Whitsunday Blues

8/6/2019 Whitsunday Blues

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THE WHITSUNDAY BLUES

When I attempt to re-live the month I spent in Australia, the first thing that comes tomind is the tale of this guy in China who bought an unbelievably cheap branded hard-

disk with a huge memory capacity. Wary of imitations he made certain that the drivefunctioned by copying a lengthy movie on to the drive and getting no errors. He wentback home pleased with himself. The following day he sat to watch the movie he hadcopied and got nothing (not even the consolatory rainbow screen and buzz of aconstipated mosquito). He pried open the disk to check its innards. Thats when hediscovered that the disk had in fact just a few bytes of memory along with a circuit thatwrote and rewrote over the same portion repeatedly, effectively wiping out everythingbut the last few minutes of the movie. All this has, of course, nothing to do with Australiaand everything to do with my own memory. With a head like a sieve the only way torecord my impressions (in the absence of a Pensieve) is to resort to my pen.

Having said that, I whole-heartedly agree with Bill Bryson when he remarks in hisbook... When you leave Australia, Australia ceases to be. The land of Oz is smack inthe middle of nowhere, its reasonably well-off and tolerably well-behaved. As a result, itrarely comes up in conversation (according to google news trends the hot searches inthe US at the moment are Lee Evans, Geisha, cherry pie, Ron Paul, Corey Haim,Brooke Hogan, Rose Mcgowan... seriously... just who Are these people ?!). Anyway...its a loss to the rest of the world because the land down under is an incredibly charmingplace. The month I spent there was coloured by crystal-clear skies, global cuisine, livelyMelbourne, celebratory Sydney, ancient rainforest, majestically hazy Blue Mountains,sparkling blue seas of the Whitsundays and of course the very colourful and chilled-outpeople I met everywhere. My favourite phrase, which I heard all over the place, was No

worries mate!. This applied to everything... Your dog just died... no worries mate!,Being chased by a crocodile... no worries mate!, Aliens just blew up the earth... noworries mate!. I liked that.

While theres so much to write, Ill restrict this passage to the handful of days I spentnear the Great Barrier Reef and perhaps later move on to the rest.

All aboard...Flying in, peering at the sea framed by my tinywindow was like seeing a world through blue-tinted glasses... not exactly Avatar, but you

get the idea. The seas of the Whitsundayshave an aquamarine blue tint that I have yetto see anywhere else... imagine the bluest ofblue, and then throttle it to make it bluer still.

Into this world of blue the plane descended,lower and lower, till I thought the pilot wasplanning a Sullenberger (of the Hudson crash-


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landing fame). Just as I was grasping under your seat for a floatation device a tinyairstrip came into view followed by a smooth landing. The airport on Hamilton Island is

the most convenient way of visiting theseventy-four tiny islands collectively called theWhitsundays. Scattered off the eastern coast of

Australia they lie on the Great Barrier Reef.Hamilton is the most developed of the lot andthe only one with an airport. Most others haverightly been deemed as nature reserves andlay uninhabited.

Our festively painted plane had landed at anairport that was informal and cheery.Passengers stepped off the plane to stroll downa zebra-crossing painted on the airstrip to a

one-horse terminal. And before you could say What horse? you were already outside it

looking back for your luggage in confusion. The airport having no baggage carousel hadluggage motored to the entrance. Afew ferry services had set uptemporary stalls. People millingaround were either tourists stilladjusting to the sparkling views orairport employees wearing colourfuloutfits and smiles, uncharitably happyto be the few who were actuallygetting paid to be there.

I bought a ticket to Shute Harbour onthe cheerily named FantaSea Ferry.

It had been a long day. My alarm hadawoken me at half-past four inKatoomba high up in the Blue Mountains. Then had followed a flurry of trains, busses,taxis, still more trains and finally the flight out of Sydney. As I relaxed on the upper deck

of the ferry, with the sea-spray on my face, thepast few days of rain forest hikes weighed medown. The sea around me though was betterthan caffeine. Tiny little densely-jungled islets

floated past as the powerful ferry skipped overthe blue sea leaving a frothy white foam in itswake.

