Bowen Oct 12th-13th

We met Peter Madison in Airlie Markets the day before. He had a stall opposite us, and we got acquainted with him during the course of the day, as he stopped by to chat with us. Inviting us to Bowen the next day, we decided it would be good to sit down and have a cuppa with him and so vowed to meet him. We had been put in touch with John McLean in Bowen, through his brother, Lach, who, with James Walthrope, had donated to us a case of wine in Brisbane. James rang round on our behalf to arrange things for us, and we are glad he did, because, as it turns out, John McLean, from Bowen, is every bit as no-nonsense as his namesake from Die Hard. Yeppee-qua-yey!
Phil on Bowen Beach

We were in good spirits after leaving Strathdickie. We owed a lot of gratitude to Cate Morris, who put us up, and allowed the opportunities to be created. We felt like we’d made the most of our time there, especially with the coincidence of meeting the Vanderlugt’s, which made things even more special staying at Cate’s. Little happenstance occurrences like that are strange, and are curious diversions nobody can predict.

We found Peter without much trouble, arriving late in the afternoon, as John was sailing in Townsville until early evening, so we had no rush, and all was breezy. Peter seemed delighted we’d decided to visit, and had some other visitors for us to meet. His friend Gertrude Tissen introduced herself, and Tim, who came with his two lovely girls, and we sat outside, had a few beers, and ate some cheesy, olives and nibbley-bits.

Peter it turns out, went to school with John, knew him well, and spoke to him on the phone to enquire about his whereabouts. Of course we shouldn’t be surprised, that everyone we randomly meet these days is either a friend or neighbour of someone else we’ve just met. That’s the way it’s going, and we’re more than happy to ride this wave.

Eventually John got in touch with us, and we met him at the Bottleo (Off-license to those who don’t speak Aussie) he runs. Sunburnt and wiped out from a day winning a sailing race in Townsville, he was nevertheless all action, providing us with a little beer, some potato chips (crisps, really, as we know they’re called) then took us to his house, his old house, one he’s in the process of selling, to stay in for the duration.

Following him we found ourselves transported to a large three bedroomed detached house, with a large open patio area, next to the pool. He apologised for not entertaining us further but he was a little tired from sailing all day. We assured him it was no problem, that we were being more than generously looked after by him, and that we’d talk properly tomorrow, when he could tell us what he wanted us to do for work. Righto, he said, before ensuring we knew how everything worked, where everything was and that we were going to be ok, and if we needed anything else. In a flurry of jokes and talking he made his exit, leaving us to ponder if he was that lively when bushed, what would he be like when fully energised. They had told us his nickname was Crazy.

