THE EDGE OF

THE WORLD

Next Stop Cape Horn

CORAL WAIGHT

Copyright © 2018 Coral Waight

Coral Waight has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work. The information in this book is based on the author’s experiences and opinions. The publisher specifically disclaims responsibility for any adverse consequences, which may result from use of the information contained herein. Permission to use information has been sought by the author. Any breaches will be rectified in further editions of the book.

All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-0-6483364-0-2 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-6483364-1-9 (e-book)

Prepublication Data available from The National Library of Australia.

Cover image by Coral Waight

Cover design by Busybird Publishing

Other books in the Planning to the Nth series

Hangi, Haka and Hobbits: Notes from New Zealand

Is This the Road to Stratford?

The Edge of the World (poem) published with kind permission of Brian Inder

Contents

July 2006

July 2009

October 2009

March 2012

About the Author

July 2006

Prologue

It’s four o’clock and I’m thinking I should ring the tourist park at Strahan to say I’m running late. There’s no mobile coverage but it’s been allowed for. A public phone stands at the side of the road just outside the town of Tullah.

‘Be here by six,’ the woman answers, ‘we leave then.’ I’ve looked at the map and there’s not too far to go.

‘No worries. I’ll make it easily.’

I drive another hour and it’s nearly dark. People, on the whole, are not practical when giving advice on travelling. No-one told me Tasmania was dark at five o’clock in winter. I needed to know that. I’m not sure how much longer my concentration will hold out. It’s been a huge day. I left the Spirit of Tasmania, the ferry that brought me and my little hatch-back across Bass Strait from Melbourne to Devonport, around 7 am. Everyone else on the ship disappeared within minutes, while I drove in circles looking for somewhere for breakfast. I know it’s Sunday and I know it was early but surely some enterprising soul with a cafe this close to the ferry terminal could open for people like me on their first jaunt to ‘Tassie’.

Just before giving up I saw a cafe that had been there all along and I realised how tired I was. I’d had a cabin to myself but kept waking up, not wanting to miss anything of my first trip, on a ship, into an ocean. Eggs and bacon in front of an open fire energised me and I set out on my adventure. My travel-agent daughter suggested I pass through Sheffield, a country town with the history of the area painted in murals on the walls of the buildings. She also strongly recommended a walk around Dove Lake, which lies at the feet of the great dolomite crags of Cradle Mountain. I don’t think she meant me to do it all on the first day.

I’ve done road trips before so I’m not a complete novice when it comes to distances but I don’t seem to be getting anywhere. I left Cradle hours ago. Maybe I took a wrong turn. There’s nothing here but mountains and forests; mile after mile of corners to navigate in the dark. Now and then an SUV roars past and I watch its tail-lights disappear into the gloom. They obviously know where they’re going; I haven’t got a clue. I could be here forever, alone, driving into a black eternity. Enough of the melodrama; must pull myself together; must concentrate. What if I don’t make it in time? What if they close up and leave me stranded?

It’s twenty to six and I see a couple of lights off in the distance. Civilization, maybe. A house; a sign; more signs. I’ve reached the outskirts of Strahan. I drive around a corner past a cabin park, not mine, and up the dimly lit main street. In fact, it’s so dim I can’t make out anything clearly. Peering through the windscreen, I reach the top of the hill, realise I’ve gone too far and turn back. I drive from one end of town to the other – twice. My tourist park does not exist. The pub – they’ll know.

‘Nope,’ says the barman, ‘never heard of it.’ Mustn’t cry; I have to find a bed for the night before I cry.

‘That’s it,’ says the girl at the general store, pointing to the park opposite, the one I’ve driven past three times.

‘But the sign says a different name.’

‘I know,’ she says, ‘but that’s it.’

I drive down the side street, turn right into a lane and right again, looking for ‘Reception’. The park is in darkness, there seem to be no occupants and there is no ‘Reception’. Something happens to my brain when I’m stressed, it switches and everything becomes muddled, just for the moment. Maybe that’s what’s happened. Maybe I’m looking straight at ‘Reception’ and can’t see it.

‘You want something?’ says a man, striding past the front of my stationary car. I sag with relief.

‘I’m looking for ‘Reception’.’

‘Over there!’

‘Where?’ He throws his arm up.

‘Near the light pole,’ he barks and marches away. I head back to the lane. There is no ‘Reception’ at the light pole but a dim light issues from the porch of a white house further along. ‘Office’ says the small sign over the door.

‘Oh, my God, I couldn’t find you!’ The woman behind the counter stares at me. ‘I’ve been driving for hours. I thought you might have left.’

‘Where have you come from?’

‘Dove Lake. I thought I’d never get here. It took over three hours.’

‘It takes one and a half. I’ve just come from there.’ Mustn’t cry; not yet.

‘You’ve got a different name on your sign. I drove past thinking it was the wrong place.’ I could have been talking to the wall.