In a very short while we reached the mainlandand were shuttled across to the Shute HarbourRoad. Shute Harbour adjoins a one-streettourist town lined with backpacker hostels, cafe-


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style restaurants, souvenir shops and adventure merchants, each claiming to offer thebest and cheapest diving and cruising experiences in town. On one side of the road wasthe famed Airlie Beach Lagoon, a large C-shaped mouth holding a volume of calm,unruffled sea perfect forbathing.

I walked over to theExplore Whitsundaysoffice beside the beachto claim my boardingpass for the SolwayLass. Solway Lass wasa hundred year oldsailing vessel with avaried and colourfulh i s t o r y . O r i g i n a l l y

launched in Holland as acargo vessel namedStina in 1902, it wasl a t e r s o l d t o t h eGermans who renamedit Adolf. It was capturedby the British in World War One and used as a decoy merchant ship. Sold to a Scottishfirm in the Solway Firth after the war, it was rechristened the Solway Lass. TheGermans recaptured it in World War Two when it hit an ocean-mine and it ended up as

a supply ship to Danishports. Finally in 1983 it was

bought in Fiji by a guy fromSydney who refurbished itas tourist sail-ship withguest cabins, bathroomsand most things including akitchen sink.

Back on the beach, the shipoffice was manned by twopretty blondes who cheerilyinformed me that most of

my stuff would have to bediscarded and only thebarest minimum stuffed intoa cloth bag they produced. I

was content to dump it all in their office-closet, without any guarantees of safety, ratherthan deposit it in a secure paid-locker shop nearby.


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This was just one of the many things that could have gone wrong with my trip. It sohappened that the Peter Pan secure lockers were robbed when we were away whilethe unlocked closet in the office remained untouched. I guess the moral here isAnything that can go wrong, wont... or maybe Tis far better to be unprepared thansorry... or maybe its Vote for the Grasshopper. I dont know... you decide.

So I spread out my things on the couch there while the girls behind the counter werelost in conversation. South of the equator, as was to be expected, office politics chieflyconcerned the singing quality of a colleague. Snatches of song lingered in the airpunctuated by ...and thats how she sang, followed by another tune ending with ... andthats how it should have been sung.

I packed while dusk stealthily stumbled outside.The setting sun gave the streets anunhurried air. Beach dudes lounged around in shades, straw-hats and party-colouredshirts while pretty girls in short skirts and heeled sandals strolled back to their hostels toslip into even shorter skirts and even higher heeled sandals for a night painting the town

red.

I wolfed down a sandwich at thenearby Subway and received a fewcurious glances along the way. Itdawned on me that I hadnt seenanyone there with a darker skintone than white... if you didnt countthe various shades of sunburns allover town. As an expensive touristtown with most activities involving

physical exertion, I guess its not

surprising that it hasnt yet shownup on the conservative Indiantourist circuit.

The tour bus picked us up at halfpast six for the nearby harbour.Inside I got a first glimpse at thebunch I would be sequestered withfor the next three days and nights.While booking the cruise I had

been apprehensive that the groupmight end up as either a troop ofwild partying teens or a collectionof self-absorbed couples andfortunately I was mistaken. It wasan assorted bunch from around the world... nationalities that now come to mind areGerman and English, which were the lions share, followed by Dutch, Canadian,American and an Austrian family.


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We were greeted at the harbour by Mike, adorned with sunglasses in the dark. He wasour host and bosun of the ship. Our actual skipper Gaz was invisible throughout thecruise as he had the unenviable task of standing all day at the helm clutching the largewooden steering wheel.