We went to Cellarbrations, the Bottleo John runs, and he had us help him open up. Wondering what it was we wanted to do, we told him to set us to whatever needed doing and that we’d get on with it. Righto, he said, and we were sent off to work with handyman Bill Johnstone, to pick up all the felled trees, foliage anr bush he’s been cutting down the past few days, around the car park, at the back of John’s, in front of the large IGA Supermarket he owns, run by his wife, Lynn.
Queensland Fire and Rescue Bowen jump for a good cause
Bill found a spare pair of trainers to give to Phil, so Anne and I, working in thongs (flip-flops to those of you who were wondering) were at the mercy of the nest of biting green ants disturbed and agitated, as the tree branches they make their nests on were upended. These fellas, so called because of their green arse-end (an anthropological term), would regularly attack us, in formation, stinging at the same time on different points of the body producing a leg-kicking arm-flailing move akin to John Travolta Tony from Saturday Night Fever, but with the yelping of a glory-days Michael Jackson. They were with us all day, their arse-end arched as they dug their pincers into our tender flesh.
IGA staff member jumps with Anne as Phil and Lynn to the right
Producing an impressive pile of cut-offs on the nearby patch of land, we worked all day, stopping for lunch courtesy of Lynn, who told us to take some of whatever we wanted from the supermarket. John, meanwhile, was still busy on our behalf. He commandeered Anne, who liaised with him in getting the local paper, The Bowen Independent, to send a reported round and write an article on us.
John and Lynn McClean invite us for delicious dinner, thanks for desert John!
As we finished with the rehousing of the green ants after lunch, we made our way back to John, in time to have our photo taken and to tell the reporter a little about us. Phil and I then went to work in the bottleo, helping deliver some crates and cartons of booze to The Grand View Hotel, the McLean-run family business. Green ants bite with a sting Jumping in the truck with Larry, we drove to the Grand View, then helped unload two pallets, under the watchful eye of John’s brother, Mike. Eager to do a good, quick job for the McLean’s, who had been so good to us all along, and bending, not at the knees, as textbook Health and Safety regulations dictate, to place down two crates of beer, I suffered the ignominy of a board-shorts blow out mid way through.
Steve Darwan from the Bowen Local Paper prints us some flyers
What could I do? What could I do? Undiless and now baring a prominent left buttock cheek, I simply had to carry on, taking the crates and boxes of beer, through the bar, into the cellar, again and again. Thankfully the bar wasn’t full, and the discretion of the patrons in not roundly pointing and laughing wasn’t as much down to their ambivalence of such things happening, or down to my tidy attempts at concealing my ampleness with my t-shirt, than it was down to just plain disbelief and not a little pity.
The Cheeky Gang work with Bill outside the IGA
This is the town, after all, that hosted the cast of the Baz Luhrman film ‘Australia’, with the likes of Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman running around, doing things. So, that a bare-buttocked Welshman was now delivering their booze may not have bothered them after all, having seem movie-types snorting cocaine off the clenched cheeks of the sound engineer as he propped his boom on the pool table.
We all go to work outside the IGA supermarket
Thankfully Anne turned up, having been round to Gertrude Tissen’s, who rang with the offer of some assistance, and managed to find for us some phone credit, food supplies and offered to cook us some breakfast the next day, and as Phil and I were just sat down (with my back to the bar) for a beer Mike bought for us, she turned up, the van parked outside, and I ran, like a wounded soldier, to get changed into more suitable clothing.

John and Lynn invited us to their home on Horseshoe Bay for the evening, for dinner, where they have a unit overlooking the sea on the second floor, and we had a good old traditional barbeque. John, who wasn’t drinking because he was up early, racing on his bike this time, performed the honours, and cooked the meat, Aussie Barbie-style. John and Lynn were great hosts. Amicable and lively, John McLean is a very busy man, successful and exacerbated with sitting still moments after setting down, he’s up and doing something, finding things to do, being active. Gareth is very pleased to receive food from IGA staff members
But once settled down to dinner, he and Lynn were lovely. Lynn is intelligent and grounded, eager to see the world, keen to waste no time working too long while there were places to go and things to do. John is exactly the same. Intent to sort out for us any problems we were having, eager to iron out any rough patches and determined to see us through to the end if he could help it, he seemed to epitomise the indominatible spirit of the Aussies we’ve met so far.

The lovely Peter (second left)Once friendship is settled, and that usually pretty quickly if you’re fair dinkum, the Aussies, seemingly good judges of character, always giving people a fair go, the benefit of the doubt, and are as open and gregarious as can be. Their interest in what other people are up to reflects their interest in life; that they like a bit of a yarn is common knowledge, that they also love to hear of adventures and potential sources of fun is pretty common too. They like people who help themselves, who have a go, and who view failure as nothing more than the opportunity to have another go.

John showed us how it’s done. “She’ll be right, mate, muck in and give it your best. Call me if you’re ever in trouble, but you better make sure you’re in deepshit at the time, because I’ll help ya, but I’ll make it hard for ya first”. This is the attitude Aussies have; rely on yourself, learn to cope with things on your own, take pride in taking responsibility for your life and have a good time at the time. The lovely Gertrude

There’s a devilish adventurising in every Aussie; a curiosity to find out about people feeds this. There’s a big interest in what we’re doing, because it appears new, and outlandish, and it appeals to a nation built from it’s rapscallion convict beginning, explored inch by torturous inch by intrepid explorers, with stories of bushmen, horsemen, jackaroos and the folk stories of Banjo Paterson and Henry Lawson, idolising the cocky, swaggering, roaming lifestyle. Anne is given some groceries and phone card from the community centre
It’s fun to be a little rebellious, to go against the grain. Which makes for a just-for-the-heck-of-it mentality, bending the rules a little when necessary, viewing it more important to help out a mate than to stick to the straight and narrow. The pragmatism of John towards us reflect this ‘let’s get it done’ attitude. A five year old Aussie lad was asked by a concerned tourist in Bowen ‘you have poisonous snakes here? What do you do with a snake?’ He looked at him as though the guy were a simple-minded friend saying. ‘You hit it with a spade, mate!’.

