Black Duck, page 10
I’d like them to hear about Jinoor Jack too. Jack is said to be buried beneath the old bridge at Genoa but as that was burnt down during the fire and replaced with a pedestrian bridge, with all the earthworks that required, I hope he hasn’t been disturbed. It is my ambition to memorialise the man who so loved his country that he would ask his enemy to look after her when he was gone.
Autumn in the East
Already 16 April and while the mornings are crisp it became a gloriously warm day. The fellas weren’t there so I had the place to myself and I treasured the privacy. I wandered about in a pair of shorts, or worse, cleaning, emailing, cooking, tidying, pulling weeds. I harvested quinces and stewed them into something which I’ve called Quince Surprise. It’s based on a Membrillo (Spanish paste) recipe. I use less sugar and more lemon juice than the recipe calls for, then I add apples and boil it long enough to get the consistency just right. It’s nice in a curry and could probably be used as a jam or on a biscuit with prosciutto. There’s a lot of it so it had better be good for something.
The air was warm and companionable, these are the days I fell in love with when Uncle Alf and Dad showed me Mallacoota all those years ago. Far East Gippsland. The air is different, there’s a distinctive colour to the sky that I’ve seen nowhere else.
I will never forget that time as a young bloke looking across the sandflats of Mallacoota Entrance to the blue Howe Range. It changed me, it talked to me so deeply I could feel my intestines crawling with recognition. I was never the same after that hour. I told myself and the country I would come back to stay. Took me five years but I made it.
This evening Pippin was flouncing about, tossing her head, galloping, desperately trying to engage with Lindsay’s mare Chrissy, but Chrissy is a bit of a nark, there’s Presbyterian in her somewhere. She flattens her ears and steadfastly refuses to look up from her feeding. She hates feckless hippies but I love Pippin’s mad spirit, her curiosity and spunk.
In the languorous air I enjoyed a couple of lovely cold Boag’s Draught while contemplating horses and sunsets and wheeling herons. I went inside later and made some peculiar meatbally things which I intended to take down by boat to Gipsy Point drinks on the jetty, except the boat wouldn’t start and I had to go by car.
While at Gipsy, our neighbour Heather Cowden told me she wanted to sell Pippin. Probably good for the horse if Heather can’t care for her feet and coat, but I will miss that mad personality.
All day I mucked around peeling apples and quinces for stewed fruit. I got the boat going and made it down to Gipsy again to meet Jack, Shell, Lily and Marnie, Justin, Marlo, Alia and Charlee who had gathered at Lyn’s for the Easter break. After dinner the boat wouldn’t start again so I had to go back to the farm with Marnie and Charlee. Very disappointed not to be on the water because moonlight was flooding the valley, silvering every ribbon and bow of water.
Grandmother did a slow and gracious arc over the house and I was conscious of her passage. She disappeared below the western horizon just before dawn and I saw the whole show from my bedroom. It was very moving and I think I was excited by the presence of family. Lily and Shell have never been to the farm before.
Spider Eggs
I don’t believe in Easter but I do believe in kids enjoying romance, adventures and chocolate. I created an Easter egg hunt for the kids that went for four kilometres hoping that it would work off the chocolate.
NOTE FOR LILY AND CHARLEE. (BURROW MAIL 2022)
Now that you’re out of bed go straight ahead
To the dark green tree
The Yumburra tree
Look under me
And there I’ll be.
There’s a rocky road
that winds through the trees
follow it to a corner
that’s bent like a knee.
And where there’s knees there’s legs
So have a look here
there’s bound to be eggs.
Rabbits bound and so do hounds
So don’t forget to check the ground
Follow the road until you get to the gate
Hunt and gather but don’t be late.
Coz down at the old phoenix shed
You’ll need to look around
Not straight ahead.
Check the old car and the caravan too
But don’t take too long
Because we’re waiting for you.
Go careful near the dam
But look at the post
There’s lovely things
there That kids like the most.
