Travels with George

by Vivien Fallows

  In addition to the blush-worthy content, the monologue ranged over (in random order) tales of their two children both of whom had studied for their master’s degrees in London at UCL; lost baggage; the role of Muslim women in Malaysia; religion in general; Mount Kinabalu; the weather in England; world travel and on and on… which is why I have the grand total of one photo with which to recall the journey. In reality, much of the conversation was very interesting but it was simply a case of the wrong time and place and also proved that I am hopeless at deflecting people from their conversational missions.

  We disembarked to spend thirty minutes or so in the Fremantle Market Hall, the stalls were eclectic whilst the listed late Victorian building was a prestigious reminder of a bygone heyday. If what was under the roof was a slight disappointment, the striking roof itself was not and certainly ticked the tourist sight-seeing box. The market has undergone renovation and reinvention and I think the aim is to ensure that there is something for both residents and tourists alike. Possibly the plastic gewgaws aimed at the tourists were not quite what the average tourist really had in mind. I didn’t feel compelled to part with my dollars. (I’m just beginning to wonder if I should track down a pro bono legal bod…)

  Visit over and a coach ride took us back to Perth along roads which, according to our guide, best displayed Fremantle’s unique Victorian interpretation of classical architecture. Here we looked at the city’s grand civic buildings. Again, these handsome sandstone neo-classical structures provided further examples of ‘ticket-of-leave’ labour. In contrast, the fin de siècle public buildings, such as the P&O Hotel, carried with them a romantic echo of the US Mid west. Gazing at their intricate wrought-iron balustrades and balconies, I was transported to the gold-rush era of classic Westerns. Irrespective of the accuracy of the architectural analogy, my mind kept imagining Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly in scenes from High Noon.

  The mood of romanticism continued as we dove on to admire the predominantly 1980s ‘Millionaire’s Row’ confections, these statement homes hug the northern banks of the Swan River. An abundance of banksias in full colourful flower added a further touch of theatricality to this part of the city. Here you find addresses such as Peppermint Grove and Matilda Bay where the architectural mix, river frontage and manicured gardens indicate hefty price tags.

  The route into Perth continued through King’s Park and Botanic Gardens from where you get the most stunning views across the city. Out came the camera and I was able to make up for having missed out on the earlier river-trip photo opportunities. This tantalising first glimpse of the park ensured that it was re-visited before flying off to Tokyo. King’s Park is another premier example of Australia’s botanical gardens and not to be missed.

  Back at the hotel, my two early mornings caught up with me and I intended to have an early night, but flicking through the TV channels, the Pop Star Solo final caught my eye. At some previous point I had channel-flicked and spotted the programme when they were down to the last four contestants and now it was the final pair. The girl who won was reasonable but I was rooting for the boy who I felt had the potential to bring in the pennies for whoever managed him: right chap, outdoory Aussie with strong voice but wrong song. Hey ho!

  Monday 29th April: A trip north to Coral Bay via Monkey Mia

  The independent traveller has now fully morphed into a coach passenger as I embark upon the ‘Five Day Pinnacles Tour’ from Perth to Coral Bay via the dolphins at Monkey Mia and the clear waters of Ningaloo reef. But first of all…

  … a few more Perth facts: the concert hall has the best acoustics in Australia although from the outside the concrete Brutalist form is considered by some to be uninviting (it opened in 1973, the same year as the architecturally more challenging and eye-appealing ‘shell’ structure of Sydney Opera House). During the reign of Queen Victoria when Perth was taking shape and expanding ‘someone’ decreed that when naming the roads if a road bearing the monarch’s name cut across another road, the non-monarch road had to change its name at the point of intersection. For example, St George’s Terrace continues as Adelaide Terrace at the junction with Victoria Street. The road tunnel built to bypass the city of Perth is the only road tunnel in Western Australia. Perth proudly asserts that its soccer team, Perth Glory, is one of Australia’s leading teams (but a little research reveals a chequered history, although it has won three Premierships since its formation in 1995).

