intend to stop at The Twelve Apostles and have been put on to Cape Otway by someone I spoke to at the chip shop last night. They said lots and lots of koalas! I don’t see much of the actual Southern Ocean until I reach Port Campbell where I stop for ‘brekkie’ – a nice ‘veggie’ brekkie with haloumi and tomato sauce. Yum. I am amused to be reminded of Gill’s penchant for vegetarian breakfasts – with bacon! After breakfast I press on past Pickering Point and make my first stop at one of the many ‘lookouts’ along the route – far too many to stop at all of them. The view is spectacular. The Southern Ocean is a spellbinding blue, with rolling white surf – just like a picture-book image. It is throwing itself against a weak limestone coast and so the coastline is as a result full of crags and coves and bays and collapsed bridges and stacks way out in the water. The sea is not tidal so the waves work on the coast 24-7. It is a beautiful sunny day – temperatures in the high 20s. Ideal photography weather so I snap away like mad. Further along the coast I see a sign for ‘London Bridge’ and just have to investigate. An archway has formed in one of the ‘stacks’ and it is in the shape of the old London bridge that we sold to the USA some years ago. It will not be there forever. Usually the arches are the first things to collapse. As I return to my car a coach pulls into the little car park and a horde of Japanese tourists pour out. Unfortunately they are stereotypes as they all have cameras around their necks and they talk non-stop. A sign at the front of the bus says ‘On Tour’. I look serruptitiously around the back to see if they have bicycles with them.
A few kilometres along the road I come to the Twelve Apostles Marine National Park. It is a bit like Stonehenge in that you have to park one side of the road and go under the road from the visitor centre to reach it. I park up and note the signs for the helicopter flights – later perhaps. The Twelve Apostles (there are only actually nine left – and only six of these are really visible!) are all that is left of the original coastal headland which has been eroded by the power of the sea. They are ‘stacks’ that are well separated from the remaining headland, and for the most are only accessible by seabirds. They line up beautifully from the jutting peninsula and the National Park has provided excellent viewing platforms. I stay for what seems like ages just taking in the majesty of it all. I think of the power and the relentlessness of the sea, and in some ways the powerlessness of the land to resist. It makes me think of time, and the enormity of the time it has taken to shape these ‘apostles’, yet, in time, they will be no more! I look out into the Ocean. Due South, next stop Antarctica! How about that!
I make my mind up to take the helicopter flight. I am expecting a long wait as the area seems busy but there are no queues and I am put on a flight with two women from London. It is their first flight so they do not want to sit in the front which is great for me as I have the best photo spot. The helicopter rises gracefully from the ground and swings straight away out over the ocean and the Twelve Apostles. The pilot hangs there for a short while to allow us to take snaps and then moves on up the coast to Port Campbell where he banks back around and flies straight back down the coast above the stacks. We are at about 1600ft so it is a good height for photos. The pilot gives us a bit of a commentary on the way. Ten minutes later and we are on the ground. The two women say they have really enjoyed the flight. I mention New York and the flight over the Hudson River. One woman says she would not do that one as their helicopters are always coming down in the river! A bit of an exaggeration but there has been a recent tragedy when one was hit by a light aircraft from La Guardia airport. A number of people were killed. I am only glad we had that conversation after the flight! I go back to the viewing areas for a while, but then get the urge for another flight. I justify it by telling myself that I had spent nearly all the last one photographing and that I ought to go and just look! Twenty minute later I am airborne again. This time I have been put in a flight with two rather heavy looking women. They make all of us get weighed before the flight goes and pronounce the payload ok. As they were in the queue before me one of them ‘baggsies’ the front seat. I am put behind the pilot, so the effect is that all the weight is on one side of the aircraft. The ‘loader’ does not seem fussed by this, but I wonder how it will handle. As it lifts off the helicopter wobbles, the two women wobble, and my chin wobbles! The pilot, who is Vietnam veteran and used to dealing with heavy payloads in stressful situations soon has the craft back under control and off we go. The women have paid for a low level flight – I am not sure we would have got to the high level – which means that we fly at approx 750ft but we do not ‘weave in and out of the stacks’ as the pilot assured us. Because it is a low level flight they have been charge extra but as it is my second flight I am not! In addition we have to wear life jackets (this puzzles me – surely you would end up in the drink whether you were on a low or high level flight, but maybe there is more ‘gliding’ time from the higher level) and are given a safety briefing which includes a bit about swimming to the shore! From then on the flight goes smoothly, I get some spectacular views of the back of the pilot’s head, and apart from occasional ‘dips’ when the woman in the front tries to turn around so that her friend can photograph her, we return to base safely. We have to hover over the landing area for a short while as two other helicopters are landing. It is like the beginning of M.A.S.H. As we disembark the helicopter ‘springs’ back into its normal shape, and the pilot announces he is taking a break.