See the blue house on the hill
The home of the dill
Get up there quick
And get ready to pick
On the verandah be careful
Not to rush around fast
There are presents here too
But they’re the last.
The bunny from the land of milk and honey.
The kids were right into the egg hunt and were literally dancing along the tracks and through the bush.
After a long breakfast and yarns I went to start the tractors to fix some holes in the road but the battery was flat again. So annoying because I’m worried about Marnie’s car on the broken bits of road.
After lunch we lit a section of grassland to match last week’s burns. Even with a heavy dew overnight we were able to get it to trickle along and as Grace was here she could film it. Not sure she knew what to expect.
I loved having the kids there to help with the burn. Jack is now the expert so I let him lead the way and I just dawdled about in the soporific smoke. That’s why the Old People loved smoke so much, it is so gently calming. Does it rob us of a bit of oxygen? Sure, but when Kangaroo Grass burns the smoke is like a drug.
Then, as usual, down to the river. Shell played with the kids on the stand-up paddle board and she is very patient and funny. Justin plays with the kids on the paddle board too. He holds it while the kids do cartwheels into the river. They also love an invented game where he tells them a story and there is always a different catastrophe but the same result, they’re tipped into the water. If you are anywhere on the farm you can always tell when the new catastrophe has been revealed because of the cacophony of shrieks and splashing that follows.
Jack launched Fluke and rowed down to Gipsy Point and Marnie accompanied him part of the way on the paddle board. There’s something really special about getting to a town, beach or jetty by watercraft.
I bought the board for the grannies to play on a few summers back and, as it was Christmas Eve, felt like I’d been totally ripped off. Just a bit of foam really. Anyway, it has been used constantly and has produced more shrieks and laughter than a circus and Charlee used it to gain confidence with her swimming. This was the first year she could swim from jetty to sandbar.
Much relaxation and many deep conversations have occurred on that sandbar although Birran Durran Durran is always miffed to have her primary resting site occupied by humans.
The paddle board has survived the fires, by a whisker, and several floods. One year I thought I had lost her in a flood but spied a pale shape up against some Melaleuca saplings down near Poor Georges Creek. I had to swim out to her and then clamber aboard and paddle back to the jetty.
As soon as I was on her I realised that it wasn’t flood wrack on her but spiders, water striders and beetles. They swarmed all over me in their relief at having a high point on which to escape the flood. It was a long paddle back against the flood and with a thousand relatives investigating me. I thought of an Australian short story by Michael Wilding, ‘As Boys to Wanton Flies’.
The journey with arachnids back to the jetty was a little unnerving but not as bad as could be expected. All insects were on their best behaviour. When I got back to dry land I had to remove my shorts and shake them out and wash myself.
During a flood I am totally alone at the farm so I must have been a study of laundry nakedness. Only Golden Whistlers bothered to remark.
During one flood I nearly killed Dale who lives further up the river. I was lying down in my boat trying to fix the bilge pump when I heard Dale’s boat come abreast of the jetty. I struggled out from under the stern deck and called a greeting to Dale who nearly jumped out of his boat. Like me he thought he was the only one on the river.
At least I had my shorts on, it wasn’t that frightening.
During that particular flood we collected several canoes, kayaks and bits of boat gear. Goodness knows where it comes from because there are only about three farms upstream of us.
I advertised the reclamation of one yellow canoe for a year with no takers. Did it belong to Golom? Anyway, the grannies now see it as part of the farm.
The weather continued to be good so we all went down to Betka River on Monday 18. The Betka is an institution in Mallacoota. Children are conceived there, have their birthdays there, get married there and later have their ashes cast into the stream. Your entire life can be spent by her waters.
A slow stream winds out of the jungles of the upper reaches and approaches the estuary. My old mate Steve Wadsworth, with whom I taught for years, used to call the last bend Little Africa, and it’s true, it is a wild paradise. That stretch of river is the only place where I have seen Spangled Drongoes in Mallacoota and so it is vivid in my memory. The banks are scattered with stone artefacts of course because the river bulges with prawns, mussels, fish and stingrays.