  And there’s more. In 1829, following the explorations of Captain Sir James Stirling who had been seeking fresh water and suitable anchorage to support the establishment of a British colony, the spot chosen was named Guildford and became the centre of the Swan River Colony, until Perth became the more dominant city. Although born in Scotland, Sir James died at his home in Guildford, Surrey. Lilac Hill cricket ground hosts the first match for the visiting English team every time they play in Australia. You’ll thank me – that has to crop up in a pub quiz, surely?

  The Swan Valley, an area renowned for the production of white Burgundy and fortified wine, is home to several boutique wineries with restaurants attached plus a growing number of microbreweries. The Y frames on which the vines are grown exposes the fruit more fully to the sun allowing for maximum absorption of the sun’s rays. This, combined with the late harvest, provides the ideal base for fortified wine. The constant shortage of water in the region has led to ever more resourceful ways to trickle feed the roots of the plants minimising loss of water through evaporation. Unrelated, an early victim of colonisation, the Western Swamp Turtle had been thought to have become extinct until the 1940s when a child brought a turtle into school and the reptile’s colony was subsequently found. The Swamp Turtle is once again thriving. There are lots of studs around the Perth area, with lovely gleaming brood mares.

  The Brand Highway which connects Perth to Geraldton and on to Port Headland, is an 1800km section of the world’s longest highway, Highway 1, which circumnavigates Australia over a total distance of 14,500km. Depending upon the importance of the section, it is designated M1, A1 or B1 as around you go. If you drive the western section in an anti-clockwise direction you have to add 64km. Much of the highway is single track. Just north of Perth, 36.5 metre road trains assemble at Bullsbrook, on their way to Carnarvon where they are permitted to increase to 53.5 metres and beyond Carnarvon they haul 65 metres… if one comes towards you on a single track section of Highway 1, no points for guessing which of you hits the dust. ‘Free coffee for driver’ signs herald the approach of welcoming watering and fuel stops.

  Okay, so where is all this information coming from? The running commentary provided by our knowledgeable guide, Hans, on the coach drive north as we bowl along towards Monkey Mia. Through my window on the world (hooray, I have an empty seat next to me so I can sprawl with ease) I am gazing transfixed by the vastness of the landscape; if I thought I had seen large landscapes before, well, I was mistaken… they just seem to get bigger and bigger. At the moment, the road is running parallel to a slight ridge and to my left, in front, behind and beside are small trees scattered amid a pale green landscape and it has been like this for mile after mile. The small trees share their space with lots of banksias named after Joseph Banks, the botanist aboard Captain Cook’s Endeavour. Just like the South African Protea, they need bushfires to burn open the seed casing allowing germination to occur. Standing dwarfed against the expansive outback the once named ‘Blackboy’ monocots, now known as grass trees, do indeed look like sentries guarding sacred tracks with their short trunks and grassy topknots (their new name is as original as the New Zealand tree fern).

  We pass a titanium oxide and zircon mine from which the standard 2.5km rail trains haul the minerals from the interior mine site up to the coast at Port Dampier. Hans continues to be a human mine of information as we pass Rio Tinto’s Argyle Diamond Mine, which happens to be the world’s largest supplier of coloured diamonds: 90 percent of the world’s pink diamonds are extracted here plus
champagne, cognac and rare blue. These are auctioned in Switzerland in sealed bids. However, 94 percent of the output is of industrial quality. Apparently, the Australian government will not allow de Beers to buy into the operation. And of course, not too many hundreds of kilometres away are the mega gold mines at Kalgoorlie-Boulder: Western Australia sits on an abundance of mineral wealth.

  [Years of taking cramp-inducing long-hand minutes in the charity world have obviously been of benefit: re-reading my notes I’m impressed I had any time to notice the view.]