It was remarkably quiet just a few minutes outside of town. We boarded our statelyvessel in the dark and soon the venerable pirate ship (with a genuine skull-and-bonesflag) floated out from in between the teeny-bopper sailboats scattered across the bay.We were finally off on our three-day sojourn of the islands.

The ship had a forecastle with a galley and crew-quarters in the front, a clear open-airmain deck with tables and stools and an enclosed closet-bar with a seating area andstairway leading down to the guest-cabins and bathrooms. Apart from the various sailsabove us, the ship also had a motor below for when the winds were not entirelyfavourable.

Mike ran us through his checklist of responses to emergencies like sinking, menoverboard or worst of all... running out of alcohol. He introduced us to the rest of thecrew, which consisted of Jade and Jono who nominally were in charge of the deck andthe bar respectively but practically involved in everything. And our hard-working chefCam, a French-canadian who single-handedly whipped up all our meals while jugglingour fussy dietary constraints.

The ship sailed on boldly through a dark stiff breeze, cutting the black water around usin sparkling white spray as we motored out of the bay and towards the stars. As we leftthe glow of the town behind us, the stars literally lit up the sky. An occasional shootingstar streaked across the firmament while cloudy wisps of the milky way snaked high

overhead.

Most of the passengers settled down in their cabins for an early night. I too wasexhausted but the conversation on deck held me. Lucie and Mike (a different Mike this)had flew from London to the Far East and over the past three months had traced theirway over the globe through Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and god alone knowswhere else till they had finally found themselves in Australia. They had a lot ofinteresting stories to narrate. Lucie gave a very expressive, PG Wodehousian accountof a kitten that she rescued from a mean tall conifer while repeatedly rediscoveringgravity.

That little nugget had been brought on by the even more engaging accounts of Dani, thepretty Canadian backpacker. She told tales of grizzlies attacking her Dad while campingwith little children who refused to hide their bacon. Skilled at playing Lacrosse withhuman skulls she rescued kids screaming bloody murder from scary heights. In herspare time she got hosed down with fire-extinguishers by jerks in random hostels acrossAustralia. I was sleepy and may have gotten the facts a tad mixed up but you get thegist of it.


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Below deck, I was bunked up in a tiny little cabin with Mike, Lucie and Jenn anAmerican with a lets-see-which-way-my-feet-take-me-today way of looking at the world.She had been in Australia for almost a year, I think, with everything she owned packedinto her car. These guys were all genuine globe-trotters, the kind of backpackers youread about who ride Arabian camels in the morning, get lost in jungles of Indonesia at

noon and huddle in igloos with eskimos at night. Rather than attempt to describe Jenn,Ill let her words do the talking as she describes her twin... We look quite differentactually, she explains, ... while my sister has the legs, I got the boobs... she got thelips, I got the eyes. Shed get the dates while Id kick the boys in the shins and playfootball with them.

It came to mind that my cabin-mates would all have made pretty good roving pirates afew centuries back.

Conversation droned on in the cabin while I dozed off. It wasnt as restful a sleep as Iwould have preferred. It might have been the gentle rocking of the boat but more likely it

was just a case of being overly tired with so much lined up for the next day.


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Whitehaven beachThe next morning I awoke early but lay in my bunk staring at the skylight till Jadestormed down to the hallway and yelled in her broken voice Laast caall for breakfaast...waake upp !

It was a beautiful morning on deck. Breakfast was slices of toast, cereals and coffee.The sky was clear, the sun smiled and the stage was set for a perfect day on thepristine Whitehaven beach.

The Lass soon set sail for this forested hillock with a shingly beach in the middle of thesparkling blue sea. We had crossed many such little islands that seemed lost andblinded by the bright blueof the sea and sky. Mostfelt so invitingly forbiddenthat it was nice to finallystep off ship and motor

down to one of them...the largest of them infact, the WhitsundayIsland.

