Black Duck, page 21
The beautiful Swordgrass Brown Butterfly
I thought about my own dog all the way back. I stopped when I got within phone reception and rang Wendy to help us with Bell. I met her at Lyn’s place and the brave little dog got the green dream.
When Wendy had finished we took Bell back and buried her with her brother and planted a banksia above her. Both dogs now sprout banksias and soon will have the company of honeyeaters they knew when alive.
It is the season of butterflies. There are thousands of Common Brown but we have also seen the caterpillars of the Imperial Blue which swarm all over black wattle saplings.
This butterfly is incredibly beautiful and these little spirits give us comfort as the gap left by the dogs echoes so bleakly in the empty house.
The Family Christmas
The extended family have spread themselves over a few states and even to get the immediate family together is like droving cats. This year we decided to gather before Christmas and chose Warrnambool where my sister, Jen, lives as well as some mates of Lyn’s.
We hired a big old house in the centre of town which had a timber balustrade that the kids kept polished quite well. On the way to Warrnambool I urged Lyn to tolerate my fascination with second-hand shops and I bought a few things including a mess of brass handles and knobs. I will get a lot of fun in finding places for them in the house.
We cooked and ate together, terrorised a restaurant or two, visited my sister and brother-in-law and then I hatched my plan of getting them all into the old Fletcher Jones garment factory.
We went to Gille and Jillian’s 40th wedding anniversary, old dancing mates of Lyn’s. The house was full of arthritic dancers and their kids who grew up together as a tribe. They’re all in the photos of the eighties and nineties. The kids’ parties were full of theatre, big on pirates and adventures and Cape Otway beaches.
I have to admit it was a kind of hell for me being surrounded by so many people all talking and laughing at once. Some people love it but I creep away into quiet corners and collect all the dogs who are usually in the same condition.
No dogs left now. It really is a raw nerve.
We got back to the farm just in time to help Joe, Evan and Shalah from the Maritime Union with a slab they are helping us build for our new grain shed. We need more room to store and process grain in hygienic conditions. The union have given us a jumpstart for the project.
The site we levelled for this shed must have been a factory site for the Yuin prior to the Invasion because this is where we found the edge ground axe which has become so precious to us. The farm turns up hundreds of artefacts after every probe into the soil. There is so much fish and other food on this place that it is obvious a large population called this place home.
I used some of the topsoil from the site to fill in holes in the road down near the stockyards and then slashed bracken. Gurandgi Simon came to the farm from Tasmania and we yarned about Uncle Max’s anniversary and things we needed to do in preparation for the March lore camp. He’s a good, earnest young man and it is so important that people like him follow and support the lore Uncle Max left for us.
It started raining and so the visiting Ganai fire mob from Orbost met in the lounge room and we talked about how we might influence VicForests to conduct low temperature burns to get the bush back to the state it was in before Europeans arrived. More like a garden than a forest, a food park.
We often worry about the risks of travel with Covid raging in the community and I got home from a shopping trip to Eden as crook as a dog. I did a RAT test but it was negative so I went out and did some slashing.
We had a BBQ for the fellas’ Christmas break-up. We are so grateful for their dedicated work and we hope they have a great holiday with their families.
The weather is freezing cold and Bunjil is checking out the ducks which makes them nervous. The Nankeen Kestrel is plunging into the grass hunting small creatures very persistently until at last it experienced satisfaction. Dunnart?
While I was slashing down near the jetty I saw a large group of Yumburra on the swamp and a stately White Heron stalking amongst them. Up closer to the house this year’s young Bunjil was harassing some Birran Durran Durran. The whole family on the farm seemed intent on food while I got off the tractor and couldn’t bear the idea of cooking.
We were getting ready for lore camp and after twelve months of distress we can now look forward to ten days on Country in March. Rosco, Nathan and I did some rehearsal of some songs we’ve been working on to honour the Dingo Dreaming storyline which begins on the coast close to here and follows the rivers up to Yambulla and beyond. Terry and his father are important to that story and so we are determined to work through it carefully and respectfully.