Next day, we kept our appointed breakfast with Gertrude Tissen, meeting Peter Madison again. Gertrude had been very good to us, arranging much on our behalf, and the time spent with her was little in comparison to the effort she spent in aiding us. But John wasn’t finished with us yet, commandeering me to the Bowen Independent, after filling our tank with fuel, while Anne and Phil tidied the house. He knew the manager, Stephen Darwen, he knew we needed some flyers printed and he knew that having our noses in the local news through the remaining towns of Queensland would be to our great advantage.

Stephen Darwen, to his credit, never blinked, and offered us all the help he could. The story would be written and run for the next edition, then forwarded to all local papers up the north coast to Cairns, and across west to Mount Isa, and the flyers we needed, all 500 would be printed and ready for us by lunch time. Too easy mate. He then had to run, a meeting calling.

Lynn had arranged for us to have a shop donated to us at the IGA Supermarket. A trolley load to take with us as we went on. This was beginning to overwhelm us a little. Two days in Bowen and we were transformed from a raggle-taggle ramshackle operation to a sleek, well-organised machine. Lynn offered to contact the IGA stores around the country, hoping it would help if we needed it.

As we left Bowen, we were each thinking about the extraordinary things that had happened to us in the past few days. The immediate and unequivocal assistance we had received and the help people gave us, was amazing and as we drove towards Townsville we wondered what was next in store.
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Aadrian and Denise Vanderlugt

As long as Phil and Anne were going to be centre of attention attracting hordes of passersby with their Sub-Aqua Regality, I though I’d have a bit of a wander around to rebuild my crushed ego, my spirits low as German tourists nudged me with their ample backsides to get me out of the way to get closer to King Phil Neptune. Mermaid Anne lured men with a smile and a flick of her luscious sea-locks, and the last thing they then wanted was to talk to a red-faced fella with a ginger-beard. The market was a hub of activity and liveliness so I headed off to see who I could meet.
Feeling hunger pangs is something we’ve all three gotten used to, so my first though was to try to find someone who might be willing to feed us. However, it was a busy day, as I said, and our situation requires a little explaining sometimes, and I figured it wouldn’t be appreciated to hold up a line of hungry, paying patrons while I asked the owner to help us. So, with a sullen sigh I resolved to wait a while, and let things calm down, and to enjoy the market atmosphere; the smells, the aromas, the scents, the colours, the eclectica on offer, an the assortment of different people, and let it all sink in. So, with my head full of images of pie floaters, I walked past a tentl facing the beach, where a caricaturist was drawing a portrait.

Thinking it would be a good idea to get ours done I approached the rather dapper guy once he’d finished his last one and asked him if he would be interested in drawing our caricatures. Of course, he said, he’d be there until the market closed, and to come by whenever we were done. I shook his hand and we had ourselves a plan.