Originally the Twelve Apostles were called ‘The Piglets’ or some such but quite rightly this was deemed a bit rough edged for tourists so some smart alec came up with the Twelve Apostles. I find it hard to believe there ever were twelve of them if now there are only six that can actually be seen. Our pilots on both trips did point to one particular pile of rubble and said that that was the last Apostle to collapse – presumably at the end of the Last Supper - in 2005. Some of the other looked decidedly unstable. I am not sure if I went back tomorrow there would be even six left! I asked if they had bothered naming each of the stacks but he said no. I tried to name them for myself – Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Thomas, Andrew, Charles, Harry, William – but then ran out of willpower. I knew I had to leave Judas Iscariot out as I think he was number 13 – unlucky for him.
I decided I too could do with a break and a cup of tea, but the visitor centre is being refurbished so I have to head off. A little way down the road I see a sign for ‘Wildlife and Deer Park – accommodation, toilets, drinks’. I pull in only to find it is a half built hut and they have not yet got their licence to serve food and drink. They can however sell me water and an ice cream.
The road from Princetown just beyond the Twelve Apostles swings well away from the coast and apart from the odd glimpse of the sea, it does not reappear until Apollo Bay. Cape Otway itself is part of the Cape Otway National Park and is primarily lush forest. The part of the Great Ocean Road that travels through the forest winds and climbs and dips like a roller coaster. I wish I was driving my Mazda instead of the hire car. It is perfect ‘top down’ territory. I have seen very few sports cars outside cities since my arrival in Oz. There are signs warning motorcyclists to slow down or risk death. One appears in my rear view mirror. With the visor down and the sun reflecting of it the rider looks like one of those assassins from the Bond movies and as he or she pulls out to pass I half expect the side of my car to be raked with machine gun fire. The bike quickly disappears into the distance , weaving around the corners, the riders’ knees just above the tarmac. For all the warning signs this sort of road is just too tempting. What is the pint of a bike if you can’t ride a road like this at speed? Still, I am glad not to find the bike wrapped around a tree or another vehicle before I reach my turnoff.
I was told that I would see koalas at Cape Otway. Well I did. Loads of them. Not far down the road the forest cleared out a little and there were a large number of eucalyptus trees. I knew they were eucalyptus trees because they had koalas in them and they only eat eucalyptus leaves – or so they said on Blue Peter when I was a child. Lots of people were stopped nearby and photographing them. They were either asleep or munching in the leaves, but either way the moved very little and were easy to photograph. I considered myself a bit of a koala expert having seen one in captivity and two in the wild and was especially pleased to recognise the rutting call of the male koala. This loud grunting noise carries through the forest and cam be roughly translated as ….
‘Put down the sheep shears, Shiela, take off your gumboots, but leave on your gloves – you’ve pulled!’
Right at the bottom of Cape Otway is the Cape Otway Lighthouse. But for this we might not have found the koalas in the first place. It is not named after John Otway of ‘Gordon is a Moron’ fame. Nor is it named after Matthew Flinders who was the Captain Cook of South Australia, who had an unfortunate sister Polly, who was prone to accidents with fires. In fact I cannot yet find any explanation as to why it is called Cape Otway. I will contact my taxi driver friend in Adelaide. The lighthouse has not always been there, as you might imagine. In the 1830s and 1840s when this coast was being properly opened up, ships would take weeks and months to travel from Europe. Some braver vessels would cut through the Bass straight to avoid Tasmania (who wouldn’t) and this would have the effect of cutting the voyage to England by a week. No pools or waiter service on the ships in those days remember! Unfortunately this was a risky strategy and many ships foundered. The maps of the coast very kindly provide details of the lost ships. Over 18 ships were lost in the narrow gap between Cape Otway and King Island, less than 90kmm away. In 1835 over 250 lives were lost when the convict ship Neva foundered off King Island, and in 1845 399 immigrants perished in the wreck of the Cataraqui. The government of the time was put under a lot of pressure to do something and petitions were drawn up. The answer was the Cape Otway lighthouse, which was opened in 1848 at the very point where the Bass Straight and the Southern Ocean meet. This was no mean feat as the areas was relatively unexplored at the time. The building of the lighthouse was good news for shipping and bad news for the koalas and for sperm whales. It could have been even worse news for the koalas if the settlers of the time had found a way of squeezing lamp oil out of the koalas. Luckily for them but unluckily for the whales the settlers already knew about whale sperm oil or rather sperm whale oil. Known for making your wick last longer, sperm whale oil was harvested to the point where the poor whales almost lost the will to live never mind procreate. The lighthouse light contained 21 parabolic reflectors, each with its own sperm whale oil lamp. It could be seen for miles. The whales, despite petitioning the Government and claiming that eventually they would be a protected species, were done for. They tried to avoid the area by swimming away from the flashing lamp but the whalers just came after them. Such is life! The lighthouse did make things better, but it did not stop all wrecks. It could not be seen in fog and the foghorn could not always be put on as it sounded too much like the rutting koalas and the lighthouse would be inundated with willing female koalas, so in the fog of the winter of 1880 the Eric the Red ( no, not the one who discovered America! Don’t be silly!) struck the Otway reef and went down with the loss of four lives. An improvement of sorts I suppose.
