The design has barely changed in a millennium, but when it works as well as this one, why would you bother? We’re perched in a sailau, a type of wind-powered wooden canoe, about 12 metres long, constructed from timber gathered from nearby Panaeati Island. The crew stands to one side on the bamboo outrigger – at least they do when they’re not swinging out over the water on the boom to change direction or bailing water from the bilge.
Sailaus are not tourist crafts; rather, they’re the main form of transport for locals to get around in this part of the world. They are the truck, car, school bus and telegraph for these island communities, racing along at speeds of 12 to 15 knots, delivering people, goods and news to wherever it is they need to be. They’re unique because they’re shallow enough to skim over reefs and land on islands inaccessible to Western-style yachts.
We’re sailing in the Conflict Islands, the most far-flung atoll in Papua New Guinea’s southeast Milne Bay Province. They’re part of the Louisiades group of about 600 islands. With only about 160 of them inhabited, this is one of the world’s final frontiers.
Twenty-one pristine islands, encircling a central lagoon formed from the rim of a sunken extinct volcano, make up the Conflicts. In the past there was 24 of them, but the others have since disappeared underwater. These days, the whole lot is owned by Australian-born entrepreneur turned eco-warrior Ian Gowrie-Smith.
The islands are deserted, except for a tiny resort on the 64-hectare Panasesa Island. Here, you’ll find six beach bungalows, created by craftsmen from nearby islands with rosewood for the floors and carved timber columns, in an idyllic setting that includes little else other than a dive shack, clubhouse with dining area and bar, and a couple of vegetable gardens. Previously this tiny patch of paradise was off limits to the public – a private hideaway for Gowrie-Smith and his close friends and family when they could make the long journey. Even now, when the resort is at capacity, the island’s population peaks at 12.
A reef 300 metres off shore fringes Panasesa Island, creating a spectacular iridescent blue lagoon. There’s just one way in for arriving boats – a small break in the coral wall that must be navigated with care. The colours are spectacular and, even from the boat, the life beneath the water is clearly visible. Parrot fish are busy, scraping the algae from coral that, eventually, becomes the finer-than-caster-sugar sand forming the white island beaches.
Back during World War II, US troops cut a swathe through Panasesa’s coconut palms to create a grass strip capable of landing small planes. These days, coconut shells line each side of the runway, which ends at the ‘international’ terminal: a small thatched hut with a sign.
A sand path leads from the accommodation to the far side of the island. It’s possible, on reaching the beach, to wade into the water and snorkel to the fringing reef. Here, the coral wall drops 40 metres into the deep, its vertical mass alive with fish and coral.
And while the marine life is spectacular, it’s not confined to the ocean’s depths. One night I watch as, just metres from the bungalows, a hawksbill turtle makes the slow journey up the sand to lay her eggs. In about two months, with a little luck on their side, the hatchlings will make the treacherous trip back to the ocean.
In the morning, we head across to Itamarina, an even smaller island almost five kilometres from Panasesa, for more snorkelling and a beach picnic. The boatmen who ferry us there on their sailau are not from the Conflicts. Instead they have sailed from nearby Brooker Island to pick us up. Juda, it turns out, paid for his sailau with pigs. They’re also a common currency when it is time for a man to pay for a wife.
Located in the centre of the atoll, Itamarina is the crown jewel sparkling in the lagoon. Sitting on the sand, it would be easy to pretend you’d been marooned on a desert isle, but the rations – brought across from the resort in a metal dinghy – are more substantial than those that could be scavenged by the average castaway. We sit beneath a thatched shelter and eat fresh seafood, salads and pork barbecued on a spit before returning to the warm azure water to swim.
The following day the dive boat manoeuvre between coral bommies rising from a sea of blue and green. On board is a floating think tank of marine biologists, island historians and underwater photographers, who’ve come to explore the area and document their findings. We are heading to the waters surrounding the largest island in the group, Irai. It is long and flat, with an amazing seven kilometres of spectacular, blinding-white beachfront. Once again, it is completely uninhabited and utterly unspoiled. The diving, we’ve been promised, is outstanding, particularly off the northwest and southwest tips.
Milne Bay Province has 1126 dive sites in total and is the most bio-diverse marine region in the world – twice as many species are found here as on the Great Barrier Reef. But even among such stellar company, these reefs are considered standouts. So varied is the marine life in this corner of the archipelago, the Conflicts and its surrounds are being considered for inclusion on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
One night I watch as, just metres from the bungalows, a hawksbill turtle makes the slow journey up the sand to lay her eggs.
Our destination on this fine morning is a dive site known as Beluga. More than a thousand species of fish have been recorded here – including a rare clownfish only seen in a couple of other spots in the world – but the site also boasts swim-throughs in the shallows at five to 10 metres and a vertiginous 50-metre wall.
Alex, the resort’s dive instructor who hails from Germany via Bondi, leads us through this remarkable environment. As we descend into a silent world, I’m surprised at the incredible visibility.
Going down the wall is like passing a vertical garden with blooms of every colour. Ribbon corals unfurl and sea grasses and ferns wave in the current. Soft sponges appear in the shades of the rainbow – purple, red, green, yellow and orange. Peer into the massive farms of coral, formed over hundreds of years, and you’ll spy scores of tiny fish. Brilliant sapphire-blue pygmy angelfish with orange highlights and banded clownfish weave past, as if teasing us. I extend a hand and they speed away.
Minute school fish swim past in a silver trail like confetti at a wedding. Eels poke their noses out from the coral then swiftly pull back in again. Even the smallest of sea creatures – waving nudibranchs (shell-free mollusks) and tiny snails – are blessed with dazzling colours and intricate patterns.
On the seabed, there are sea cucumbers – like fat slugs, they squirt if threatened – cuttlefish and all kinds of soft corals and sponges. Giant clams hide between the rocks and Christmas tree worms, with their blue, yellow and green spirals, magically retreat as we come close. Monumental vase corals tower over the landscape.