Mirrigan (dingo) has often appeared when I have been at Yambulla. Their presence is strong there and we look forward to the time when the full story for that Country can be revealed.
All four of us visited the white ochre deposit near Eden to collect some clay for the camp. The site was pretty rugged so I stayed up on the headland and just stood looking out to sea. A dozen different birds came to enquire what I was up to and a very large hoverfly spent about ten minutes inspecting me. It was not at all intimidating but a chance for rest and reflection with Country.
Lyn’s bushfire book, Safer Forests Safer Homes, came out that day and she spent her time distributing it to homes in the district. She was very anxious that people actually read it because the trauma from the 2019 fire is still palpable. The regrowth of wattles and tobacco bush has rendered the forest as dangerous as before the fire. We have to learn about caring for Country.
I get excited preparing for the visit of Marnie’s mob around Christmas so I washed the boat, cleaned the oven, the car seats and slashed around the house. It is a warm day and I disturbed a huge black snake but managed to miss it with the tractor tyres.
I took the little blue paddle board out to the sandbar in the middle of the Wallagaraugh and had a lovely swim. I soak up the days when nobody is on the farm. December is very quiet on the river and so it was an hour of enormous calm, the calls of honeyeaters, monarchs, whistlers and flycatchers ringing out from the trees. And only me to hear them. It was so restful and I was full of gratitude.
On 24 December, Lyn and I travelled to Bega to pick up one of Lyn’s rings which had broken. With Christmas presents in mind we drove on to Bermagui to visit a market but it consisted of beetroot and carrots so we cheered ourselves with a pide at the little cafe down the road. The bloke who runs that place cooks all the food and is perennially cheery so it’s always a lovely thing to do. His potato and onion pide is a wonder.
When we got home the family had already arrived so we went for a swim and the shrill of children mingled with the bird calls. Whenever I hear those calls I am always reminded of Alia in the river hanging on to a paddle and singing as she stared up into the trees. The image has been indelibly stamped on my brain because it was the day I had to evacuate the family to Eden in 2019 as the fire descended on us.
One of the resident black snakes soaking in the sun’s warmth
I couldn’t bear to think of those young voices being threatened by the roar of the fire I knew was coming. I had to work hard to convince the family to leave because they had already been evacuated that same day from Cape Conran.
The cabin they had booked burnt to the ground during the ferocity of that fire. It was in the same complex where we met to commemorate the massacre of Uncle Max’s family on the Brodribb River. We had a naming ceremony there for Gurandgi children too. A lot of history lost with those buildings.
The silver tintinnabulation of Alia’s singing was too much, the risk of harm too obvious, I had started to growl and pack people up. The Grumpy Grandad in full flight. The family was bemused and testy about my gruffness but we had to go.
The sky was a deep dark scarlet as we drove up the highway that day. We paid an exorbitant amount for a motel room along with half of Mallacoota’s evacuated residents. The only things I brought from the farm were a painting Lyn gave me, the dogs and the possum skin rug the family made me.
I chucked the rug in the corner of the room which had only two beds. The dogs and I slept soundly on the rug. They never moved. Next morning the highway was full of cars leaving Eden as the sky was a tumulous of red and black smoke.
I hurried back to the room and started packing up the family once again and hustling them into the car and pushing them off to join the cavalcade. They were reluctant, but soon Marnie took charge and organised the evacuation of the whole motel to Canberra.
I asked Marnie to ring me every hour to tell me of their progress. True to her word she did and on one occasion Freddy was in my car and answered her call. ‘Don’t worry, Marnie, I’ll look after him.’ Such a great reassurance for Marnie, as Freddy had known Marnie from when she was a few weeks old. We both miss that man.