They had tried and failed to link Tasmania with Cape Otway by laying a telegraph cable under the Bass Straight. What went wrong was not explained, but the cable was quickly abandoned and replaced by flags (Blue Peter again). Passing ships signalled the Cape Otway station and they signalled back, and then passed the information by telegraph (land based) to Melbourne. In 1912 they attempted to signal Captain Scott who had set out to reach the North Pole using men instead of huskies – they were apparently cheaper. A Norwegian explorer, Thor Hyerdal, set out to get to the pole by using highly suspicious foreign methods, including a replica of the Titanic made out of reeds. Hyerdal looked as if he would get there first. A message via the flags was sent to Scott and his expedition. It said….
‘Hyerdal expected to reach the pole today. Stop. STOP. Stop.’
In the items found with Scott and his team there were no flag message books.
I finish today on the rather strange loss of another life. In 1978 the pilot of a Cessna aircraft, 20 year old Frederick Valentich was flying from Melbourne to King Island. When he reached Cape Otway he took an unexpected turn and headed out over the Southern Ocean. Flight control tried to raise him without success for a while and when they did make contact the outcome was bizarre….
‘Calling Tango-Oscar-Seirra-Sierra-Echo-Roger. Are you reading me? Over’
‘Roger control. This is Tango-Oscar-Seirra-Sierra-Echo-Roger. Reading you.’
‘Where are you ? Over.’
‘I am over Cape Otway. There is something hovering above me. I can see bright lights. I don’t think it’s an aircraft. I can hear music. Dah-dah-dah! It’s getting closer. The lights are getting brighter. It’s so beautiful. I’m going now. Over and out.’
And then it was over. He was never seen or heard from again. Most of this story is true!

Saturday 7th November Apollo Bay to Melbourne The Great Ocean Road – Day 2
You could probably drive the length of the official ‘Great Ocean Road’ from Torquay in Victoria to Warnambool in South Australia in a day- maybe 6 hours straight – or the other way round as I am doing it…….but you would miss so much if you just did that. It is not just about the spectacular scenery. It is as much about the little anecdotes and snippets of life and history that you pick up by turning off the road, sometimes on a whim, sometimes on advice as I did to Cape Otway – though my adviser did say don’t go to the light station, it’s not worth it. How wrong they were in my view. I didn’t just see ‘another’ lighthouse, I experienced other people’s lives through the history of that building and the people connected to it over time.
The Great Ocean road was the result of a brainwave by politicians worried about what to do with thousands of Australian troops returning from the trenches of World War 1 in late 1918 and early 1919. They had spent the war digging holes in France and Belgium in order to prevent the Germans from digging holes in the same areas. They could have just stayed three a little while and filled all the holes in again – I am sure the French and the Belgians would have been grateful – but no, the Australian Government wanted them shipped back so they they could start digging holes in Australia. The so-called ‘diggers’ were put to work building The Great Ocean Road – with their bare hands is what the Australian history books would have us believe. Not quite, Cobber. In fact they were given picks and shovels, pointed in the direction of Adelaide and told to get on with it. There is a bit of selectivity here, as none of the accounts of the building of the road mentions dynamite, and I am sure they would not have shifted some of the cliffs in their way just by spitting on their hands and saying ‘let me at it’. I am sure also that the odd horse and cart would have been available to shift some of the rubble. Perhaps I am being a bit picky, but nothing can take away the sheer enormity of the task. It took from 1919 to 1932 to complete the road – thirteen years! Some parts of it hug the coastline so closely you get vertigo just driving along it. I am sure the ‘diggers’ would have soon got fed up of people saying ‘look at the view’ or ‘let’s take a photo’. Driving the section from Apollo Bay to Torquay is head spinning. The road winds and climbs and twists and spins like a fairground ride. It is not possible to drive it quickly. It is also not possible to spot all the spectacular ‘views’. In fact the section from Warnampool to Apollo Bay was better for ‘sights’ and spectacular scenery because there were special ‘lookouts’ at selected intervals. Still, it was an experience.