Jono led us up the hillalong an Ngaro trailt h ro ugh the wood s .Ngaro were the originals e t t l e r s o f t h eW h i t s u n d a y s . L o n g

before the Europeansarrived. Aboriginal cultureas a whole is quiteremarkable... it is the longest continuous culture in the world with fossils dating back tomore than sixty thousand years ago. In that Age, nowhere else in the world had peoplemastered the navigation sufficient for whole tribes to make a perilous passage overopen seas, of the kind required to cross over from Indonesia. They also possessed thesurvival skills necessary to populate such a harsh and varied landscape with denserainforest along the coast and a parched desert in its interior. Their belief in the way theworld was created by supernatural beings in the beginning of time translates in Englishroughly to dreamtime. Tales of dreamtime were taught to children after they underwent

spiritual rituals surprisingly akin to the Vipassana meditation taught by Gautam Buddhamany millennia later in India. Like the natives of North America, their culture bondedintimately with the natural world and its loss has left the world a much poorer place.

It was a short walk up from the shingled beach to a lookout from where was visible thepristine stretch of the Whitehaven beach. Sparkling white in the morning sun, this beachhas silica of such purity in its sand that it was used by NASA to make the lens of theHubble space telescope. It seems fitting that the amazingly vivid deep space photos


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captured by the Hubble were filtered through the sands of this picture-postcard scene ofbrilliant blue and white.

The water was cool andtempting while the sun

o n m y b a c k f e l tpleasantly warm. I hadforgotten my swim-trunks in the cabin, but Iwaded in nevertheless.The water was liquidglass. Each minuteripple of the gentlet r a n s l u c e n t w a v e sgl inted in the latemorning sun. It was a

long and refreshingswim.

At noon we collected atthe base of the hill andreturned to our vessel. Ifell in step with the three German girls who had been backpacking across Australia forthe past so many months. Almost everyone on the boat, I realised, had been on theroad for many months... and I thoroughly envied the lot.

Ov e r l un c h I g o t i n t o

conversation with a Germancouple, Eric and Steffi, andthey literally took the cake.They had been driving throughAustralia for more than fifteenmonths and still had a lot ofgr oun d to co ver bef or eheading over to NewZealand.The first question that usuallycomes to mind is how do youafford it... but that is a

secondary considerat ion.Traveling incessantly, evenwhen done in stages, for yearstogether takes a very differentmindset from what many of us

have. As for costs, they live with a minimal of expenditures... cooking food rather thanrestaurants, campers in parking lots instead of hostels, scouring for coupons, freebiesand discounts... traveling on a shoestring albeit a very very long shoestring.


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We hauled up the top-sails with Jade brandishing a cat onine tails to ensure disciplinein the ranks and then shut the engines.The silence was immediate.This is theway men were meant to sail. No drone of

engines, no mechanical vibrationsunderfoot, just billowing sails flying withthe wind.

With a long swim, heavy lunch and ad r o w s ys u n ,conditionswere idealf o rl o u n g i n g

on deck. I retired, instead, to the perfect spot just off thedeck... a net that hung from the prow. It hung low,forming a rough hammock, right above the churningspray that flew up as our boat sliced up the sea.

T h eb r e e z ewas s t i f fa n d t h ekno ts on

the net rough but the hammock, I thought,

was perfect. Gazing down at thetranslucent shimmering blue while keepingan eye out for whales and dolphins, it wasone of those moments where nothingmuch happens and yet gets painted on theinside of the skull with indelible ink. Thewind was too sharp and chilled for a nap,and yet I lazed on the net for hours.

We moored for the night in a sheltered bayoff Hook Island, called Baird point. A rope

dangling from the yard high above usserved as a rope-swing for theadventurous few to leap off into the sea.With a morning spent in the cool sea and anoon in the brisk wind, I declined and settled instead in front-row seats for the sunset.


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The sun here sets rapidly, a golden globe that dips below the horizon almost as soon asit gets there. The glow however spread out across the cloudless sky above and thecalm ocean below and very gently cooled into night.