The memory of the rest of that day can still overwhelm me. I drove back to the farm with the road on fire and for the next six weeks we fought various fronts of the fire and battled to save houses. It is a nasty, distressing blur. I have to wrest my mind away from it so that we can enjoy the present.
Christmas day was a long, involved affair with Marlo as Father Christmas. We had breakfast and then, of course went for another swim. It was very hot and the water was glorious.
I hadn’t finished cleaning the boat and all the little jobs I had planned because I was still lethargic with the flu.
Christmas on the river
Lyn and I went back to the house and started the preparations for the big Christmas lunch. We have cooked forty Christmas lunches together with a break of four years. I do the gravy, thank you Paul Kelly, because Lyn’s system is so careful that you interrupt it at your peril. As always it was a wonderful meal.
Later I had to take Lyn back to Gipsy to let her chooks out and pick up another paddle for the kids. There was a lot more swimming and shrieking and I continued to tidy up the poor old neglected Nadgee. I am so busy I don’t give her enough attention. She deserves more love as she is such an important partner in my life.
Boxing Day is always swimming and, for me, cricket. My devotion to the Test cricket is a mystery to the family but I really love the chess that cricket involves and, as an old bowler, I love to see the ball swing away from the right hander’s bat. I dream of that moment. I could say more but I will desist.
Playing cricket was my day off and I miss it badly because now I struggle to find an excuse not to work. I called my father a work-horse in a story I wrote about him but the apple has fallen directly beneath that tree.
Anyway, there was more family swimming and we met up with Gab and Chris from Sailors Grave Brewing. We had the privilege of watching an osprey take a fish on the east bank of the Wallagaraugh. The osprey is rare here, so this was a memorable moment.
More swimming the next day. We all went down to Sandy Point on the Top Lake by boat. I got the old donut pumped up and Marlo and Alia had a great time being towed around. They are strong and fearless and keep urging me to do maximum speed. Poor old Nadgee.
It was a joy to see them so exhilarated. Charlee was next but the old donut gradually deflated and she was sunk. I felt really bad that the youngest couldn’t have the same experience. I promised her I would buy a new donut. The old one had been patched more than Yacob’s pants, which is a song I had to sing in primary school on King Island. My teacher was Dutch and I loved her. I could still sing the song for you now if you like. Okay, I understand, let’s move on.
I had to pump water up to the gravity feed tank so that we have fire protection and water for the gardens and house. It’s a day long procedure so I stayed at home but the family went up to Davidson’s Beach in Eden. They had a ball as usual but just as they were leaving Justin got stung by a stingray and they had to go up to Bega Hospital to check that the barb was not still in the wound.
They are regular customers at Bega Hospital as there are always falls and infections. Marnie is a nurse so nothing is left to chance. Justin was fine but very sore and the wound is quite large. When I was a teenager I was fishing for flounder with my brother-in-law when a stingray slashed my gumboot open. It didn’t draw blood but I was always conscious thereafter of what they could do.
I heard that an old mate, Duncan Findlay, died yesterday. Mallacoota will not be the same. He was an irrepressible character, one of the funniest, most outrageous and irresponsible people I have ever met. He never failed to stop me in the street so that we could analyse the latest sport results, politics and old Mallacoota history.
Mallacoota is going to be a little drab without him but, as I said to some of the kids in town the other day, no one replaces Duncan, but you kids have to make your own history. There are enough ratbags around but they won’t be the same ratbags and I’ll never know any of them as long as I knew Duncan.
He claimed that Slim Dusty wrote the song ‘Duncan’ (‘I love to have a beer with Duncan’) after one of their escapades. Duncan seemed to have lived a dozen lives and was hugely entertaining about all of them but it doesn’t mean I will ever forgive him for dropping two catches off my bowling at Wyndham in 1980!