One of the places I stopped was ‘Pickering Point’ where the notice board informed passers-by of the discovery of a tribe that had been hidden for generations and had only recently made contact with the outside world. Living in a remote area of the Otway National Forest known in the local Aboriginal language as ‘Derehamland’, the Pickerings had for a long time deliberately cut themselves off from the rest of the outside world. Occasional sightings had been reported, especially around the times of clan gatherings by other local tribes. A local anthropologist had been lucky enough to have been allowed to live with the tribe for a short while and had witnessed a number of important tribal ceremonies such as the ‘carrying of the logs’ wherein tribal elders remove logs that have been left as gifts by other tribes to a place of safekeeping, and the most important ceremony of them all, the Pickering burial ceremony known as ‘puttin em in’t grahnd’. Although cut off from other neighbouring tribes for hundreds of years the Pickerings have developed specific talents that have helped them survive and develop in their isolation. Some members of the tribe are revered for being especially tall as this has helped in hunting and in seeking places for shelter. Tribal warriors would shout out to the ‘tall one’ from the deep forest grasses ‘Wheer the hell are yo?’ and he would reply in the ritual manner ‘Ovver heer!’ Finally the Pickerings have developed their own individual brand of art known as ‘Bongo’. Unlike the indigenous tribes of the Northern Territory the Pickerings eschew rock and cave painting , instead preferring to decorate large metal objects with wheels which they call ‘vans’. Elaborately decorated Pickering ‘vans’ can be found mostly near the coast but occasionally inland at a place called Wymondham.

It was on this section of the Great Ocean Road that I saw my first ‘surfer’! Australians would have you believe that they are all born surfing, and that parents give them boards instead of prams when they are born. This section of the road feeds that myth perfectly. Curved golden beaches, rolling white surf, the requisite VW vans parked by the roadside spilling their owners out onto the nearest surf beach. Even the road notices claim it is ‘surfing heaven’. I determined to find out what this was all about and maybe even have a go myself ! Torquay seems to fit the bill. It styles itself as the ‘birthplace of the global surfing industry’ and home to the international Rip Curl Pro and Quicksilver – which I presume are brand names for surfboards. As you come into the town along the road now designated the ‘Surf Coast Highway’ you see signs for various surf beaches with curious names such as Winki Pop, Bells, and Juc Juc. There is a ‘safe’ beach for beginners at ‘Cosy Corner’ unfortunately near the rocks at Point Danger! I avoid the invitation to head down Surf Road and instead go to the Information Centre in town. The very patient young lady at the centre explains to me that I could book a two hour ‘learn to surf’ lesson for between $50 and $100, but that it might be a bit late in the day for this – it is noon. I change tack and ask if there are any places offering horse rides along the beach. We try one but they only take the rides out in the morning before the beaches get busy. Pity. The lady at the stables asks if I would consider a ‘bush trek’ which is going at 2.30pm - inexperienced riders are welcome. Before I know it I am booked into a stables called ‘Blazing Saddles’! I have an hour and half to kill before I have to drive 30km back down the Great Ocean Road to a place called Airey’s Inlet where the stables are. The Information Centre girl suggests I go and have a look at the main surfing beach, so I do.
Now, I love the beach and I love swimming in the sea, but I just don’t get surfing, and I get it even less having watched the surfers at Torquay. I witnessed the start of the ritual in the car park. First of all you have to have a fairly battered VW van, car or truck to which you have attached your surfboard for the hair-raising journey to the beach. You then have to struggle half way into your wet suit – it is definitely ‘de rigeur’ to put it on fully in the car park. This has the effect of pressing your midriff forward to emphasise the ‘gut’ you were hoping no-one would notice. You then have to place the surfboard on the ground and kneel like a supplicant before it, rubbing special surfing oils along its surface whilst chanting a special oration known only to the surfing fraternity – presumably you are told this on your first lesson. Once you have appropriately ‘greased’ you board you tuck it under your arm and head for the sand. The journey down the wooden steps can be quite perilous as you have a greasy board which does not quite fit to contend with. You then have the pebbles of the beach to negotiate, but at last you reach the water’s edge where you perform the last part of the pre-surf ritual – the tying on of the board. You attaché the board to your ankle by the string provided so that when you fall off it – which you do frequently – it will not float away to the South Pole. You then lie on the board and paddle your way gently out to sea and wait. For a long time. What is it that you are waiting for? Apparently it is the ‘right’ wave. Not just any old wave – it has to be the ‘right’ one. Some surfers have waited so long in the past for the ‘right’ wave they have visibly aged by the time it comes. If you pick the ‘wrong’ wave you will be vilified by other surfers around you. With lick the ‘right’ wave will come along before too long, and at that point you paddle like fury, attempt to stand up on your board, and immediately tumble head first into the surf. Then you do it again. Sounds like fun, hey? Give me a break! I stood for a while watching this ‘global event’ and trying to photograph someone – anyone- standing up on a board for more than a few seconds. The surfers I was watching spent more time floating around hanging on their boards than they did actual ‘surfing’. Eventually gave up. Goodness knows what it would have been like if I had not been at the surf capital of the world!