Alex points out one curious-looking species then waves a finger in front of her mask indicating not to touch it. It is the infamous puffer fish (in some Japanese restaurants it’s sold as fugu, considered one of the most dangerous foods in the world) that inflates like a balloon when touched or startled.
At a depth of 25 metres, the seabed suddenly drops away and there is no sight of the sandy bottom. We have reached the hypnotic ‘blue zone’. Out there, where there is ever-darkening cobalt and seemingly very little else, swim the big fish. Tuna, giant mackerel, grouper and massive Napoleon wrasse, with their hump heads and fleshy lips, glide past us and out into the mysterious depths.
Too soon, Alex signals it’s time to surface. “What makes the diving so exciting here in the Conflicts,” she says when we gather back on the boat, “is the diversity of dives and the fact there are still so many undiscovered sites.”
Central to Gowrie-Smith’s future plans is the preservation of both the islands and the surrounding reefs and ocean. In the past, local fishermen harvested all the sea cucumbers and turtle eggs they could lay their hands on to sell as delicacies to Asian traders. There’s also the threat created by commercial long-line fishing, where the incidental catch of seabirds, turtles, sharks, unwanted species and juvenile animals can have a devastating effect on the ecosystem. Instead, Gowrie-Smith is determined to create a tourism industry involving small, responsible operators dedicated to preserving this tiny patch of paradise and providing the islanders with a much-needed livelihood. After all, it’s a rare opportunity to save one of the finest underwater worlds left on the planet.
All I can see are shades of blue – navy, sapphire, teal, aquamarine, cyan – swirling in a free-form masterpiece above and below the horizon. Then I jump. As the bubbles disperse, a new world reveals itself.
Orange and black clown fish dart in and out of enormous turquoise anemones. Crimson, yellow and green fish, whose patterns are reminiscent of those on Versace fabric, weave between elaborate coral pinnacles. A pair of Moorish idols, with their elongated dorsal fins, slowly surveys the reef wall, like a couple of nosy neighbours. A ghost ray ripples past.
I descend – five, 10, 15 metres – into the cobalt depths. A solid school of silver giant trevally zips past me like a bullet train. All types of coral, including huge lime plates and wafting golden elephant ears, catch my eye. A white-tipped reef shark zigzags below. A large but delicate mauve gorgonian fan – the first I’ve seen here – waves gently in the current.
This is the Rowley Shoals and, unless you are a dive aficionado, you’ll probably never have heard of it. Three teardrop-shaped coral atolls – Clerke, Imperieuse and Mermaid – soar more than 400 metres from the ocean floor on the outer tip of the Australian continental shelf, 260 kilometres north-west of Broome. The lip of each reef encloses a massive 80-square-kilometre lagoon where the water is a balmy 26ºC and the underwater visibility is a dazzling 25 to 50 metres. Such pristine conditions create a huge variety of marine life – about 230 types of coral and 700 species of fish in all. The reefs are also among just a few in the world washed by five-metre tides, which rise and fall in six hours. All that flowing seawater brings with it massive amounts of nutrients for corals to feed on, so they grow larger than elsewhere. The fish are similarly bigger and bolder.
It is November and the water is like glass. I am one of just 14 divers and snorkellers, plus the crew, and we have the place to ourselves. It may be a bit of a rock’n’roll 15-hour overnight boat trip to the Rowley Shoals from Broome, but for those who savour pristine underwater adventures and a delicious sense of space, it is well worth the journey.
Only a handful of operators visit each year and only during the Doldrums, the calm before the wet season, when there are no prevailing trade winds and the water is swimming-pool calm. There is never more than one boat here at a time.
I have chosen a five-day adventure on MV Great Escape, a 26-metre luxury motor catamaran with three tenders (small boats) on board, giving guests loads of adventure choices. Owned by Broome locals Trippy and Jezza Tucker, it is used for a number of cruises along the Kimberley coast, but the Rowley Shoals adventure is the crew favourite.
“You can swim, snorkel, dive, fish, beachcomb and you are the only people in the middle of nowhere,” says crew member Taylor Merrutia. “It’s like being on holiday – even for us.”
The catamaran has seven staterooms with en suites, plus a spacious lounge and dining room stocked with reference books to help you identify all the colourful species you discover below. Wandjina art decorates the walls. There’s a spa on the front deck, a rooftop heli pad for sunset viewing and stargazing, and an airy back area where most meals are enjoyed. Luckily there are plenty of them, since all the activity grows appetites to gargantuan proportions. Young Welsh chef Will Bacon serves up pancakes, poached eggs and crispy bacon for breakfast, chicken caesar salad and seafood marinara pasta for lunch, sunset appetisers like curried won tons, and dinners of Thai duck salad and pistachio-crusted lamb, finished off with coffee crème caramel and pavlovas for dessert. All the guests can bring their own drinks on board at no extra charge.
As the most serious dive boat to access the Rowley Shoals, Great Escape offers four dives a day, sometimes starting as early as 6.30am. For those who are game, there’s often also the option of heading back into the water after dark. Snorkellers have a dedicated tender and snorkel master to look after their needs. But the two big highlights here are the drift snorkels and wall dives.
On the outgoing tide, all 14 of us jump out of the tenders, are captured by the current and swept along the coral channels viewing the thriving life below. We zip past a kaleidoscope of parrot fish at various stages of their sex change from female to male (the males are the prettiest in various iridescent shades of turquoise and mauve). We also see them doing their day job, rasping algae from coral with their ‘beaks’. Dozens of giant clams litter the sandy floor, beckoning to us with their gaudy lips. The palest of pink fish, with big bedroom eyes, swim right up to our masks and tag along for the ride. The only hardcore folk are the green turtles, all nobbly and gnarly, and always just out of reach in the current ahead. At the end of each drift snorkel, we hop in the tenders as eager as kids at a theme park to get on the next ride.