After dinner we settled in the enclosed part of the deck and the drinks began to roll. Westarted with card games but soon moved on to the more entertaining drinking game thatKathrin came up with... Lets get fucked up!. Mike introduced his own game involving atiny shot glass and need for much flexibility. As Ive always believed, yoga has its uses.The crew werent permitted to join us for as Mike put it, You dont want to wake up inFiji now do you ?. As a matter of fact, I don t think any of us would have minded thatany too much.

Back in our cabin, conversation turned to the various scams that Mike and Lucie hadcome across in their travels through the Far East. An interesting one was of crossing the

Thai-Cambodia border, wherein their tuk-tuk took them to an ersatz border less than fiveminutes away from the genuine article with a fake but official looking border crossingand a visa office charging exorbitant fees. This was, apparently, such a rampant scamthat it found pride of place in the Lonely Planet as well.

It took me a while to fall asleep again... what with the noisy creaking of the ancient woodof the cabin in the choppy sea outside and the wine and spirits inside.


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I can fly!The next morning we awoke to a bright sunny day with few fluffy clouds floating arounddisoriented in the immense blue all around us. After breakfast we sailed on for the BluePearl Bay off Hayman Island for a spot of snorkeling on the reef.

The Great Barrier Reef is a prolific marine habitat with more than fifteen hundredspecies of fish and two thousand plant species living off the corals and surroundingislands. Lets pause here to consider... What is the largest structure on earth made byliving organisms, that is so large as to be visible even from space ? The answer is Notthe great wall of China, it is these remarkable reefs built by tiny humble corals workingaway at it with their noses to the seafloor, so to speak, for thousands of years. TheGreat Barrier Reef stretches across more than three hundred thousand squarekilometers off the eastern coast of Australia.

The snorkeling here was Simply Awesome! It was like floating in the photographicnegative of a surreal world that throbbed and swayed in a grand synchronised

choreography while schools ofrainbow coloured fishes flitted pastwithout a care in the world. Palerabbitfishes wearing fluorescentyellow webs clung to forests of coralswhile zebra-striped frenchfry-sizedlittle fish nibbled on their scales.Schoo l s o f v i v i d l y pa t t e r nedangelfishes fanned their bright yellowfins to bustle around self-importantly,scarcely condescending to swerve

away from outstretched fingers. Alarge earth-brown dour-lookingcharacter skulked among the scarletanemones that waved cheerily withthe currents down below. Delicatepale bristles swayed in unison andalgae in primitive reds, green and ink-blue painted the mounds of finelywebbed corals. The corals, buildingblocks of the reef, are sessileanimals... so in a very real sense

even the ocean-floor here wasvibrantly alive.

The best thing about snorkeling was that when you got tired you could simply float withthe current and take it all in passively. The only sound you heard down there was yourown rhythmic breathing. It was hypnotic.


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All too soon, the water seemed freezing and I was shivering in my wet suit. By the time Iclambered on to the rocky little beach on Hayman Island I was chattering. I was one of

the last to get out of the water and I stillhadnt had my fill.

The beach itself was just a large pile ofpebbles which on closer inspectionturned out to be corals or shells in allstages of metamorphosis. Some wererocks that resembled fan-shaped shellswhile others were minutely ingrainedstarched pebbles perforated withdelicate tubes, like a miniature asteroidinhabited by a civilization of Lilliputians.I would have probably heaved a tonneof these gems back with me if the

Aussie airports did not, very sensiblyand unfortunately, fine passengers smuggling corals out of the country.

Back on deck I toweled off and settled down with a mug of steaming hot chocolate nextto ten-year old Michael. With his family out diving, he was left behind forlorn and teary-eyed waiting for them to return. He spoke only a broken English while I spoke noGerman at all, but he did calmdown some.