Telling the King Pectoralis and Fishy Annie the news and they just about condescended to grant me permission to talk to them for long enough to tell them the plan. “Now hasten from view”, they said as I slinked off into the shadows once more. So, tiring of the forced grin I was wearing to stave away the forlorn defeat of uselessness, I went to Adriaan’s tent to watch him draw for a while, to see what we were in for. Inside was Denise, Adriaan’s wife, and we got to talking about the book she’d published herself, called ‘Where Rainbows Live’.
A remarkable book, it in that in its original form it is all quilted, that is, the illustrations and the text were hand sown into a patchwork of quilting, with each page done this way, individually and painstakingly. The book is the paper format of the quilted original, and it loses none of its lustre for being so. I was warming to these people. Especially when she told me that as no publishers had been interested in such a niche, specialised, market, she decided to go it alone and publish herself. Adriaan, she was telling me, is, primarily, a sculptor, specialising in marble, stone, wood and metal.
Things got even more interesting when I found out these good people were the Vanderlugt’s, neighbours of Cate’s in Strathdickie, neighbours of ours for the next couple of days, and so we were invited to come and visit them, to see the sculptures up close and to have a look at some of Denise’s quilted work. As Adriaan drew away I sat there and an arrangement was made for the following day. Anne and Phil dried off in the mortal world of man, posing for Adriaan too, Anne’s regal stature coming across in the portrait.
So, at the end of the day, we helped the Vanderlugt’s pack their stuff away into their car, thanking Adriaan again for the portraits and we agreed to meet the following day. Arriving at their place shortly before lunch, having been digging a storm trench for Cate around her house all morning, we got there up a series of winding stone steps, all laid without mortar, that meandered through the scrub, from the dirt road below, curling its way up through the dense bushland emerging up and onto the Vanderlugt’s property. He had suggested we arrive there that way, and we realised why. Adriaan spent a year building this path, and it was the perfect way to arrive at their home, which had even more to impress us.
Welcoming us warmly he then showed us round as Denise prepared tea and coffee for us. He showed us his sculptures, firstly one called Driving a Dry Well, which was made of recycled farm equipment, an old windmill pump with a propeller, made in the form of a vehicle, that Adriaan assured us “you can take a few friends with you, and go any where you like, at any speed you wish”. There was a five foot long hand carved limestone nudibrance, a tiny slug-like gastropod that grazes the bottom of reefs, that lazed impressively, looking like it was paused mid movement. Another large piece called Soldier Crab sat further up the garden, made of aluminium and recycled copper, and part of his ‘Pun Intended’ series of 1996, it sports an imposing rifle, it’s carapace shaped like a soldiers helmet.

Various busts lined the perimeters, mostly animals and creatures, which form a strong theme in his work. One work in progress, a marble carving of three pelicans, was once a six tonne slab of marble, which for the past twenty years he has been working on, and is arriving at the final stage of polishing. Working in wood he has carved humpback whales diving (Breeching Humpback) out of White Beech, as well as Rocking Kangaroos, which he used to make to order, out of Hoop Pine. There is a large xylophone shaped like fish scales, made of metal, tuned to perfection that Phil banged out a rendition of Waltzing Matilda on, that Adriaan also made.
In his workshop were various trunks of wood “waiting for the right project”, hand-carved oars, various projects began, discarded and turned to something else, slabs of marble “too funny looking to work with, but too precious to get rid of”, and remnants of his previous lives and work, where he told us of his childhood in Canada, after being born in Holland, finally emigrating to Australia thirty years ago after travelling briefly.

Statuettes, sculptures, and figurines abound in and around the Vanderlugt’s home. Inspired by the reef, the rainforest, the wetlands and the sky he has explored these interests for over thirty years, and continues to do so. Developing his passion from his early working with soapstone, a medium inspired by the soapstone sculptures of the Inuit of Canada, where he grew up, he has found a home in Australia, and for over thirty years has lived here.

“With simple tools, I began to carve soapstone, some marble, and even bone. Carving became a passion, but my career in graphic design was demanding much of my energy and my dream of full time sculpting had gone adrift. Memories of travel in Queensland were magnetic and in 1977, I returned to Australia with my Australian wife Denise, and anchored that dream in the magic of the Whitsunday region. Here, in an environment of animals, birds, rainforest and reef, I have a constant source of inspiration”
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Whinging Poms

They've been at it again. Those whining, whinnying, beasts of burden; those poor forlorn creatures for whom nothing ever goes right; those whose motto is 'never, bloody anything, ever', have more to say.
But knowing you, you probably don't care. Well, I don't know why I even bothered. I really don't. Tsch. http://thewhingingpoms.blogspot.com/ Read a cheeky bit more!

