They have been known to wear the sides of boulders smooth with their clawing feet, covering every approach with a black writhing mass, each one lining up to take their turn behind another. Sometimes they crash on take-off, and so patiently begin the process all over again.
And in what numbers! Matthew Flinders noted in his journal the size of the flocks passing overhead in Bass Strait. One he said to be ‘50 to 80 yards in depth and 300 yards or more in breadth. The birds were not scattered, but flying as compactly as free movement of their wings would allow. During a full one and a half hours, this stream of Petrels (his name for shearwaters) continued to pass without interruption at the swiftness of a pigeon’. He estimated this flock to number no less than 151 500 500 individuals, requiring 75 750 000 burrows. With approximately a metre between each one, he concluded that not less than eighteen and a half square miles would be required to accommodate them. It’s good to know the great explorer had at least a little down time in which to ponder these things.
Had he the time to observe the clockwork precision of the shearwater’s breeding season, he would most likely have been further impressed. Upon returning from their long northern odyssey in September, the birds will renew their acquaintance with their single life mate, and, with feet and beak, dig out or repair the same metre-deep burrow they had occupied the year before. Then, suddenly, in the first week of November, they vanish out to sea to mate and the colony, which the day before rang to the sounds of millions of calls, is silent. That’s how it stays till late November when, again in one enormous cloud, which it is said can be seen approaching like a black fog, they return to lay their single egg the very next day.
Two-week roosting shifts are then begun, the male taking the first, while being fed by the female, then roles are reversed, and so on for fifty-four days. The chick hatches in mid-January, when both parents provide the food, leaving it alone by day but returning with a meal of partially digested fish oil at dusk. If the krill is close to shore, the chick will get a daily feed, but if far away, it may be days between meals.
On its rich diet, the chick gains weight fast, doubling it in a fortnight and evolving into a plump grey ball twice the weight of a full-grown adult. One of our party mentioned he had once been handed a chick straight from a burrow. ‘It was so fat,’ he said, ‘the flesh oozed between my fingers like bread dough.’
In mid-April, their job done, the parents suddenly depart, once again beginning their long northward journey, their sole chick remaining, suddenly alone, hungry and confused. After two weeks, it will leave the burrow, shed more weight and, with thousands of other fledglings, wander down to the water, flight feathers partially evolved. Huddling as a group for the first time, one of them will try its luck in the water, then another, and so introducing them to a life spent almost entirely on the wing and at sea.
Completely uninstructed, the young birds now follow the countless generations of their ancestors, take to the air and begin to fly. Their first trip is a long one, the young birds spending up to seven years entirely on the wing and in the water before making their first landfall to begin the breeding cycle over again.
Many will not make it. Hundreds of thousands die of exhaustion each year, washing up on beaches from Tasmania to Alaska. Long-line fishing, gill nets and the ingestion of plastic and other pollutants claim countless more, and scores are hunted in the traditional manner by the islanders of Bass Strait.
Shivering, exhausted and exhilarated, we four renegade birdwatchers picked our way back along the darkened shoreline to the boat in torchlight, further wetting our feet, and returned to Lady Barron in time for last drinks at the hotel. Not being the type for whom bending the rules feels in any way exhilarating, my companions in subterfuge declined my invitation to celebrate our adventure at the front bar. That, they felt, would be pushing their luck just a little too far. I went to bed, still groggy from the experience, knowing that tomorrow I would be on my way to the climax of my trip, Deal Island, to the north-west. I had been given the special privilege of staying in the caretaker’s residence for two nights. Two days I would have to explore this place that had now assumed for me almost mystical qualities.
The phone rang early the next morning. I was already packed and set to go. Wayne, friendly but businesslike, was sorry to tell me that at the last minute, a trio of Parks and Wildlife scientists had requested a trip out there in order to carry out something useful and that my seat was gone. Looking at my neatly arranged kit, ready for careful stowage, I casually assured him that was no problem, but felt as deflated as a punctured tyre. Deal had, once again, eluded me.
29
THE KING OF THE ISLANDS
There was an animated children’s television program I used to watch growing up in the mid-1960s. It was English, of course, as most ABC television programs then were, and despite living in a direct line to the orange and white television broadcasting towers atop nearby Mount Dandenong, the ABC was about all our rickety black and white television could pick up from our home in the outer suburbs of Melbourne. I can recall almost nothing about the show now, except the opening titles, which must have lodged themselves somewhere deep in my memory because, flying in to King Island, I thought I was watching them again.
The program involved animals, I think – magical animals, or perhaps magical people – who all lived together on a magical island in the middle of a magical ocean, which could not be accessed by any means that were not themselves magical. The island was drawn as an archetypal piece of rural English countryside: all soft greens with hedgerows and copses, gentle rolling hills and a general sense of order and tranquillity – the type of landscape I would regularly dream about during my odd Anglophilic childhood in the Australian suburbs. At the beginning of the show, we were introduced to this place from a magical bird’s-eye view, breaking through wispy clouds to reveal an idyllic jewelled isle in a perfect ocean of blue. A place, I discovered descending into Currie airport in a very small aeroplane, not dissimilar to King Island itself.