The Betka slides out from under the bridge and eddies on a mass of sandbars where most children and dogs in Mallacoota learn to swim or catch a ball. Then it enters the sea. The last 100 metres is used as an elegant water slide to the surf.
I have a friend who uses the estuary that forms the mouth of Wapengo Lake at Bithry Inlet for the same purpose. Apparently, you can float down that river with a glass of wine and not spill a drop where it’s not supposed to go. Julie, one of the people closest to me, and wise counsellor in the matter of words, thinks of the Cuttagee Creek, Bermagui, as the place where she has been happiest.
I carried the wild Australian writer Gillian Mears down to the beach at Bithry for her last swim. Even to think of that makes my heart swell. Such a lively woman reduced to a plank by the multiple sclerosis that assailed her. I was crying by the time I got her back to her car. Read Gillian’s books, and you will get an idea of just how wild and wise she was, how committed to the protection of the Earth. She’s badly missed.
Vicky, one of my closest friends, accompanied me on a journey down the Towamba River which was so interrupted by stingrays, mulloway and the onset of dark that it was never completed. That journey is legendary in my mind for the pure wildness and danger of the experience. It’s a mild and beautiful river but if the motor stops on the boat and you have to swim it back upstream amid a shower of skipjack as a giant mulloway chases them … well, I hope it was a mulloway. Anyway, absolutely vivid and precious in my mind. Vicky is like Aunty Zelda, if there is a fish, bird, animal or insect about it will make itself known and demand her audience. Her films are intense cameos of nature that draw you into the heart of existence.
Aboriginal Food and Family
I have been trying to get people interested in Aboriginal food products for decades and the food industry is keen but sees our food simply as flavours and has failed to imagine how Aboriginal people can be included in the industry. On the other hand, Black Duck Foods is interested in the staple grain and tubers because, not only are they delicious and good for the soil, they speak for Aboriginal sovereignty. They were permanent crops, tilled and cultivated. Sovereign crops.
Granddaughter Charlee and I packed a box of Munyang (Vanilla Lilies) and took them in to a local restaurant. The owner hardly mentioned the lilies but asked me instead what percentage Aboriginal I was. The owner’s imperfect English made understanding each other difficult but, even so, I was shattered by the persistence of Australia’s incomprehension of Aboriginal Australia.
There is a market for these tubers, especially in Asian cooking, I was thinking of the restaurant’s famous dumplings, but the awkwardness prevented me from coming back with another box. And Charlee put so much work into decorating the box too. Australia’s unfamiliarity with its national history creates situations like this all the time.
A coolamon full of tubers
On Tuesday 14 I noticed that a Cattle Egret was escorting Pippin around the paddock. It was the first time I had seen a Cattle Egret on the farm although they are occasional visitors to other farms. Pippin is such a rebellious soul that she probably tossed her head at her escort which may have found safer company in the more supine cows.
The failure of the boat to start was a nuisance so I went up to Eden to buy a marine battery but that didn’t do the trick either. We went fishing in Fluke and I caught a lovely bream near Lyrebird Rocks opposite Gipsy Point.
We celebrated Jack’s birthday by playing Sleeping Queens. When that card game finished there was a Duck, Duck, Goose game. Adults fall about laughing but the kids are midway between joy and terror. Anyway, the house was a riot.
We are having some teething problems with the installation of solar power to the tiny houses we use for guest accommodation but I had to leave before it was fixed as I had a gig at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne with Bill Gammage, who wrote The Biggest Estate on Earth. It was a great session. Wheeler’s always get a crowd so it’s never dull.
When I got home I went to work on the boat trailer so I could get Nadgee out of the river and repaired in Eden. Flat trailer tyres, burnt-out compressor, failing brake lights and the usual technical issues meant for a very frustrating day.