Our Cate in Strathdickie Oct 9th-Oct 12th

It’s hard to effectively describe the character of the next place we stayed at. To delineate the spookiness of the house shed with words such as eerie and ghostly or rustic and bucolic would be doing it an injustice. Two caravans within close proximity to each other, joined and enclosed in whatever materials were close to hand at the time, it seemed were built around a centre piece chimney made of cement and aluminium, unused for fire in a long while, and now housing a number of insects. The house had been empty for some months and nature had moved in. We were shown around and cob webs were curtained apart as we were told how to turn on various makeshift light switches. After wiping the cobwebs from the sofa I was to sleep on I explored the corners of the sofa bed and found a number of unidentified insects hiding away, no doubt until the light would be turned out, biding their time to jump out onto my face. I plucked all that I could see crawling on my bedding off and then turned off the light for a night of much needed sleep.

In the darkness shadows took on shapes of things which could triumph over good, the room became alive with the night time activities of all things nocturnal, holding so much potential for nightmarish endeavours. Croaks, shuffles, splatters, swooshes of wings, crawling, slithering, banging, rustling, crackling, crunching and all number of ghoolish onomatopeias filled the room. With a bed sheet over my ears and tucked over my feet, I tried to seek out the source of all the noise, my eyes wide open in opaque darkness.
At this point I had been in dire need of the toilet for quite some hours and I just had to go. I had put off the trip to the bathroom, which was only a few meters away, as long as I could, and now necessity had triumphed over fear. With heroism to be compared to the jumpiness of the cook in Tom and Jerry who lunges onto the nearest piece of furniture to lift her petticoat away from Jerry, I slowly opened the door of the bathroom, simultaneously disrupting a number of large moths and spiders, scarper, flutter, scuttle into nooks and crannies away from the door, closer to where my bum would soon be hovering over the toilet bowl for fear of sitting down due to what may be lurking beneath the seat. I bent down to walk under the long forgotten webs, completely covered in half gnawed winged things, and like a floating supernatural being, I hovered over the bowl, a bowl stained with the feet of frogs, with one eye fixed firmly on the giant huntsman spider chewing on a giant moth and the other eye on the spider to my left sitting in a dusty web. Hoping beyond hope that no one was outside to see my floating ass through the gaping hole caused by the collapsed panel in the wall, I kept my eye firmly on the wildlife around me and not on the outside portal. I yelped as something made a huge noise just on the other side of the hole, seeing something dark pass by the opening, it turned out to be a scrub turkey. I washed up quicker than I ever have done, backing out of the room slowly and making my way quickly back to the safety of my sheet. At this point Gareth, in one of the caravans next door, did an appropriate amount of giggling, winding me up, calling me a bloody Shiela, chuckling to himself at the palava I was making.
On returning back to bed I thought to myself ‘stop being such a wuss, nothing is going to kill you Anne. Oh, hang on……that sentence doesn’t really hold true here……erm….well you can’t be scared of the night in the bush or you’ll never sleep'. I lay there looking at the frog splattered on what was left of the window pane and stared at it. I laughed at how funny it looked, it was really rather a cute fellow. As soon as I really looked at all the creepy crawlies around me in detail the shed changed in make-up to something more pleasing. I looked at the webs over my head and watched a hump bummed spider mending her intricate home. She was carefully making a star shaped pod to lay her eggs in. I wondered how spiders know how to make webs, do they watch other spiders and copy them or are they born with the knowledge they need? I remember an article I read once about the effects of drugs such as marijuana and ecstasy on the patterns of webs and I lay there in amazement at what was around me. A huntsman spider inthe sink

That nature is so well designed to cope with its environment in a beautifully inspiring manner, that, given the chance, nature can take over a house in a matter of weeks to make it look like it hasn’t been lived in since the days of Hansel and Gretel is a curious thing to witness. I began to feel at ease in my bed. The shed took on a pleasingly comfortable cottage feel, rather as how I imagine Snow White found the dwarfs cottage just before she cleaned it. I fell asleep into a pleasing dream filled slumber and woke up the next day in a great mood, ready to take on Airlie Beach.