With panoramic coral gardens harboured within each lagoon, the snorkellers continue on other surface adventures, while the divers get excited about some of the best wall dives on the planet.
At Clerke Wall I marvel at staghorn coral and weave among huge hump-headed Maori wrasse. On the Jimmy Goes to China site (so named because if you don’t get off the drift you may just end up in the Orient) there’s an entire colony of multicoloured gorgonian fans and a speckled cuttlefish changing its spots to blend in with new surroundings. The highlights of the Mermaid Wall dive are neon-bright nudibranchs and garden eels tucked among a jungle of corals, both soft and hard. At the Cod Hole I meet Agro, the grey-spotted potato cod, who takes such a liking to my pink mask he follows me around like an oversized underwater puppy.
While the drama is all below the surface at the Rowley Shoals, it is blissfully serene above. We toast our good fortune with sunset drinks on a sliver of blinding white sand that has been tantalising us for days. Bedwell Islet is our very own desert island, and we raise our glasses to this glorious watery wilderness as the sun’s golden orb melts into the sea and the inky sky above is pricked with stars.
“We call it catching up here. Not fishing!” says Trevor, grinning. I’m standing on the bow of the MV Nomad holding a three-metre-long rope with a hook at one end and what looks like a spoon while bobbing on top of the Arafura Sea, off the far north coast of Australia’s Northern Territory. I have no idea what to expect.
“Here they come,” Trevor warns. “Make sure you pull them in quick. The sharks are bloody fast up here.” I look across at my brother, who’s clutching his rope somewhat competitively, but now looks equally uneasy. In an explosive splash, his line pulls taut as a Spanish mackerel the length of a surfboard breaks the water and takes his lure. There’s no fishing rod or reel here. It is hand over hand as fast as you can – if you aren’t fast enough, as my brother soon finds out, you pull up half a fish, the other half taken by an opportunistic and rather hungry bronze whaler shark.
Within an hour of casting our spoon lures we’ve reeled in four and a half enormous Spanish mackerel, blistered both hands and screamed like little kids as we pulled our catch from the jaws of Jaws himself. We try some reef fishing and my brother snags a fish that is the size of a couch and fights with the resistance of one, too. I hook a coral trout that swims into the mouth of a shark and snaps my line. I’m out of breath from both exertion and laughter. All the while Trevor smiles broadly, almost with pride, as he fillets the mackerel. The sun is high and bright and the sky a deep endless blue. It is almost the perfect fishing trip until Trevor offers us a beer. Perfection.
We are on a “bro-cation” at Banubanu Wilderness Retreat, a dream made true by Trevor Hosie and his wife Helen. Tucked into the dunes of Bremer Island, about three hours by boat from Nhulunbuy, on northeast Arnhem Land’s Gove Peninsula, Banubanu looks as though Robinson Crusoe himself built it out of the driftwood, flotsam and jetsam washed up on the surrounding beaches. There’s a dugout canoe in the Driftwood Cafe – the central meeting and dining point – that’s made its way from Papua New Guinea, and a life ring from the Avona Jakarta hanging on the wall. God knows what happened to the Avona Jakarta, or her crew for that matter. Given the appetite of the bronze whalers we’ve encountered, I doubt many of her men would have made it this far had she gone down. Old fishing nets, giant turtle skulls and coloured buoys complete the picture.
There are wooden walkways through the sand leading to the accommodation: a series of cabins and tents almost buried in the dunes behind the Driftwood Cafe, all with luxury bedding and bathrooms. Trevor has also built the ultimate beach shack here, its sundowner deck looking over the northern beach. It is his crowning glory and where we sit après catching, cold beer in hand, watching a golden Northern Territory sunset over the far rocky point after which Banubanu was named.
Trevor’s dream began decades earlier while he was surveying the area for a previous job. Bremer Island, in particular, stayed with him. Ironically, Trevor was part of the team that classified the island a protected area and, as such, it remained isolated until 2003 when he returned to build Banubanu. Lak Lak, the local Yolngu landowner, remembered Trevor from his surveying days and granted him permission to build. In return, Trevor employs local youths and pays a royalty to the community. The arrangement gives guests a unique opportunity to meet the Yolngu people and gain an understanding of how they live. Unfortunately we don’t get a chance to meet Lak Lak, but we’re told she is a regular visitor.
Trevor and Helen’s respect and affection for her is obvious. There are quite strict rules regarding the environment, and alcohol can only be preordered and brought in with guests.
We spend a morning circumnavigating the island in Trevor’s beaten-up old Toyota. It doesn’t take long, yet around each bend is a breathtaking view of another isolated beach just begging for a set of footprints. Trevor takes us inland to some crab holes, but we pass on trying to catch their inhabitants when he mentions the area also “has a few crocs”. As beautiful as it is in this part of the world, it is important not to forget just how wild it is too.
And that is what makes Banubanu so special. There’s no TV or phone coverage (unless you climb the highest dune and get lucky), so you find yourself immersed in the nature surrounding you. Trevor talks us through the bird life and I imagine twitchers fumbling with their binoculars in excitement. We’re lucky enough to spot some sea eagles darting in the distance. Turtle watching here is world class with new nests appearing weekly during the nesting season, and while they are off-limits to guests, the locals can track down larger turtles for an up-close and environmentally friendly experience.
The easy option for Trevor and Helen would have been to set up a simple campsite and let guests look after themselves, but the beauty of Banubanu is that they haven’t. Helen tells us they have tried to make everything they can control five star. The food she prepares is exquisite. On our first evening we start with sashimi from a fish Trevor filleted on the boat that afternoon. Dessert is a Heston Blumenthal-inspired pop rock pudding. The Driftwood Cafe, lit by candles and catching the sea breeze, is the ideal location. The food, the bedding and the service are on par with a top-priced resort. The beach, the sunset and especially the fishing are even better.