I had a rest in the afternoon and listened to the swallows outside my window. They were roosting in the heat of the day and their conversation was entrancing. They spoke together in full sentences. One swallow was very talkative and the other responded in monosyllables. I’ll let you do the gender profiling but I love those creatures, they are so much a part of my life. Their comfort is very important to me. Even last night one of the pair was roosting on the back door light which I turned on to warm it up while we had a heavy downpour.
Justin’s foot improved enough for us to contemplate the adventure I had been planning for the kids for months.
NOTICE OF ADVENTURE
Able sea persons Marlo, Alia and Charlee are advised of the command to prepare for a voyage of exploration.
The purpose of the voyage is to discover the fresh waterfalls of the Wallagaraugh River in Far East Gippsland. The journey will necessitate sailing through the last farmland in the district, negotiating the shoals and the treacherous bar that are reputed to be in the vicinity. Once past the Bull Ring the aim is to traverse the river that disappears into jungle. Somewhere on the right there is said to be a lonely settlement. Once past that point, if indeed it exists, we will leave the jungles and navigate the giant boulders which lurk in the stream.
Finally, we will come, so they say, to a series of falls on a big bend. This last is just conjecture but, in the cause of science, it is our commission to investigate this phenomenon. It is reputed that snakes inhabit the region and a seal which tries to communicate with humans. If this beast exists we will have to describe its form and make sketches of its appearance.
For the purposes of the task, all sea persons must be equipped with broad hats and stout, waterproof shoes. Copious amounts of water in secure vessels will be required. Rations must be sufficient for the time allocated with enough remaining for the return voyage.
Sea persons are required to observe all birds and creatures of the deep but pay particular attention to the botany of this previously undescribed locale. Most particularly the existence of the fabled Wallagaraugh Grevillea will be of enormous interest to our scientific community and sea persons can expect generous rewards for its discovery.
Likewise, any evidence found of the Old People will be received with deep gratitude and rewards for this evidence are sure to flow.
Sleep well. No alcohol. Stout shoes. Clean underwear.
Captain Bitheega of the Lower Reaches
Yumburra Naval Precinct
By order of Bunjil
The journey up the river was incredible. The kids were tasked with finding certain things and they found the lot except the seal. The Wallagaraugh Grevillea flowers in spring so the chance of finding it in summer is unlikely but Marlo found both the plant and a flower on the plant.
We got to the freshwater falls and waded upstream to inspect them. Nadgee found a couple of the reefs of stone but we were travelling slowly so no harm was done. I found a piece of driftwood in a rock pool and thought of our friend Pat and her dogs. I wanted to make a memorial plaque for the dogs as Pat’s second dog Omar died yesterday. We weren’t to know that Pat would die a couple of days later.
(By the time I had the piece of timber at the farm I learnt of Pat’s death and so she is included on the panel with her two dogs. I thank the kids for taking me to the place where I found that driftwood.)
We had a picnic on a sandy beach, a little downstream, and I heard Alia calling out, ‘Pa, is this a scar tree?’ I was having a little rest on the sand and got up, reluctantly, to have a look at the tree she was standing beside. At the back was an oval scar over a metre long. I think I first fished off that beach in 1973 and have visited it dozens of times since but have never seen that scar. I was struck dumb that it would be my granddaughter who found it in 2022. I am very proud.
I’d asked them to look for evidence of the First People thinking that they might find a flint or midden but Alia just went big time and found a coolamon scar. Later Charlee found a freshwater mussel shell which counted as a food item of the local people so I was really moved by their interest and care.
After we got back Marnie and Justin went to search for a piece of their car which fell off last night when they were coming back from the hospital. Their GPS directed them down Binns Road which is a potholed hell road. They did find the panel trim but also the wombat they must have clipped. Always upsetting.
I had hoped the seal would make an appearance while we were upstream but really, summer is not its season. The seal was young around 2002 when it learnt to recognise my boat motor. I might take off before dawn but the seal would find me and come to the side of the boat to say hello. When you’re fishing you don’t want the company of a fish-eating seal but it was such a character I could never resent its presence.