Looking at the map, Bass Strait appears to be guarded by twin sentinels: mountainous Flinders at its eastern approach, and in the west, facing the relentless oceans that swirl around the earth’s southern latitudes, King Island. Here it has stood for millennia, defiant in the face of the mighty winds and swells that hurl themselves against its western shore from the enormous expanse of ocean that separates it from the continent of South America, with absolutely nothing in between. Standing on its rocky coast above Currie Harbour, it was sobering to realise that should I head in a line due west, I would miss both Western Australia and the Cape of Good Hope, skirt to the north of Napoleon’s remote exile of St Helena, and make landfall somewhere near Buenos Aires, 17 000 kilometres away (it would in fact be far quicker to reach it by travelling the other way, a relatively easy 10 000 kilometres to the east).
It is the most geographically isolated of all the Bass Strait Islands, almost equidistant between Tasmania and the Australian mainland, roughly 90 kilometres to its north and south respectively, and no journey through these islands could be considered complete without a visit.
Comparisons are inevitably made between King and Flinders, but the differences between them become apparent as soon as you leave the airport: King is very much flatter and a good deal busier. At around 1700 people, nearly double the population of Flinders, the relatively bustling main street of King’s primary town, Currie, marks it as a comparative metropolis. And it’s flat. There are no significant hills or mountains to speak of, and kilometre after kilometre, one can travel over identical tracts of green farming land, making the island resemble a rather large paddock, hence its lush appearance from the air.
It is famed for its beef and dairy products, with the renowned King Island Dairy – originally a farmers’ co-op, now a multimillion-dollar Japanese-owned enterprise – producing an array of up-market cheeses and double creams that sell across the country and around the globe.
I lined up inside the bakery, ordered s
omething from a bored teenager, then sat outside, inspecting a local map I had just bought noting quaintly named localities like Egg Lagoon, Grassy, and even a place called Pearshape.
As I sat, pie in one hand, map in the other, a woman in early middle age stood a little way off under the awning of one of several coffee shops talking animatedly into a mobile phone. ‘… well it’s funny you should say that. I’d like to have a Bible reading. I know Mum wasn’t as religious as she used to be but I think she would have loved it. She insisted on one for Dad when he went, you remember? Well, my sister isn’t having a bar of it, and now I’ve got to have a fight about it. Again …’
She seemed not at all concerned about her every word being within my earshot and went on to explain (to the person on the other end of the line at least) that the funeral is next Saturday and that her mother had some specific wishes which several members of the family were determined (in her view) not to respect. ‘… and who’s the one who’s been looking after her for the last five years? Not her, that’s for sure …’
I listened for a while, inspected the little library then wandered into some of the shops in Currie’s main street, including the supermarket, which, with its metal shelves and old-world signs above the aisles, gave it the look of a film set from about 1974. In the meat fridges, enormous sides of the prized local beef, sold only in relative slivers on the mainland, lay wrapped in plastic. I selected a bottle of water and waited behind two people at the checkout. The elderly woman at the register was talking quickly to an almost identical-looking customer. Involuntarily, my ears pricked up.
‘… apparently, there isn’t even going to be a Bible reading. The younger one’s furious and I don’t blame her.’
‘Nor do I,’ said the other. ‘She was a Methodist, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes. She can’t do that. It’s not up to her. Is it up to her?’
‘I shouldn’t think so.’
‘I shouldn’t think so either …’
To stall for time and perhaps hear another instalment of the saga, I pretended to walk a little way off. The supermarket opened at one end into a furniture shop where beds, couches and new but old-fashioned standard lamps were for sale, as if a wall to an adjoining business had fallen in one day and no one thought it worth replacing. ‘Are you right, love?’ I was finally asked by the lady at the till, and I went on my way.
The furniture shop, whose window display seemed to be featuring in the same movie as the supermarket, had another entrance from the street. I went inside to see if this authentic retro style extended further, and a friendly gentleman smiled to me in an apologetic way, indicating that although he was on the phone, he’d be happy to put the caller on hold if I needed him. I waved the suggestion away.
‘… no, it’s very distressing,’ he said to his caller. ‘It’s put the family under a lot of strain. Yes, well she was a Methodist, apparently … no, I didn’t know either …’ By now I almost felt qualified to join in the conversation. Was everyone on King Island talking about this poor lady’s funeral and its dramas?
Outside, I was drawn to a small triangular patch of park at one end of the street, mainly because of a large green gun, which seemed to be the only thing in it. This gruesome-looking object was no doubt one of the thousands of surplus 25-pounder artillery pieces distributed to municipal authorities across Australia to ‘decorate’ parks and other public spaces after World War II. Here it has stood for sixty years, its barrel frozen at an elevation of 45 degrees, tyres decaying, breech block welded shut forever, looking forlorn but somewhat grotesque in front of a set of empty swings it seemed to be guarding against an invisible enemy. I wandered over and noted its optic range-finding sights were still intact (in most places, these have long been smashed by vandals).