In the boat with the scuba-diversw a s a c o u p l e f r o m a

Scandinavian country, I forgetwhich, who had a harrowingexperience. The woman soxygen regulator was faulty anddid not warn her when the tankbecame empty. The spare onewith her partner had so manydials and doodads to fiddle withthat they couldnt figure it out inthe growing panic. She shotstraight up and had a narrow

escape. This being Australiahowever, it was brushed aside... unlike the US where lawyers would have instantlydescended like a pack of vultures to raise a hue-and-cry.

A gem I picked up about this unpredictable continent was that in the sixties Australia lostits Prime Minister when he went out for a morning swim and disappeared. Now pausehere to consider this... the Prime Minister of a large developed country one fine day justvanishes into a calm sea! An Ozzie I discussed this later said that the remarkable thing


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in this story was not that he drowned; people did that all year round in a sea crammedwith lethal stingers and jellyfish, vicious sharks and fickle rip tides. What was noteworthywas the matter-of-fact manner in which this piece of news was received... no conspiracytheories, no media circus... nothing. There was another election and life went on as italways did. To commemorate their missing leader they christened a swimming pool after

him! If that doesnt speak of a distinctive Aussie humour I don

t know what does.

That afternoon we unfurled our sails and set off in search of migrating humpbackedwhales. More than thirty species of whales and dolphins have been recorded on the

reefs, many of which migrate up fromthe frigid seas of Antarctica in searchof warmer waters in the winter.

I was considering an afternoon nap inmy cabin away from the ever-presentsea-breeze when a shout soon went

up Whale!. Initially it was a burst ofspray far in the distance followed by amassive tail slapping the waves as theleatherbacks dived in deeper. Butsoon it was apparent that the whaleswere far from camera-shy. At leastthree of them surfaced just aft of theship, rolling and casually showing off

their massive dull-black glistening skins and casually blowing off steam. We all crowdednear the helm with cameras flickering in excitement. The whales remained unflusteredand and followed us at a stately pace.

Having had our fill of blubber we leftthe whales to their gambols, turned onthe motors and headed back for theislands. We anchored in a bay offBlack Island and prepared for anotherround of snorkeling. I gave the ropeswing a try and it was fun speeding offthe rails, skimming the water and thenflying off at the apex of the arc tosplash in the cool waters. At my

second attempt however, I found thecurrent too strong to swim back to theship-ladder. Though the ship wasanchored, there was a strong current pulling me away. Tired after a morning ofswimming I just couldnt reach it. It was kind of ridiculous, struggling just beside the shipwith little Michael looking on in concern from the deck. I finally gave up on the ladderand hung from a rope attached to the dinghy tied to the ship. Jade and Mike gotalarmed and trailed a safety ring with a rope. I rested a bit and swam back to the ladder


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instead. When I consider the situation, I never felt even a trace of fear just a sense ofthe ridiculous. It would have been downright silly to drown just beside a boat while evenbeing watched by a sympathetic little boy from the deck.

The snorkeling near Black Island was also spectacular. The fishes were fewer in

number but the corals and sea-anemones were amazing. It was a whole forest downthere with brightly painted livingunderwater hills and valleys.Some of the mounds on theocean floor looked like massivesubmerged brains with deepfurrows and folds swarming withclusters of tiny fishes flickeringover them like thoughts. As thetide was low, gliding the corallandscape felt like flying low

through hills. We had beeninstructed not to touch the corals(as it ki l ls these delicatecreatures). In spite of my bestefforts I managed to lightly cutmy feet on the spiky corals asthe current pulled me towards

the beach. I finally gave up on finding a way to the beach while avoiding the corals andsignaled for the motor-dinghy to return and pick me up.

Most others had not even bothered to get in the cold water so Eric and I must have

presented a peculiar sight. Shivering and chatteringwhile peeling off our wet suits with bleeding feet butwide grins. Hot showers never felt better... and Ifollowed them up with cups of steaming hot chocolateand tea.