But for me, it is the escape that is the allure of Banubanu. After only a couple of days I feel like a genuine castaway, as though I’ve been washed up on the beach clutching the Avona Jakarta life ring. Three days feels like three weeks. The rest of the world is so far away it is forgotten. Large beach resorts try hard to replicate the “shipwreck experience” travellers seek. Banubanu doesn’t have to try. It is the real deal, garnished with luxury. We have a perfect half-moon beach to ourselves and time is told by the sun’s position in the sky. On our our final evening it puts on another spectacular closing number. My brother and I toast the moon and gaze up as the stars come out. From this vantage point Banubanu is far more than five stars.
Tell people you’re heading to the Northern Territory to kayak down a river and they’re only going to say one thing. Come on, no one in their right mind kayaks down a river in the Northern Territory – particularly if the river’s full of crocodiles. So I say it again and again and again: “They’re not stupid. No one’s going to let me paddle down a river with crocodiles in it.”
Turns out I was wrong. They are going to make me paddle down a river with crocodiles in it. Saltwater crocodiles. The kind that grow bigger than, well, a kayak. I discover this about 300 metres above the river on my incoming helicopter ride. That’s the Katherine River below me. When it’s done funnelling its way through nine famous gorges, which we’ve just flown over, it winds its way slowly downstream across the red dust and clay of the Australian outback, south-west of the township of Katherine.
“How come there are no saltwater crocs where we’re going?” I ask the helicopter pilot, waiting for a logical explanation. I’m sitting right beside him in his Robinson 44, so while his voice comes to me as a noise through my headset, his eyes stare right at me. “What do ya mean?” he asks.
“I just would’ve figured that a river so far north in the Northern Territory would have saltwater crocs in it.” I’m still looking at him. “There are saltwater crocs where you’re going, mate,” he says slowly, like he’s not sure whether I’m messing with him or just thick. “About a week ago, they pulled a four-metre saltie from a croc trap right where you’ll end up.” He continues on his merry way. “See there,” he’s pointing at a riverbed. “My neighbour’s dog was taken there by a saltie two weeks back. She reckons there wasn’t even a yelp. One minute it was there, next it was gone.”
But this far from the coast, the Katherine’s full of fresh water: “Doesn’t matter. They don’t mind the fresh water,” he says. But why on earth would an adventure company take people paddling above saltwater crocodiles? “It’s an adventure company, isn’t it?” he says with a chuckle. “Anyway, they should know how to avoid them.”
At this point in the conversation we spot a man in a kayak below us, waiting beside a tear-shaped sandbank in the river. The pilot banks hard left so that I temporarily lose my stomach as we come in low and fast and turn full-circle back at him.
My feet sink ankle-deep into coarse orange sand as I meet the bloke I pray knows where every last crocodile is on this stretch of the Katherine. The river’s a pretty sort of soft blue. It’s still enough, too, to create a mirror on the surface reflecting the lush trees that line both banks and look so out of place among the dusty plains we’ve just flown across. On a hot day like this one, it looks like the kind of river you’d leap right into if you didn’t know better.
“I wouldn’t,” guide Matt Leigh says casually. Leigh’s not the type to lecture or waste much breath on talking, but it’ll be these two words that guide me through the coming days – if Leigh says he wouldn’t, I don’t.
“There could be salties here,” he says, glancing around. “You never can tell. You’re better off soaking than swimming round here. Don’t swim where you can’t see the drop-off. You’d be right 99 times out of 100, but I take more than a hundred people here every year.”
Before I even so much as dip a paddle in the Katherine, I fire every croc question I’ve ever thought of, and then some, at Leigh. From that round of interrogation, let’s dispel a few myths about saltwater crocs before we go further – it’s only fair and, believe me, it helps.
They’re not always the killers we regard them as. An average saltie eats once a month, so they’re hardly out trawling for fresh meat like a lion, which eats as often as it can. And at five metres long, our kayaks are at least a metre longer than the crocs around here, so rather than seeing us as easy, squishy prey in plastic take-out trays, we’re simply the dominant species – they’ll hide until we pass by. Allegedly. Where there’s a greater chance of lurking crocs – in the deeper, darker sections of the Katherine – we’ll paddle in group formation.
But the crocs that inhabit this part of the river aren’t generally aggressive anyway – that’s why they’re here. They’re the non-dominant males who elected against fighting for women and food. Instead they tossed their towels into the ring and swam upriver to enjoy the quiet life, far from the testosterone of the coastal estuaries. There’s plenty more Leigh can tell you too, but it’s this image – of a river full of shy, retiring crocs seeking a bit of peace – that gives me the greatest comfort. So much so I’m finally able to concentrate on what’s all around me, rather than just under me.
Paperbarks grow right out over the water offering shade from the fierce afternoon sun. Blue-winged kookaburras – the kind that doesn’t laugh – fly between them as I pass by. Higher on the banks where gums grow, whistling kites and white-bellied sea eagles fly. Above them – high in the thermals – wedge-tailed eagles and black-breasted buzzards, so big they block out the sun when they pass in front of it, patrol the ground for food.
The river flows steadily so I ride the current downstream. Each bend brings with it a completely different scene – around some corners the river looks wide and peaceful; past others it narrows into tight, fast- moving avenues racing through smoothed-out sandstone, where I have to carefully negotiate my passage. When the sun starts to lose its sting, Leigh leads us to a sandbank near a knee-deep section of the river. “This’ll be camp,” he says simply. “Shallow water should keep the crocs away.” I stop to soak in the slow-moving water. By the time I dry off, Leigh has a fire going, and a pewter mug of whiskey with ice cubes is waiting on the camp table. All around ghost gums and river reds are lit up gold by the last rays of afternoon sunlight, while agile wallabies spy us through the trees, wondering about their funny-looking new neighbours.
Leigh cooks roast beef and vegetables in an old black pot on the fire and, when we’re done, I pick out a soft spot – still warm from the sun – on the rolling dunes. From my swag beneath the moonless sky, I watch stars shoot one by one across the infinite black, while listening to the steady hoot-hoot of southern boobooks and tawny frogmouths.