  Lunch today was taken by the water’s edge in the rock lobster fishing port of Port Denison. The water in the harbour was crystal clear and I salivated at the thought of freshly caught sweet lobster. The earlier coffee stop was unmemorable or perhaps memorable for the wrong reasons: grotty loos and coffee in polystyrene cups, I don’t think the average driver would have relished the ‘free drink’ offer.

  Four hundred kilometres north of Perth we stop to look at one of the main tourist attractions on this stretch of road: the arthritic leaning trees of Greenough. Looking like ancient decrepit elders these trees, Red River Gums, are bent at a dramatic 90 degrees to the ground their trunks bowed at this seemingly impossible angle due to the consistently strong salt-laden coastal winds… which were inconsistently absent during our visit. As expected, we all took photographs, but I purposely waited until there was no one in sight before taking mine. Umm, sometimes, human interest helps to give an idea of scale…

  By now the weather was getting warmer and the scenery beginning to look a bit déjà vu, so I caught up with my journal and read a few more chapters from A Town Like Alice. By four o’clock and nearing the end of our 900km drive, I registered the fact that we were back in a red sand environment where the straggly gum trees bore signs of bark damage caused by roaming herds of cattle and sheep. All around was scrub – stunted trees, red sand, blue skies across which drifted enormous grey clouds: wonderful! Perhaps I suffer from claustrophobia… I had no idea lots of empty nothingness would be so appealing.

  The coach continued to trundle along the Brand Highway north to the Peron Peninsula and the region of Shark Bay where we spent the night at Monkey Mia. All along the coast you glimpse water that is crystal clear and sapphire blue: the holiday brochure pictures hadn’t lied.

  Obviously recording Hans’ words of wisdom caused a return of writer’s cramp as I have no note of where we stayed or how sociable we were with our eating arrangements. Having spent time with chatty taxi drivers and chatty tourists, it seems my fellow coach travellers were rather more subdued. Or maybe my head-down scribbling made me seem a bit aloof.

  Tuesday 30th April: bottlenose dolphins versus peckish pelicans

  Onwards from Monkey Mia to Carnarvon along the Coral Coast. Although I got up early, I unintentionally managed to miss the sunrise. Walked down to the water’s edge to find tourists lined up ready for the highlight of the day: to interact with families of wild bottlenose dolphins. This activity has been taking place for twenty-five years. In fact, three dolphins are fed daily from a school of about thirty which lives out in the bay. Only females are fed and I thought the guide said that the same three are fed…but that seems a bit mean although it would be a way of ensuring that the entire school does not become reliant on handouts. The males are too aggressive to be fed, but didn’t think to ask what happens if they turn up uninvited to the breakfast table. It is possible to stroke the dolphins, but I prissily declined as that seemed a bit too circusey.

  Inevitably, free fishy handouts are going to attract other piscine loving creatures and sure enough the pelican sideshow going on behind the wall of tourists was equally compelling to watch. Pelicans have to be kept at a distance from the dolphins’ breakfast for fear that they would break up the party. So a chap waving a blue bucket out of which he occasionally extracts a morsel of fish keeps the birds busy as they jostle and dance in the hope that a fishy morsel will come their way. So my dilemma was one of which way to face? Was it to be seawards and the rather tame wild dolphins or landward and a group of jostling jumping pelicans? The pelicans just edged the vote. What characters! I left the fishy feast to stroll along the beach before heading back to the coach for a ten-fifteen departure for Shark Bay.

  … Jostling, jumping… The pelican sideshow…

  The Shark Bay region is vast within an area of vastness and the first stop was Denham a small town with a resident population of a little over 600. However, the numbers swell each year with the influx of tourists into the region all intent on visiting the town famed for being the most westerly accessible town in Australia. Denham is not just famed for its location, but also for its older houses which are built from compacted cockle shells, as was the restaurant where we stopped for a delicious crayfish lunch.