‘You’re in 9,’ she says, slapping the keys on the counter. ‘It’s the next drive on the right. There’s a heater going so it should be warm.’ Well, that’s something. I’m squinting through the windscreen at the darkened cabins, searching for Number 9 when my mobile rings.

‘How’d you go?’ It’s my travel agent daughter.

‘I couldn’t find the town and I couldn’t find the park and I can’t find my cabin and they’re so rude and it’s all mountains and it’s so dark. There’s something wrong with the lighting.’

‘Mum,’ she says, ‘you are in the wild west, you know.’

‘Right, yes, right. Here I am! Number 9! I’ve found it! I’ll ring you back when I get in.’

I am in the wild west. Some mental adjustment is needed. I now understand the worried look on her face when I announced I was doing the west coast first.

‘Rubbish,’ say the locals in the general store when I question the timing of the trip from Dove Lake. ‘It’s a good two and a quarter, if you know your way.’ Relieved I’m not totally mad, I grab my chips and some milk and cereal for the morning and wander back across the road, down the side street and along the lane.

Chapter 1

I’ve always wanted to explore Tasmania. I wanted to learn more about the place where many of the convicts transported here by the British Government, worked out their sentences. I also wanted to see the forests that were considered so precious they were on the World Heritage List. I’m not a good travelling companion. I’m bored by shopping, restaurants, wineries and art galleries but I can sit in a town square for two hours watching the locals going about their business. I can spend the same amount of time in a forest gazing at a stream making its way down a hill or straining my neck to see the top of a 600-year-old tree. I like travelling alone because it gives me full say in where I go, how long I spend in each place and what I do when I’m there.

Tassie is easy to get to from where I live in Melbourne, and easy to drive around, and yet, other than a drive from Hobart to Burnie with someone who considered stopping to look at anything an unnecessary irritation, I’d never made the trip. My family must have been sick of hearing about it because, on my 60th birthday, they presented me with a ticket for the crossing and five nights’ accommodation. I added a week to that and here I am, on a sleek, white catamaran, waiting to fulfil my dream of sailing up the Gordon River through the wilderness of Tassie’s south-west forests and, while there, visiting Sarah Island, the most notorious of Australia’s early penal settlements.

The engines rev, the gangplank is drawn back and we slide out into Macquarie Harbour. I paid extra to ensure myself a window seat but, being the middle of winter, the ship is almost empty and I move up to a raised section in the centre where I can see all around me. Macquarie Harbour is just over 110 square miles of protected water. The only way in and out is through a narrow gap, only 50 feet wide. The harbour is one of the few large bodies of tidal water in the world. With the raging winds of the ‘Roaring Forties’, and the tide meeting the waves crashing in from the Southern Ocean, the passage into Macquarie Harbour was a terrifying ordeal for those in sailing ships. Worse, there’s a sandbank dead across the entrance and so, at spring tide, the depth of water shrinks to just 11 feet. The passage was named, reasonably enough, ‘Hell’s Gates’. Ships would often wait days for a chance to get in and then many were still lost. Let’s hope our skipper knows what he’s doing.

A salmon and trout farm sits in the middle of the harbour. The skipper’s voice echoes through the speakers. ‘It’s feeding time. If you look back, you may see a few leaping up for their breakfast.’ The engines lull and we bob on the water for a few minutes. No trout or salmon makes the effort. I guess they’ve learnt they don’t need to – probably just lying back with their mouths open. We pass through ‘Hell’s Gates’ easily, do a U-turn in the Southern Ocean and safely return to the quieter waters of the harbour. Morning tea is served and I sit at the bow of the ship, my scarf wrapped tightly against the cutting wind, to wait for my first glimpse of the Gordon River.

In 1978, the Tasmanian Hydro Electricity Commission announced its intention to build a dam close to where the Gordon and the environmentally sensitive Franklin River meet. Both areas are World Heritage Listed. A protest followed, gradually growing until it involved people from all walks of life and all parts of Australia. In 1983, when Bob Hawke took over from Malcolm Fraser as Prime Minister, he kept his campaign promise to put an end to the plans, although it took a High Court Case against the Tasmanian Government to make it a sure thing. I’ve seen photos of the Gordon, winding from its source in the Central Highlands, its waters dark and so serene they create a mirror, reflecting the rainforest through which it travels.

‘Now,’ says the skipper, as we approach a bend, ‘get your cameras ready. It’s clear today. With a bit of luck, we’ll have great reflections.’ I do as he says and there it is – a perfect mirror. Dark green, forest-covered mountains, with veils of white cloud drifting across the pale blue of the sky. What is the use of a photo? How can a camera record this beauty? I do, though, to jog my memory when I’m back in my concrete city. The cruise companies have been given permission to create a small landing with an elevated walkway in a loop through the forest. We file off the ship and I enter an ancient realm. Trees soar toward the sky, so tall I can hardly see their tops.

‘Huon Pines have been known to live up to three thousand years,’ says our guide, ‘and there is a known stand who’s root base has been in existence for 10,000 years. As you go along you will pass a 2000-year-old pine. That is, it was growing before Christ was born.’ I try to get my head around that and give it away. ‘It has fallen but its roots are still alive and so saplings are growing from it. I’ll leave you to wander. We’ll meet back here in half an hour.’