At dawn, Leigh kicks the fire back to life and cooks up a feed of bacon and eggs he frames not so neatly inside charcoaled pieces of toast. Then it’s back to the water. Over the next couple of days, the surroundings change by the second, as overhanging trees and green foliage give way to the kind of dusty setting you’d expect in this part of the country. Then we paddle around a corner and it changes all over again. Underneath me in the clear, warm water black bream, mullet, catfish, barramundi, snap turtles and metre-long whip rays dart about. Sometimes I float over tiny freshwater crocodiles hiding beside sunken logs – in the height of winter it’s not unusual to see 60 in a day. Above me in the trees, I see branches, tree trunks and other debris hanging precariously, swept there by summer floods when the river rises up to 20 metres. Around one corner I almost paddle into a decaying wallaby washed downstream. I hope its stench hasn’t attracted salties.
The more I paddle – or sometimes just drift with the flow, stopping to stretch my legs as Leigh boils billy tea along the river bank – the more I feel like I’m floating through some sort of real-life Hans Heysen landscape of Australiana, travelling back a century or more into a country I figured disappeared with the rise of modernity.
Out here, I can’t post a single shot on Instagram or Facebook, instead relying on my own eyes – rather than a hundred likes – to legitimise the beauty of all I see. There are no humans here either. Often we paddle for hours without speaking a single word. It’s like I can hear the outback slowly breathing in and out around me, keeping time with the wallabies that bounce along the sandbanks and the cooling nor’-wester that huffs and puffs through the paperbarks.
When the tour’s almost done, I spot a clunky, silver-looking contraption on the far bank. It’s only now I remember that a four-metre croc was pulled from here a fortnight ago – from that very croc trap. Rolling down the Katherine with the breeze at my back and the paperbarks forming a cathedral above me to guide me home, I’d forgotten about the man-eating creatures below. But as I squeeze my way slowly and silently through the only lush parts in one of the world’s most rugged landscapes, I’m mesmerised by all I see, smell and hear around me. In this blissful state of being, I feel like throwing myself into the river one last time before I leave her for the big smoke. “I wouldn’t,” Leigh says. I don’t.
Hobart’s ominous ceiling of cloud spits us out on the tarmac and we’re soon absorbed into a landscape as dramatic as it is gloomy. Rolling fields and mountains give way to a sky of endless grey. It’s a landscape of contrasts that serves as the perfect backdrop for the Museum of New and Old Art (MONA), an institution dedicated to life’s extremes – birth, sex and death. And that’s why we’re here: to revel in MONA’s Dark Mofo festival and get in touch with our hedonistic, pagan sides. Or, put simply, to check out some seriously weird art and music while enjoying Tasmania’s culinary spoils.
The program for the festival is unlike any I’ve ever seen. Museum creator and introverted gambling prodigy David Walsh and his minions do a damn fine job of sourcing some of the most left-of-centre exhibitions and acts. It adds great mystery and intrigue to the whole adventure, as there’s little preconception when walking into one of the numerous venues scattered across Hobart. From giant melting ice-blocks and transvestite Beat poets to Australian exploitation film screenings, Dark Mofo’s line-up is irreverent and unpredictable.
First up, and a mandatory highlight of the Mofo experience, is a visit to MONA itself. Clinging to a small point overlooking the Derwent River at Berriedale, about 20 minutes’ drive north of Hobart, the monolithic museum looks more like a Bond villain’s lair than an art gallery. Rumour has it the building will eventually crumble into the river as the land below it erodes. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.
You can’t describe MONA in a nutshell. Safe to say, there’s nothing like it on Earth. Or in the earth, for that matter. The museum is built into the ground and you can either take a lift or a steep winding staircase into its bowels – I use that word for good reason. One of the museum’s more notorious exhibitions is a contraption designed to replicate the human digestive process. It’s all very scientific, of course, but a poo machine nonetheless. And, yes, it stinks.
Our schedule allows only a couple of hours in the museum, but you could easily spend longer. It’s incredible, weird, shocking, ridiculous and even has an onsite craft brewery and winery. I can highly recommend both, especially after watching a robot take a crap.
The rest of our Dark Mofo jaunt is split between day and night. The days are spent traipsing around Hobart and surrounds, taking in the festival’s bizarre and disparate offerings. These range from a screening of the classic Ozploitation flick Wake in Fright and a disturbing performance from legendary gothic Greek singer Diamanda Galás, to a musical stage adaptation of Snowtown, the film about the infamous ‘bodies in barrels’ murders. It is hands down the strangest theatrical experience of my life, and I’d wager a barrel of hard cash it’d be one of yours too.
Murderous musicals and wailing Greeks aside, Mofo really gets going after the sun goes down. The biting cold winds pick up and now is the time to ignite your smouldering inner fire with some tasty food and drink. The Winter Feast, a huge wharf on Hobart’s waterfront filled with food stalls by some of the country’s leading chefs, is an ideal start. But get there early as the event unexpectedly drew more than 45,000 hungry punters over the course of the festival in 2014.
Bellies full, we take refuge inside the New Sydney Hotel, a pub to end all pubs. This Hobart institution is a must-visit. The giant blazing fireplace toasts our backs as we peruse the drinks list. But it’s the hand-pumped beer tap that snags our attention. The brew on offer is rotated regularly, offering up a bevy of either unheard of or unpronounceable small-batch beers such as the Aurora Borealis, a 16 per cent beast that dares you to mumble its name after a couple of pints. We knock back a few and proceed to Dark Faux Mo, the festival’s official afterparty.