It’s purely out of habit that I inspect these things, if for no other reason than to check its manufacture date, stamped into the barrel, and it’s nearly always the same: 1942. In this case, however, the sad old gun served another purpose, bringing me to within notice of another monument that I would have otherwise missed, but one far more pertaining to King Island and its very particular relationship to the sea.
Across from the empty gun park, wedged into a tiny over-grown parcel of bush that was itself sandwiched by two intersecting streets and a stretch of footpath leading nowhere, was a small, freestanding brick wall with a couple of plaques attached. Its centrepiece, secured by some small blocks of timber sorely in need of replacing, was an old iron ship’s anchor, slightly taller than I, which, like the monument itself, had seen far better days than these. One plaque read:
This anchor was salvaged from the wreck of the ‘Cataraqui’ 1845, Australia’s worst ever maritime disaster. The building of this monument was a King Island Jaycee project …
The plaque went on to tell me that the monument was built with some of the bicentennial money awash during the big year back in 1988. No one appears to have gone near it since.
It was in fact a fine-looking anchor, despite having obviously spent many years under the sea. Around where rust had eaten deep channels in the old iron, evidence of the original wrought metalwork could still be seen. It sat upright on a small block of pine, fixed by another at the top, which looked decidedly loose. I gave this a tap, then a little push to secure it back in place, but the whole thing disintegrated and fell away, leaving this ancient, and undoubtedly very heavy object, as far as I could see, completely unsecured. To test this, I gave it the gentlest of pushes with my finger. Sure enough, it swayed sickeningly back and forth a little, pivoting on the rotten old timber at its base. Horrified, I stood back, ready to warn passing toddlers and their parents to the danger. But looking at the overgrown shrubs, neglected landscaping and uneven tiles surrounding it, the prospect of anyone passing by at all was, I calculated, remote.
I read the adjacent plaque with growing amazement. A metallic map recorded all the deaths from all the major shipwrecks that had occurred in King Island’s unforgiving waters over the past one and three-quarter centuries. It made for poignant reading:
In memory of those shipwrecked in King Island waters. We do not know their names but can merely recall the ships they sailed on and their number, 1835–1976. Others may have lost their lives in shipwrecks not recorded.
1834
Saguenay
4
1835
Neva
224
1843
Rebecca
5
1845
Cataraqui
400
1854
Brahmin
9
1855
Maypole
4
1855
Whistler
2
1865
Arrow
I
1865
Lock Leven
I
1874
British Admiral
79
1885
Swallow
2
1976
Severus
2
1976
Ocean Maid
1
It seemed that virtually every inch of King Island’s coast has at some stage claimed a vessel, making it Australia’s most prolific shipwreck graveyard. Looking at the map, it’s not hard to understand why.
The ‘eye of the needle’, the sailors called it in the early part of the nineteenth century – a narrow, 90-kilometre gap across Bass Strait between King Island’s northern tip, Cape Wickham, and Cape Otway in Victoria, through which every convict and emigrant ship on their way to the colonies of Victoria and New South Wales had to pass. The prospect of having to do so at night or in bad weather, with neither lights nor any means by which to fix longtitude, filled every mariner with dread. It was ironic that the most treacherous part of their long journey from England to the Australia was usually the very last day.
So many ships foundered, of which this list on the monument is but a fraction. There was also the
900-ton iron barque Blencathra, on her maiden voyage to Sydney, wrecked off Currie harbour when her captain mistook the Cape Wickham light for that of Cape Otway in 1875; the Carnarvon Bay, a full-rigged steel vessel of nearly 2000 tons, blown to the south where she struck a rock off Seal Bay in 1910 – her wreck has never been found; the Clutha, a brigantine which simply vanished in 1851. The plaque does list both the Maypo out of Melbourne and the American clipper Whistler, but omits the sobering fact that both were wrecked within two hours of each other on the same treacherous reef off the island’s northern coast in 1855.
There’s the terrible tale of the convict ship Neva on her way to Sydney from Ireland with over two hundred female convicts and children. In 1835 she struck Navarino Reef off King with such force that the prison doors burst open, allowing the convicts to swarm onto the deck. Boats were launched and immediately swamped by enormous seas. With terrified people clinging to the wreck, a wave finally heaved the ship into deeper water where, broken, she sank, taking 218 lives with her.
But for sheer horror, nothing surpasses the story of the ship whose sole surviving artefact, a lonely iron anchor, today decorates an all-but-forgotten monument in a corner of a small municipal park on King Island – the ill-fated Cataraqui.
30
THE WORST OF SHIPWRECKS
She was only four years old, an elegant barque of 800 tons and 182 feet in length, built in Quebec, owned by William Smith & Sons of Liverpool, and chartered by Queen Victoria’s Colonial Land and Emigration Commission to carry emigrants to a new life in the Colony of Victoria. Under the command of Captain Christian William Finlay, she left Liverpool on 20 April 1845 with, according to her manifest, 369 emigrants, comprising 62 individual families, 33 unmarried women, 28 single men, 186 children and 41 crew.
The Forgotten Islands Page 18