Back home there was a bit of a Covid scare as Charlee got crook and then I was off-colour. One of the writing mob in Melbourne rang to say she had Covid so I had to get tested but it was all negative.
Lyn and I went to a frog identification workshop in the Genoa Community Hall and got very enthused. To celebrate I cooked a roast meal for the family on the BBQ firepit. Lyn and I then went down to record frogs at the Water Ribbon and Cumbungi dams. We identified Brown Tree Frog and Bibron’s Toadlet. The FrogID app is very good and opens up another world of life on the farm.
I had to get up early to film with the Farmer’s Footprint crew. We did a small burn for their benefit and it trickled along quietly and effectively. I made dozens of phone calls to the senior group of Gurandgi as we tried to calm and reassure each other that the upheaval since Uncle’s death would pass.
Finally, I got Nadgee up to Eden for her repairs and slumped down at Sprout’s to have breakfast. I met Ty Cruse there who told me a horrifying story of having a heart attack while driving his truck to Melbourne. Ty is a lovely bloke and Uncle Ozzie’s grandson and it was shocking how close he came to the end. It would have been very hard for the Eden community. There is so much death there. Funerals are constant, often for desperate young people. The aim of the farm is to provide an alternative to that desperation.
Peron’s Tree Frog nestled in a rose
People are keen for their kids to work out here but so many Blackfellas don’t have cars or licences that it is hard organising transport. The work is hard too and some are a bit surprised by that.
Dramas continue with Uncle Max’s various funeral preparations but there was a blessing of light rain on dark and, as a balm, I saw two Owlet-nightjars on the track. I can count on my fingers the times I have actually seen one distinctly, so that revelation was a solace and reassurance.
Ceremony for Uncle
I picked up Jack from the airport and drove on to Narooma for Uncle’s next ceremony. The house Jack and I stayed in was a bit peculiar but not quite as strange as the Tibetan-type meal we had. We were a little sombre at the prospect of crossing over to Barunguba (Montague Island) in the morning hoping that there would be no outbursts of hurt feelings. It’s very delicate.
We gathered at the jetty at dawn but there were no dramas and we sailed to the island on a beautiful Friday morning with about twenty-five Gurandgi. The ceremony was dignified and conducted in silence. It was physically taxing and psychologically nerve-racking, but Cooma, Macca and Dean did a great job. I spent a long part of the ceremony next to Jack. It was just how the pattern worked itself out, but it was hugely comforting and reassuring to have his company.
Later the lads had a swim in the harbour and I was very tempted but I had run my race, emotionally exhausted.
On Saturday we went to the fish traps at Mystery Bay and it was wonderful to hear the young men talking about what they had learnt about this site from Uncle Max, really encouraging, and proof that the lore could continue.
We had a long reflection at Mystery Bay Cottages and people spoke well but it was clear that there were some hurt feelings and resentments about how Uncle had planned the future.
On Sunday we went up Biamanga (Mumbulla) and performed the particular ceremonial sequence for the mountain. Terry Hayes had a role here because his family is Mumbulla. We then went down to the pools and falls at the foot of the mountain to send off another portion of Uncle’s ashes. It was a really strong moment because the ashes entered a little whirlpool and stayed there for some minutes. That old man was always reluctant to leave a ceremonial event.
That final part at the falls was conducted in silence too, and I’m sure everyone there was conscious of the difference between this day and all the other times we had been there when the end of ceremony always culminated in athletic dives and bombs.
The group returning from the pool did so in deep reflection. We joined the rest of Gurandgi and there was a huge sense of relief and satisfaction in having done what the old man had requested in his will.
I’m totally exhausted and deeply, deeply sad, bruised by the months of bickering and missing the presence of the old fella. He changed my life and now it seems lonely living it without him. He gave me and others stern and taxing orders and we are doing our best to live up to his confidence.