The house belonged to Cate, who lives on Percy Island but was back to sort through some of her old things in her previous home. She is a Pommie ex-pat of high moral values, a 7th day eventist, an Airlie Beach Advisor and our new found friend. We were invited to her house to use as a base as we spent time on the Esplanade in Airlie on her suggestion. She gave us great advice and just like a fairy god mother it seemed that she made all our wishes come true. The most noticeable effect of her religion meant that she would not work on the Sabbath, which for her means Saturday. However, we are not eventists and we were up early to make sure we were at market in time to try on the costumes we were to model for the day to pay for our trip out to the reef.
Cate donated very generously to Book Aid in St Helens Creek and offered her home to us as a base for further fund raising. Yet again, based solely on trust and goodwill, at first a stranger and now a friend comes to our aid and helps us out. We wanted to return the generous spirit and asked if there was anything we could do for her. She insisted that there wasn’t, after a little pushing we found out that she had had a problem with her drainage and her place was getting flooded everytime the rains came.
Digging Ditches. No job too dirty for us we set to work, shovel in hand to pick at the hard dirt around the caravans. To say that this job wasn’t easy would be like saying learning Japanese takes a little studying. We dug with all our might into the rocky earth and loaded barrows and buckets full of earth to be moved elsewhere. I think it is now time to tell you about our arch enemies, the March fly.

March flies or Horse flies are ferocious biters. As with most biting flies, it is only the females that bite as they need blood to produce the next generation. They use their strong, piercing mouthparts like a needle to extract blood from their mammal hosts.
These disgusting big, fat, chunky flies are a nuisance. March flies are ferocious biters, their blade like mouth parts cause no little pain as they insert their sucking tool into flesh like a needle to extract their wanton fill. They are quite slow moving for a fly but still fast enough to buzz around you for hours and slowly drain you drip by drop of your blood. They seem to work in teams. One of them pierces through your clothes and takes a suck. You do the very unattractive dance known as the ‘get the f*** off me you f***ing, get arggg, bugger off, you f***ing, get it, quick swat it’, of which contains moves which largely have you flailing your arms and legs around wildly and lunging yourself into nearby objects. You wait for them to pierce you and just as they are lodged in your skin you wipe them out with a quick splat. Sometimes this can be a messy event, especially if they have just been feeding. The real problems occur however after you kill one. This causes some kind of alluring incentive for all neighbouring flies to come spiralling out of the skies to dive bomb you and go in for full attack. I am currently sat here laughing as two of these unpleasant fellas are circling Gareths legs and he is doing the sit down version of the swat dance.
For the duration of our trench digging we were inundated with March fies. It was a test, of which we all nearly failed. But, the hole was dug and the lovely Cate now has drainage.

We leaned a great deal from Cate about Percy Island, her home, and we were invited to come and visit her on completion of the trip. To read more about Percy Island please follow this link

On our departure, we all hugged and Cate looked at the message on our trailer “On a Mission From God”, a line from the Blues Brothers film. Well, that makes sense she said, I knew you were good people, and I assume that it is the Christian God you refer to. We said nothing but smiled and were yet again a little sad to say good bye to another great person. Our mission is a secular one, but reference to God on the trailer can be interpreted in any way you wish. At the moment, with all the amazing things nature is providing us with, to learn about and to document pictorally, I like to think of the reference to God as to nature, our environment and to all the unbelievable creatures it houses.
Thank for everything Cate Morris.
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Cate hides the reference to the pagan festival Halloween on Phil's shirt

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Fantasea Barrier Reef Trip and Airlie Beach Friday Oct 10th

We had to do some work to earn our trip out to the Reef. As Cate suggested we drove to Airlie Beach to see what we could find to do there. It’s a winding-up whither-the-wind’ll take us way of travelling; from being stranded in St Helen’s Creek, to finding ourselves staying in Strathdickie, was something we couldn’t have planned, that dropped out of the sky for us. Trying to get to Mackay to work, then finding out on the way that our contacts there had fallen through and, with nowhere to work until Bowen, a tank of fuel we didn’t have away, we had to leave it up to random chance to dictate where we ended up next. And then Cate delivered us unto Airlie Beach.