We roll into the Odeon Theatre, a longstanding Hobart icon and this year’s party venue. Divided between the main theatre, a mezzanine space and a small shed around the back, the festivities offer something for every taste. Headlining the main stage on the final night of the festival is Seattle drone metal band Sunn O))). The entire theatre is drenched in smoke and strobe lights and through the flashing sickly sweet fog comes the most diabolical noise. The smoke begins to clear, revealing a monstrous stack of speakers and the origin of this deafening auditory barrage. I manage about 15 minutes before retreating to the bar.
A few more Moo Brews and I’m upstairs, soaked in sweat and beer, dancing (some would argue having a fit) to Aussie synth-funk outfit Total Giovanni. The band finishes on a high and I slip out into the chill. The pathway between the main theatre and the back shed is crammed. I shoulder my way through the crowd of freaks and geeks and into the brothel-red lit back room. I arm myself with another Moo and take stock. The room is absolutely pumping. In the back corner a bluegrass band works revellers into a frenzy, while in the centre a skinny, bearded dancer a leather S&M get-up is gyrating on a stripper’s pole. At this point any lingering inhibitions evaporate.
I’m not sure what time we finish up, but on the walk home, in between bites of a pie, I try to piece together what this whole thing has been about. I’m still unsure whether the winter solstice/pagan-ritual theme ties each moment and experience together, but there’s something undeniably powerful happening in Tasmania thanks to MONA. Travelling to an island at the end of the Earth in winter and completely immersing yourself in art, performance, gastronomy and partying is truly unique. In a bloated festival landscape such as Australia’s, MONA’s Dark Mofo stands tall among the crowd. And I can tell you, I’ll be back.
It’s 3am on game day and Katie Ryan can forget about getting any more sleep. A player raps on her door with a problem that’s now her problem. He has been up vomiting and can’t keep water down. Minutes later there’s a second knock on the door. Another player has woken, this time with a throbbing pain in his hand after his fingernail was trodden on during the previous day’s match.
“The players got very little sleep that night before having to get up and prepare for another two games, and I decided it was just easier to stay up, make an early coffee and get some paperwork done,” Ryan says. “It was going to be a long, long day – it would be 22 hours before I got a chance to get to sleep again.”
Welcome to life on the road as team physio of the Australian Men’s Rugby Sevens. In some respects, Ryan is living every girl’s dream – travelling the world with a muscular bunch of uber-athletic blokes, always on stand-by should one of them need a rubdown. But Ryan isn’t a girl, she’s a professional sports physiotherapist and mother of three, who’s second family just happens to wear green and gold and takes her to places most nine-to-fivers could barely imagine. This year the circuit includes Las Vegas, Dubai, Wellington, the Gold Coast, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Glasgow, London and Port Elizabeth in South Africa – all with two gear bags, a treatment table and 30 kilograms of sports tape in tow.
“Apart from the travel I’m just really lucky that I get to look after these absolutely professional athletes; they train super hard and, yes, there are pinch me moments when I’m doing a treatment session looking out over Dubai, or having a treatment session watching the whales swim up the coast at the Gold Coast, or treating a player looking over Wellington. They’ve just been amazing times.”
When we meet trackside at Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas, Ryan, 44, has her hands full. The player who was up vomiting is being assessed for IV fluids – he’s come off the field severely dehydrated and has shed three kilograms. There are other wounds and injuries to tend to and once they’ve been dealt with, a quandary: where can two women meet in such a blokey environment? “How about I come to you?” I propose. The suggestion is met with the following text: “Where I am now in the change rooms faces the communal team shower – you would blush.”
Ryan is used to the nudity, blood, sweat and grit that comes with looking after a professional sports team – it’s part of her job description and, as the only woman on the squad, she carries out her role with dignity and respect. It’s a courtesy that is reciprocated among the players and team managers, who don’t mind giving Ryan a gentle ribbing when they see her talking to a journalist – it’s all part of the camaraderie. Humour is important when you live out of each other’s pockets on tour.
Ryan always snags the biggest hotel room during tournaments, but it’s not really her own. As the primary person responsible for player welfare (team doctors don’t come on tour), she’s on call 24/7. In Vegas her day starts early with the players filing into her room to ‘check-in’, a game-day ritual where they are weighed, have their physical stats recorded and any issues addressed. Next it’s off to the pool for ‘activation’ to start preparing for the day’s matches (often there are two games, each consisting of seven-minute halves with a two-minute half-time). Ryan will spend up to an hour strapping and prepping the players. Soon they are warming up against the dramatic backdrop of the arid Nevada mountains, then it’s show time.
“We go out on the field and the strength conditioner and myself have to run water during the match. Because it’s so intense you’ve just got a short time to get on and off. I almost got tackled by a Scottish player today, so it’s fast and furious and then it’s back off to manage any injuries.”
After the game there is more strapping, ice, hydration and perhaps some manual therapy as Ryan and the team assess whether some players can “back up” for another match. Fourteen minutes of competition might sound lightweight but the sport is punishing; these are colossal, super-fit athletes who charge the field with lightning speed and brute force. Peripheral injuries to ankles, knees, joints and backs are common, as are contact- related wounds and soft-tissue damage, such as strained calves and hamstrings. Hydration and nutrition are perpetual challenges, particularly on long-haul flights when you are dealing with bear-like men crammed into chicken-class seats.
“We know anecdotally that long periods of travel on planes affects athletes – it’s a real concern for player welfare,” Ryan says. “This can be the effects of sitting in air-conditioning for anything from three to 22 hours, sitting next to people who are unwell and picking up an illness, losing weight from eating small, irregular meals that are not optimal for athletes, and the effect of jamming six-foot, five-inch, 100-kilogram players in economy seating for long periods – expecting them to be able to have any sort of quality sleep sitting upright.”
Ryan – who graduated as a physiotherapist in 1993, becoming a sports physio in 2000 – spent two decades working with rugby union clubs before joining the Rugby Sevens full-time in 2014 when the program centralised in Sydney. Between running two physio practices with her husband – former Australian Wallaby’s physiotherapist Andrew Ryan – and raising three children under the age of 11, Ryan has little chance to sit still. And her job comes with sacrifices: in Vegas she misses two of her children’s birthdays, and Mother’s Day is spent on tour in Scotland.