The tree is massive; 2000 years old, unable to stand but still a support to others coming on. Not unlike humans, I guess. Just because our legs can’t carry us in our old age doesn’t mean we can’t still offer support to those coming on though, on the whole, they don’t realise it’s available till it’s too late. I commune with the tree as others glance at it and fade away. The forest is quiet, with only the whisper of ferns and the occasional fluttering of sparse leaves that have been able to survive in the dim light. A half an hour has gone already and I rush back to the ship. We’re served lunch as we glide back down the river to the harbour.

***

Until 1856, Tasmania was known as Van Diemen’s Land, named by Dutch explorer Abel Tasman, the first European to land on the island, in honour of Anthony Van Diemen, Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies. Sarah Island, established in 1822, was set up to detain those convicts that had the cheek to keep escaping from settlements on the mainland. Little remains of the original buildings. Most were made of timber and have rotted away. The brick and stone structures were depleted by souvenir collectors and the forest has reclaimed most of the island.

It’s a bleak place. The wind whips off the dark water, the sky is a steely grey and it’s cold – freezing. I lean against the wet, moss-covered wall of the ruins of the solitary confinement cells, stone coffins, completely dark with barely enough room to lie down.

‘Before the cells were built,’ says our guide, one Richard Davey, in a Dryzabone and Akubra, ‘prisoners were left on Grummet Island.’ He points to a large rock to the north-west. ‘No bedding was provided and so they spent the night in the open in their soaked clothes, often still in chains.’ I shiver and pull my coat tightly around me. ‘Escape from Sarah Island was virtually impossible, due to the treacherous seas that separate the island from the mainland, the wilderness, and the distance from other settlements.’

‘Plenty tried,’ an elderly man next to me says, quietly. His shock of white hair contrasts, vividly, with a red woollen scarf, tucked tightly into the neck of his well-used duffel coat. He tells me about Matthew Brady, a flamboyant Irishman, transported for forgery. In 1824, he and 14 of his mates stole a boat and sailed it to the Derwent Estuary, before taking to the bush. For nearly two years he led one of the colony’s most notorious bushranger gangs.

‘He was a folk hero for the settlers,’ the man says, ‘due to his good manners. Women loved him. And he was a character. When Governor Arthur offered a reward of 25 guineas for his capture, he offered 20 gallons of rum to anyone who could deliver the Governor to him. He was captured, eventually, by the bounty hunter, John Batman, and hanged in 1826 before a crowd of weeping women.’

‘What a great story.’

‘There’s plenty of those.’

‘I can understand them risking the forest and the ocean to try and escape. Nothing could have seemed worse than what they had.’

‘Or committing murder.’

‘Really?’

‘A few planned murders so they could get a trip to Hobart and have the distraction of a trial. And then, being hanged was an escape from their nightmare.’

The group starts moving away. Meanwhile, Richard Davey has walked down the bank and is now doing his spiel while standing in the water – in waders, luckily, which is more than the convicts had. His rich, resonant voice floats up to us but I’m having trouble concentrating. Something keeps dragging me away – ghosts, maybe. Pieces of information flicker past me.

‘Huon Pines are perfect for ship-building ... a unique oil that makes the wood resistant to fungi.’

‘Prisoners spent hours up to their waists in the water ... worked all day on a breakfast of flour and water ... no fruit and vegetables ... disease.’ Drips run down my face and I realise it’s drizzling. Umbrellas have popped up around me.

‘Lash ... solitary confinement ... slavery.’

This was more than punishment – revenge, maybe – or what happens when the normal checks and balances are no longer in place. Macquarie Harbour was so far from the rest of the colony that, in the early days, there was little supervision. Most overseers were ex-convicts and made the most of their first ever experience of power. One monster, Alexander Anderson, designed his lash with double twisted and knotted cords. The permissible maximum at any one time was 100 lashes and he used every one, at every opportunity. To complain was criminal; even an expression of anger added to the punishment.

‘Would you like to share our umbrella,’ says a plump woman, already sharing it with her plump husband. There’s absolutely no way there’s room for me but it’s thoughtful of her.

‘Thanks,’ I say, ‘I’m fine.’ Meanwhile, Richard has returned to dry land and is now standing in what was the bakery, a rivulet running from the rim of his hat.

‘The Suffolk oven produced 400 loaves a day. Ergot was added to the bread to cause it to go mouldy. That was to prevent the inmates from stockpiling their food for escape attempts.’ Not particularly rational, I would have thought, considering the severe shortage of food at the time and the fact that everything had to be shipped in. ‘By 1828, Sarah Island was the largest ship-building industry in the colony. It had developed into an industrial village with blacksmiths, tanners, boot makers, medical orderlies, cooks, gardeners and clerks.’

‘Did they have a school,’ asks a boy of around eight, who has been