  Our après lunch destination was Shell Beach, the source of the building material. On the way we stopped at Eagle Bluff, a high cliff which overlooks the Denham Sound waters of Shark Bay. The view was breathtaking, the water was so blue and so clear and the black shapes soon revealed themselves to be rays drifting and gliding without causing even the tiniest of ripples. Sharks, dolphins and dugongs also inhabit the waters, but sadly they were not putting in an appearance for our benefit. Similarly, whale sharks cruise the shoreline and although they can grow to a staggering 20 metres, the world’s largest known fish is a gentle giant of the sea. Even so, I’m not sure how I would react if 20 metres of fish came to investigate my mask and snorkel as did the Cook Island minnows. That’s wrong, I know exactly how I would react… Turning away from the sea and my aquatic ruminations, glistening salt pyramids were visible on the horizon marking the site of solar evaporation salt works.

  Back on the coach, barely one third full, we all kept ourselves to ourselves which, on this occasion, really suited me as the scenery was far too mesmeric to warrant chit chat. The next leg took us to the incredible 110km of Shell Beach; one of only two beaches in the world made entirely from cockle shells (I think you’ll find the other one in Florida). Over the millennia the shells have become compacted, up to a depth of ten metres, to form a limestone known as coquina, a material that was mined in block form for the construction of the buildings in Denham. Mining stopped when the beach became a World Heritage Site, although small amounts can still be extracted to repair and conserve the original buildings. You need your sunnies… as the billions of tiny white shells which stretch for as far as the eye can see twinkle with a bright luminescence in the sunlight. The crystal clear Indian Ocean sighs gently against these tiny shells with a watery whispered breath. It is the sort of place that travellers stumble upon, hang up their rucksacks and decide to go no further. Although tempted, and George wouldn’t have complained, we continued north as there was still more to see.

  The next stop was Hamelin Pool, to see stromatolites the oldest and largest living fossils on earth. These innocuous water-bound blobs play an important role in helping scientists to understand the Earth’s evolution. What we were gazing at is thought to represent what life on earth looked like 3.5 billion years ago. Hamelin Pool is one of only two places where these living marine fossils exist and the high salinity of the water allows them to grow undisturbed by predators. Here, the salty soup occurs due to the position of a sandbar across the entrance to the bay. This natural barrier preserves a shallow sea-water pool, from which the water evaporates swiftly. The resulting increase in saline levels allows these weird ancestral specimens to flourish. Are they the reason why I love being in water? Although the stromatolites are not predated upon, man has managed to leave his mark. Today boardwalks protect the living fossils but as you peer down you can see traces of cart tracks left over sixty years ago by wool wagons taking cargo out to waiting ships. Then, amid all this pre-history speculation about my antecessors, my camera battery ran out.

  Landwards, scanning the barren terrain, I was surprised to learn that the sparse vegetation does in fact support a large number of feral goats, esca
pees from earlier days. These animals are culled from time to time and their meat sold to Muslim countries. I didn’t ask if the meat was halal, but I suppose that would be the case and I really hoped that carcasses were shipped and not animals, but I guess that would not be the case. An image of the Melbourne sheep transporter with under-slung dogs came to mind, it had been heading towards Avalon airport. With a small shudder that the realities of life can provoke, it was time to move on.

  After an amazing day we finally rolled into Carnarvon, where our most northerly hotel was located. It’s not the most exciting spot in Western Australia but it is the gateway to the glorious Ningaloo Reef, a ‘fringing reef’ where the coral starts at the water’s edge. Here you are a brief snorkel and leg-kick away from thriving coral and all the communities that the coral supports. The buildings in the town are enhanced by scrambling bougainvilleas and lush hibiscus plants, with large baobab trees giving shade. Unsurprisingly, the tourist blurb makes no reference to the fact that Carnarvon is the Social Services town for the region. Unemployed indigenous Australians, who have lost any incentive to work due to decades of destabilisation of their communities, drift into town seeking handouts which then fund drinking binges. Those who become inebriated are locked up at night and shops have bars to keep shopkeepers and customers apart. It all seemed rather tragic, and I so hope that in the intervening years, life has become little better for the Yamtji people.