“Missing two birthdays was a little bit devastating,” she says. “I guess the biggest thing being a mother is that there’s just no way I’d have this opportunity normally with three kids at home if I didn’t have a great team at home as well – my husband, mother, aunts, uncles – everyone pitching in to enable me to be able do this.”
Opt out of Noumea’s fancy hotels and expensive restaurants and head north to immerse yourself in Kanak culture by staying with a local tribe for a night. Situated about a 30 minute-drive from the busy hum of the seaside village, Hienghène, the Tiendanite tribe is nestled out in the wilderness and it’s a sight to behold.
You’ll be greeted by your host, Bernard, among a tangled mess of green towering trees and blooming taro bushes, bright pink bougainvillea and clusters of fat yellow pamplemousse (grapefruit). The accommodation is a small wooden cabin, furnished with twin mattresses on the floor, and fitted with a power point and a single light. It’s quaint but comfortable, and the disconnect from your usual creature comforts frees up time to enjoy your lush surrounds.
Sit down to a feast of locally sourced food for dinner – think fish caught straight from the river and homegrown vegetables. During the day, discover the history of the Tiendanite tribe on a walk around the grounds with Bernard, learn to fish for freshwater prawns or master the art of harvesting yams.
It’s always wine o’clock in Adelaide, and this unique establishment demonstrates why. Created by a trio of mates, including a local winemaker, food expert and coffee connoisseur, Cantina Sociale serves small-batch and one-of-a-kind wines sourced directly from the vineyard.
From barrels behind the bar, the staff pours drops – ones you won’t find on other wine lists or at the bottle shop – from McLaren Vale, the Adelaide Hills and further afield. Choose a glass, indulge in a carafe or opt for a flight. Keep yourself nicely satisfied with a selection of snacks from the kitchen including truffle oil popcorn, lamb ‘lollipops’ and platters of pintxos (Spanish snacks of anchovies, marinated capsicum and peppers on bread). By the end of the night you’ll have a party on your palate.
Early mornings are all part of the experience at this understated luxury getaway on the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in remotest Western Australia. The heat makes the hours just after dawn the most comfortable for the activities: driving along beaches looking for turtle tracks, fishing for barramundi on uncharted estuaries or for GT and Spanish mackerel out to sea, taking the boat along the coastline spotting local residents from saltwater crocs to dugongs, or cruising over the dramatic landscape in a helicopter.
Twenty individual lodges are built along sand dunes. Each is decorated with restrained elegance, and has its own sensational outdoor bathroom. The views out over the ocean are stunning, and, when the sun is high in the sky, beneath the shade cloth on the private balcony reading or contemplating the wilderness is the place to be. There’s a pool at the main lodge, where meals created from the best ingredients sourced from around the world are served.
The highlight of any trip to the lodge – if you take away the seaplane transfer from Kununurra – is the river cruise that meanders between soaring red cliffs to Casuarina Falls, where guests can step out on to the rocks and under the torrent of water to cool down.
I’ve met a bird travelling and I’m smitten. She has exquisite brown eyes, a goth-black pecker, voluptuous bust and a body that feels like heaven’s velvet.
“Look how calm and content she is with you,” local guide Kenny says, sensing the chemistry between us. I almost don’t hear him. We’re sharing a moment, locked in a delicate embrace that elicits the kind of first-date goosebumps you get when two souls connect. It doesn’t matter that it’s raining buckets. Thick pellets whip my face, others detonate on my raincoat, finding chinks in my waterproof armour and seeping through to my skin. It’s a total whiteout but I’m completely oblivious.
I’m on Lord Howe Island and the bird that has won my affections is a providence petrel – a rare seabird that breeds nowhere else on Earth. I’m not a twitcher and you’d never catch me stalking out a hide in a camouflage vest and explorer hat – binos at the ready – but this experience has really moved me.
We’ve come to the base of Mount Lidgbird, one of the dramatic twin peaks symbolic of Lord Howe, to witness a rare and extraordinary weather event. A cyclonic-force low on the mainland has dumped 230 millimetres of rain in two days, transforming the volcanic rock faces that loom over the island into spectacular silvery cascades. Being here for this spectacle, on an island renowned for its mild climate, is akin to watching waterfalls tumbling off Uluru. But getting close to the action is going to involve getting wet. We stomp through mud, wade through shin-deep water and negotiate a knee-high crossing powerful enough to sweep the feeble-footed out to sea. The track burrows through tunnels of forest turned into gushing rivers, the overhead foliage blunting the force of the rain until we arrive at a grassy headland, hemmed in by the brooding Tasman Sea on one side and the basalt escarpment of Lidgbird on the other.
There’s an auditory deluge as the distant waterfalls compete with the thumping downpour on the hood of my raincoat. But there’s another sound too, the squawking of black-boomerang silhouettes circling overhead. It’s late afternoon and the curious petrels are coming home to roost. They respond to noise, and soon I’m cooing and howling like a banshee, calling the birds down. They literally drop out of the sky, one then another – gently carpet-bombing the ground until there are half a dozen clumsily flapping at our feet.
Our guides encourage me to pick one up. It’s not normally the done thing interacting with wildlife like this, but I really want to. I have to. I delicately slip my fingers under a bird’s ribcage and tuck it into the crook of my arm against my tummy. Its little webbed feet retreat under a plumage of fine brown-grey feathers in trustful submission. I stroke its chest, a little heartbeat pulsing against my fingers, and study the white-scaled pattern around its face and the rain droplets, forming like tiny diamantes, on the crown of its head. The bird is so relaxed it’s almost in a trance-like state. That’s what happens when you inhabit a remote island largely isolated from human contact. Birds have no fear.
Being here for this spectacle, on an island renowned for its mild climate, is akin to watching waterfalls tumbling off Uluru.