As I headed for the car I was delighted to see ‘beach’ wedding taking place. The bride, groom and guests were seated at picnic tables on a grassy area just above the beach. The bride was in the full bridal kit and the guests were well togged out too. Across from where they sat was a red Pontiac Firebird ( I looked at the name!) decked out with white wedding ribbons. Everyone seemed to be having a good time in the sunshine. Almost immediately in the car park I witnessed what looked like the end of another relationship as a loud and hostile argument took place between a man in full motorcycle gear and a woman standing next to a car. The man was cveratinly turing the air blue and in an act of final defiance, put on his helmet, shouted ‘It’s not my f****ing problem, and drove off. The woman followed a few seconds later. Life! Who’d have it?
All the way to ‘Blazing Saddles’ I was humming the tune from the film, which is one of my all-time favourites. I laughed my socks off the first time I saw it and still laugh each time I watch it since. I love the ‘Waco Kid’ and the black sheriff Bart, and mad, desperate Hedley (Heddy) Lamar. I am chuckling now thinking of it. At the stables I saw a notice that said ‘Horse Riding is a high risk activity’. That’s encouraging, I thought. When I was being signed in and filling in the form that gives the stable no liability if the horse flies off into the sunset with you, I suddenly realised that I had not ridden a horse for about 15 years – the last time being on a Lake District camp when Tess was nine! I quickly filled in the section that said ‘beginner’. This stopped me from going on the two hour bush trek, which involved trotting and cantering – a relief if I am honest. The put me in with a mum and two kiddies – who I am sure were secret circus stunt riders – and two ladies form Melbourne. Safety hats on we were led to our horses. I was sure they would give me some mean creature as I was the only male in the party but they gave me Bam Bam – named after either Fred Flintstone or Barney Rubble’s nightmare child! Bam Bam was very gentle with me but as I was soon to discover I had arrived driving an automatic car and now was riding an automatic horse. The trek lasted an hour and a half. Bam Bam knew the way but also insisted on trying top drag my legs against any tree trunk or bush he could find. I tried the ‘ Heigh Ho , Silver’ bit, and tugged on the reigns, but he just turned his head slightly, gave me a disdainful look, and carried on as before. Even when we were trotting he managed to be coming up when I was going down which is not the way it should be, and can do serious damage to certain parts of a man’s anatomy. At least the circus girls were having equal difficulty with their horses and only managed somersaults and balancing on one leg! We passed a bored koala bear on our way up the ‘mountain’ – large hill really – but when we reached the top the view of the rainforest below was stunning. Until we reached there I had forgotten that we were riding in the Otway National Park. Coming down the ‘mountain’ I was reminded of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid – another favourite movie - and in particular the part where they go to Bolivia and get jobs as payroll guards. They are accompanying the mine owner down the mountain and are on edge looking everywhere for possible ambushes. The mine owner stops them with the words ‘Morons, I have employed morons! We ain’t gonna get robbed going DOWN the mountain! We got no money going DOWN the mountain. Morons!’ This was in my head all the way back.
Within two hours I was in Melbourne. It looks what it is from a distance – a huge city of 4.5 million people, stretching across the skyline, unlike the relatively flat Adelaide profile. The main motorway dumped me off at the City intersection and I rang the hotel for directions. The girl who gave me the directions was not a lot of help and after driving a bit further I hit upon the idea of hailing a cab and asking the driver to lead me to the hotel. I duly did this, and I have to say I would not have founds it in a month of Sundays following the original directions. When we pulled up outside the hotel I went to pay the cabbie but he refused any money! ‘Have this one on me’, he said. I shook his hand as I left and thought ‘Welcome to Melbourne’.