Airlie Beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, and as such it’s a lively bustle of backpackers, travellers, transients and blow-ins. It’s a speciality place for those passing through. The reefs, the islands, waterways and forested mainland make it a prime place to explore and enjoy. Over 74 islands and islets comprise the Cumberland Group, known colloquially as The Whitsundays (again, thanks to Cook, who named the body of water there the Whitsunday Passage, as it was the 7th Sunday after Easter – White-Sunday – that he sailed it). Most are uninhabited and almost all are part of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. This is where you come if you want to dive or love to snorkel, are into water sports or find yourself a budding or bit of a sailor.

We did not think we’d get to see The Whitsundays. We thought initially we might have to pass them by altogether. So to find ourselves in Airlie, with all it could offer, we thought we’d be a little audacious and see if anyone would like to show us the Great Barrier Reef. We couldn’t let this opportunity slip by us.

After a little chasing around we eventually found the person we needed to talk to. Adrienne at Fantasea Adventure Cruising was more than willing to arrange for us to go out on the Friday cruise, the next day – provided we would be willing to do some work for them on Saturday at Airlie Markets, dressed up as King Neptune and The Little Mermaid, to hand out flyers. Would we be ok with that, she inquired? Chuck in Pocahontas too if you like, we retorted. The deal was struck. So we were off next morning through the Whitsundays. From being stranded in St Helen’s Creek to The Great Barrier Reef. The trip was warming up for us, we could feel it. There’s no reason for people to do anything for us, and all we do is ask. Some people say no, some people say yes. We were very pleased to have met Adrienne, especially as she gave us the opportunity to make fools of ourselves.

We had lunch courtesy of Gordon at Wisdom Health Lab who donated us some sandwiches then we went for a swim at the pool, an enclosed open air dip, by the sea, but full, due to Stinger Season (see Whinging Poms for more on Stingers). Tribal Travel donated some internet use time to us, and Con Raptis at Neptune’s Seafoods, on The Esplanade, donated a fish ‘n chip platter we had for dinner after the good people at Beaches Backpackers Bar allowed us to collect donations for Bookaid from some people despite the stern frowning of one of the doorstaff. Fish’n Chips down by the seaside, who can ask for more than that. We went back to Strathdickie, very happy with a good days work.

We got up early for the 8 a.m sail out to the reef, and were so keen to be there early we arrived at Shute Harbour, the major departure point for all the Whitsunday Islands, just after 7, just in case. We didn’t want to miss this. Having said that, it did look like we’d have the only day of the month when it decided to rain. Overcast and cloudy, it even spotted a little rain, giving us the opportunity to indulge in the time-honoured sport the British really did invent and are world-beaters at which is Weather Whinge One-Upmanship.

When a comment like ‘ooh, it looks like rain’ is uttered, it involves the next person in a complex strategic move whereupon the acceleration of panic and the forecasting of doom ‘it doesn’t look good’, forces the next commentator to step things up further, to Mother Nature’s grim determination to ruin your day out ‘bloody typical’, leading to the lamentation ‘why can’t anything go right for us, ever’ leading onto the eventual, equivocal fatalism of ‘oh well could be worse’, then the round of ‘oh yeah’s’ and the inevitable breaking of the silence when ‘clouds are looming ominously’, and the game takes on a more sinister edge, and the decision to cut loses and just go home takes place.

But this is Australia. The sun makes it’s predictable appearance and all talk of the dastardly scheming of a malevolent weather was forgotten. The sea was turquoise green, the islands looked lush and the sea breeze refreshing. We soon boarded and headed out to Reef World the floating pontoon by the Reef where we were to spend our day. Our day at one of the Seven Wonders of the World! – that list of miraculous phenomena; that feast the senses, are miracles to the mind, and that stagger the imagination, that, yet, somehow, the list manages to exclude Ventriloquism!