Lord Howe is the Galapagos of Australia, renowned for its proliferation of wildlife and plants, including many rare and endemic species. Thrust out of the Tasman Sea by volcanic eruptions almost seven million years ago and sculpted by molten rock and erosion, the island – a speck 600 kilometres off the NSW coast of Port Macquarie – nurtures a unique biodiversity that earned it world heritage status in 1982.
The island’s topography is staggering – 1455 hectares of subtropical rainforest and volcanic rock, fringed by white-sand beaches, grottoes, a sapphire lagoon, the world’s southernmost coral reef and sheer basalt cliffs. Not bad considering 97.5 per cent of the island is below water; in another 200,000 years it will all be submerged. On high ground, the interior is a veritable greenhouse of pandanus, banyan trees, ferns and kentia palms (once the lifeblood of the island). This is a remarkable habitat where the animal kingdom is, well, king. With a permanent population of just 350 people and visitors capped at 400, Lord Howe sees to it that humans are dramatically outnumbered. There are more than 300 plant species, a third of those endemic, and 166 types of birds (but only one mammal – a bat). This is all bookended in the north by the Admiralty Islands and in the south by Mount Lidgbird and Mount Gower – imposing humpback peaks visible from almost anywhere on the island. Except when the weather is foul.
When I visit, the small Dash-8 aircraft that service the island are grounded for two days, cutting Lord Howe off from the world, and Gower (a tantalising 875-metre hike) retreats behind a veil of mist, then disappears altogether. The lagoon turns from translucent to opaque and the entire island hums to the patter of rain – a regenerative force that keeps the landscape green – and the guests watered. A couple of weeks before my arrival, two months had passed without rain and the polite suggestion to limit showers to five minutes became a fervent request. Now Pinetrees Lodge – the oldest and biggest guesthouse on the island, situated on a lowland flat – is running pumps to keep rooms dry.
“This is almost miserable,” co-owner Luke Hanson says with a grin. He’s wearing his “wet-weather uniform”, a Gortex jacket and bare feet, and is armed with a cloth. “You don’t think this is miserable?” I respond. “No, no, this in mid-winter, day four with a howling southwesta, that’s miserable.”
Staring out over the island, the peaks of Gower and Lidgbird dominate the horizon, each topped with a beret of white cloud.
I could think of worse places to be stranded. Even in the wet Lord Howe is captivating – a true wilderness with a dramatic landscape reminiscent of Hawaii, and unbridled adventure opportunities. I’m ostensibly here for an organised walking and photography week, though I’m not sure my photos will do the island justice.
When the rain eases we take a boat over the glassy lagoon to North Bay, a postcard cove that in summer teems with 100,000 pairs of sooty terns nesting in the sand. We climb to the top of Mount Eliza, the north-westernmost point on the island, and watch as cobalt ribbons of water smash into the cliffs and volcanic dykes below. Staring out over the island, the peaks of Gower and Lidgbird dominate the horizon, each topped with a beret of white cloud. Another hike takes us to neighbouring Kim’s Lookout and along a ridgeline to Malabar Hill, where we spy in the rock crevices red-tailed tropicbird chicks.
Lord Howe is a chameleon, and one morning I wake to blazing sunshine. I hire a bike (the primary mode of transport on the island) and ride through the sleepy blink-and-you’d-miss-it centre of town to Ned’s Beach, a horseshoe alcove on the northeast coast. There’s a rustic shelter with tubs of snorkelling gear and an honesty box, as well as an old-school gumball machine that dispenses fish food pellets. I put in $1 and crank out a handful to take to the beach. I’m instantly accosted by dozens of mullet that almost suck the ends off my fingertips. A big bluefish swims up for a nibble, grazing my finger with its teeth, and I spot a beautiful trumpet fish floating past like a colourful piece of driftwood.
Some 100 varieties of coral and 500 species of fish populate the sublime waters of Lord Howe thanks to a warm North Queensland current that flows easterly from the mainland. Snorkelling in North Bay, I glide over coral gardens festooned with marine life and heaving with colourful fish. On the boat journey back three green turtles float to the surface, momentarily poking their noses out of the water. This island is such a tease.
Gower has been beckoning all week but is off-limits given the recent weather conditions. Even local guide Dean Hiscox, who with his daughter and a mate went canyoning in the valley between Gower and Lidgbird at the height of the downpour, is cautious. “Gower will be an adventure… possibly life threatening,” he says, deadpan.
Instead I recruit Kenny Lees, a local photographer who has been leading our activity week, and the two of us set off for a plateau on the shoulder of Lidgbird. We retrace the path we took earlier in the week and my shoes, still damp, are soon sopping. When we get to the grassy headland where we encountered the petrels we keep going, bounding over boulders before disappearing into the forest. A 100-metre elevation climb using guide ropes takes us to a rock overhang lined with palm trees. From here we edge across a narrow pass, the cliff dropping away beside us into the ocean. (On the way back a rock will come crashing down near me and I’m petrified of a landslip. It doesn’t help when Kenny tells me he’s never experienced a close call like it before.)
Soon we are off the path and freestyling – scrambling up over mossy rocks, lichen-covered branches and noodles of browned pandanus leaves that act as booby-traps hiding ankle-twisting cavities. It’s raining and I think we’re lost. Kenny mumbles something about looking for a tree. He finds it and we step out onto a plateau, dodging webs of golden orb spiders to stand on the precipice – it’s breathtaking and we’re not even half the height of Gower. I experience a moment of vertigo as we take in the sweeping panorama. Then I spot the familiar silhouette of petrels in the sky. I funnel my fists to my mouth and summon them down. Within minutes one sits dutifully in my hands. Others watch on quizzically, perhaps waiting for their turn.
Before long I’m getting cosy with another big bird, only I’m not so enamoured with this one. It has twin propellers, fixed wings and roaring engines, and is shunting me back to the mainland. And I’m not quite ready to leave.
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