Dinner that night was festive with cake, ice-cream andtoasts to an English couple from a small town nearManchester who were celebrating their 25th weddinganniversary. Cam had broiled a fish for me and specialvegetarian dish for the few who didnt eat meat. I later

learned that she had learned how to cook only afterarriving in Australia, probably as another backpackerliving out her dream.


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That night all seemed exhausted but still wishing to make the most of the last night outon the sea. Jade suggested a silly and fun game involving a mandarin orange, a batonand much scurrying around the deck. Conversation ranged over the different traffic rules

and conditions in the various countries we were from. Coming from a place where cowswere mobile traffic islands and traffic rules were essentially traffic suggestions, it wasfascinating to eavesdrop on matters of a very alien nature... skidding on icy roads inHolland, ramming into moose on freeways in Canada, halting of trains in Londonbecause of too many leaves on the tracks and, of course, the famed efficiency of theGermans. With many teachers in the group, conversation shifted to eccentricities in ourprofession as we shifted indoors. Most were struggling to stay awake, and we shortlyretired for the night.

That night I was dead to the world.


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Pirates BayThe next morning I woke up early at dawn, and went up on deck to catch the sunrise.Our boat was anchored in the Macona Inlet away from larger swells of the ocean. Thesun crept up from behind a hill just off the port side (which Im proud to say, I know nowto be the left side of the boat). As a result, I did not see the sun pop out of the sea but I

was glad nevertheless to stroll the deserted deck with the sky gradually blushingwarmer.

Breakfast was the usual fare of toast and cereals. A spread popular in Australia is aconcentrated yeast-extract goingby the name of Vegemite. Views onit are sharply divided and thosewho dont spit it out right away ourdevoutly fond of it. The Austrianbehind me in the queue saw mescraping it on my toast and blurted

out that that in itself qualified mefor an Australian citizenship. Verysalty and mildly spiced, mixed inwith a thick spread of butter ittasted just fine I thought.

We motored off to the South MolleIsland. In a wide bay off the islandwe settled in our dinghy to step offon the wharf of a rundown resort. This ancient resort built in the thirties still has a finegolf-course and well-maintained trails that take you up the the hill to a scenic lookout.

The walk up through thelight woods took the betterpart of an hour all throughwhich I kept my eyespeeled to catch sight ofKoalas. I did see a few tinyblack spiders that I wascareful not to investigatetoo closely but sadly noKoala.

Koalas are plump fluffy littleteddy bears that cling tobranches and move in as l o w m o t i o n w i t hp e r e n n i a l l y d a z e dexpressions, stoned ontheir diet of Eucalyptus

leaves. They had a long blissful run of the wilds till the Europeans arrived in boatloads.


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Of all the species that they introduced the number one predator of these gentle junkiesis, not surprisingly, feral cats. I can justsee my pet cat Sippu bright-eyed andalert, stealthily stalking these dozingclumps of fur that could at most

languorously wave hooked little feet inprotest.

The view from the top of the hill was spectacular... a wide crescent of blue with our

pirate ship moored off the coast as shadows of clouds smoothly gliding over the waters.


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We headed back down for lunch. It was lunchtime for the fish as well who gatheredhungrily near the wharf to be fed. With no one from the resort to feed them theyremained hungry while we had a spread waiting for us back on our Lass.

The afternoon sun shone on

the port side and all werehuddled in the little patch of sunsheltered from the brisk breeze,enveloped in their books andsunscreen lotions.

All too soon we could see thecoast again. Drawn out hotshowers and beds that did notsway beckoned... but it waswith regret that I stepped off

our home for the past threedays.

We reconvened at a pub laterthat night to exchange emailsand say goodbyes... but like Australia as a whole, these vividly coloured memories havealready begun to bleach with time... till they now seem like a mid-summer nights dream.

I hope I dont wake up any time soon.

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Whitsunday Blues