The art of making a puppet talk is no mean feat.Anyone who’s ever seen an inanimate sackcloth suddenly come to life, tell jokes, cheeky backhanders and act the larrikin while sitting gently on their Masters knee must surely have gasped in horror, when, at the end of it, it doesn’t walk up around shaking everyone by the hand, but collapses, in a heap, limp and lifeless, spent, and no matter how many times you repeat it’s catchphrase it refuses to obey you. Who are these magicians and where do they live that they make the inanimate effective tellers of dirty anecdotes and one-liners?

The Barrier Reef though is even better. We did a little research during the two hours it takes to get to the pontoon. The Barrier Reef, so named by Captain Cook because of the obstacle it presented his ships for 2,300 kilometres along the north-eastern coast, from the Gulf of Papua down beyond the Tropic of Capricorn. It isn’t one large reef, but a network of almost 3000 individual reefs, covering an area of 230,000 square ks, or, roughly the same area as the UK, and is the world’s largest coral reef province.

Coral reefs thrive in clean, clear, nutrient free, shallow waters, no more than 60 metres deep and derive all they need to sustain themselves and grow from sunlight. The material of the reef is made of calcium carbonate, limestone. The living reef, the coral, are merely a veneer, adding to the structure of the reef all the time. Their colonial structures are made up of thousands of individual polyps, each secreting its small cup of coral limestone. These flower-like creatures provide the building blocks for reef construction and were what we couldn’t wait to soon be seeing for real.

It really was staggering. We berthed and made our way to the pontoon, and set to getting ourselves in the sea, snorkels on, to feast our eyes. The sea was bath-warm and clear, and the array of shooting, darting multicoloured fish was stunning. Unable to stop and ask them what they were we had to content ourselves with our own names – the little triangular zebra fish, the rainbow fish, the great big fella fish (which we later found out was a Groper) eyeballed lollie-stick fish (sea whip gobies) the stripey ones (so many stripey ones). Giant Clams impressed us also, as did the array of sponges, and coral, and the brilliant clarity of the water. The world of the coral reef, the symbiosis of the existence of each and every creature, animal and invertebrate, mollusc or sponge, is stunning. It’s impossible to visit, see what’s going on and not be blown away by the way that living things live. It’s so much more than big thing eats little thing out there, and what we all love about Australia is the fact that nature and wildness encroaches daily life all the time.

To be out on the reef is to be allowed to view something unique occurring. The environment isn’t something people over here talk of as something thought of in inverted commas, the ‘environment’. It’s real and effective in daily life. It is the drought that kills your crops; it is the severe flood that puts you out of your home the same year; it’s living your life according to dry season, and wet season; it’s lush tropical rain forests down to the sea; it’s arid desert. There are lightning storms so spectacular you think the sky is about to rip open; it’s the everpresence of insects, animals, spiders, snakes, reptiles, ants; the respect afforded those things, animal and plant, that possess either a toxic venom or a ferocious bite.

On land, at home, or at work, doing a job, this is all viewed as being in the way (stings, bites, scratches etc) but at sea, looking at the reef, seeing the life there, the ecosystem at work, you begin to understand that living things have evolved a symbiotic relationship with other living things, that nothing is arbitrary, that death and decay are important to regeneration, that it all has some use, call it purpose, call it accident, design, time, or whatever, but it all works, and not in harmony, but in discord, in confrontation, in the face of assaults and threats.

The reef itself, despite the bemoaning of some about coral bleaching, remains healthy and thriving. Not all corals are brightly coloured and illuminescent, although these are, for obvious reasons, the ones most noticed and beautiful to see. The Great Barrier Reef remains the healthiest and largest reef systems on the world, and a true wonder to behold. We swam around, agog with awe as we witnessed it all.

The day ended and we sailed contentedly back to Airlie with images of trumpet fish, blue-girdled angelfish, giant turtles and all the sponges, clams and corals that looked unearthily translucent in the crystal clear water. Were we to have missed out on this and passed by without being able to experience this up close and personal we would be the poorer for it for sure.

We must give thanks again to Adrienne at Fantasea for making this day possible. Also to Portia at the Esplanade for making it all so friendly and accommodating. Thanks also to Jordan Blake who donated us a Reefworld dvd. Mention also goes to Flamos Takeaway for the Kebabs they donated to us in Airlie.

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