Life in Cairns

Well it seems I have been in Cairns longer than I intended. I am not entirely sure how long I have been here, but I have been in Far North QLD, mainly the Tablelands and Cairns for exactly 2 months. It is an interesting life hanging out at a backpackers and spending days chatting to people from across Europe and North America, chilling out at the lagoon, and dancing the nights away after free dinner at the bar. It is amazing how easy it is to sit around and do nothing! There are plenty of people here who have fallen under the spell and have been here for way longer than intended and spent their time doing not much.

I have spent 9 days worth of my time, and most of my money here diving. I did a couple of introductory scuba dives, a 4 day open water course, a 3 day live aboard advanced course, and have volunteered for a day. All of which were awesome. The diving here is pretty good, with turtles, sharks, and interesting corals, plants, fish, nudibranches in abundance. Although signs of stress are evident on the reef with large patches of dead or bleached coral, and signs of human impact mostly broken coral etc at the dive sites. I haven't had the chance, but the ribbon reefs north of Cairns are meant to be the best spots, and where all the Great Barrier Reef documentaries are filmed.

That said I have seen more of the barrier reef than most people would ever dream of seeing - just not under water, only from the surface. I spent 10 days working on the F.V. Irene, a coral trout fishing boat. During our trip we travelled from Cairns north up the reefs to within a 100 nm of Cape York, and back south to the tiny community of Portland Roads where I caught the truck back to Cairns. More on the Irene in another post.

I have been on a couple of return trips to the Tablelands, catching up with Ian (the horse breaker) and seeing the sights, plus enjoying the cooler weather! But one of the most exciting activities in Cairns itself was a flying trapeze lesson that four of us did. We did a knee hang with a catch and backflip off the release and it took only 5 swings and an hour or two of practise, but is a fantastic feeling. Not quite flying, but great fun!

I have had plenty of great nights out with great people, but I am heading home today for Xmas, then Sydney for New Year, and back to Cairns to grab my car and start driving south!

Sunset from Grassy Hill Lookout - Cooktown. Capt. Cook climbed the hill to try and chart a course out of the Endeaour river and through the reef.

Cattle crossing a tributary of the Daintree River.

Sunrise at Mission Beach. The boat is the set of Sea Patrol, they were filming a new season.

Aerial spraying in the Tablelands near Millaa Millaa.

Coral Trout on the Irene.

Cairns Esplanade.

Lunch time on the live aboard OceanQuest.

Norman Reef - Troppo's dive site. Awesome visibility and perfect weather make for kick-ass diving.

The day boat, Sea Quest, coming alongside Ocean Quest to transfer passengers.

The East Coast!

Finally! One year and 6 months after I attempted to leave home the first time, and 8 months after I left the south-west last time, I have arrived on the East Coast! I have driven over 25,000 km during the 8 months in trusty old Sarah. My destination is not one of the usual ones - Bondi Beach, Bells Beach, Cape Byron, or Cairns, but Archer Point. Archer point is home to a small modern lighthouse and a half washed away dock used to supply the old lighthouse - that’s it. Though there are a few resident cattle, and the locals obviously camp here, although I am the only one here now.
Sarah made it to the east with no flat tyres and only 2 services

Archer Point. The small groyne has a rusty wharf that supplied the old lighthouse and an outpost in WW2

My camp fire is fuelled by driftwood and coconuts, and I have eaten the meat of some old ones, and tried a bit roasted, though I prefer uncooked. My swag is at the top of the beach, so hopefully I don't get munched by a croc, and the rain seems to be holding off - I only get a spot or two which is probably the result of the mountains a few k's down the coast. Despite countless nights camping and having fires this is a very new, and pretty exciting experience for this trip. Tomorrow I roll into that famous little dot put on the map hundreds of years ago by a floundering ship - Cooktown!

The view from my tent

Trying the local produce - not bad actually. I thought roasting it might be a novel idea but it was not as good. The coconuts make for reasonable fire wood once you get the fire hot enough

Mareeba Cattle Sale

I went to my first ever livestock sale a few days ago. It was the weekly cattle sale at the Mareeba saleyards. It was an interesting experience to say the least. When they first started auctioning I didn't understand a word they were saying - it was just a cacophony of noise created by only one man! Gradually the noise became numbers, though I was still baffled by who was making the bids, none of the guys leaning on the rails seemed to move. I moved around to the side and managed to make out their gestures, a slight raise of one finger, a small sideways nod of the head, or something equally as non-descript.



Auctioners in action

Occasionally there would be some intelligible words said, usually when there was confusion over which cattle were being auctioned. And it is easy to see why there is confusion - rarely are all the cattle in one pen sold in one auction. Some are painted on various parts of the body with blue paint to differentiate them although the paint job is so shoddy in most instances it is unclear weather the paint is on the shoulder, the rump, or in a line down the back. Other intelligible words were used when a buyer suggested the cattle should all be auctioned together, or wanted a particular beast left out of the auction.

The crowd - mostly watching the spectacle and catching up rather than buying cattle

A sale was followed by a jumble of numbers and letters that must be some sort of reference number but also included the price, the number of cattle, and the buyers name. For some reason unknown to me the price is then reduced by 0.8c/kg on every sale (you bid on cents/kg). Most of the cattle at this sale were heavy steers, cows or bulls that are bought by meatworks in the area to cut up. There are only a few 'store' cattle, which usually means small steers you can buy to fatten up. I think the confusing nature of this sale is partly due to the fact that there are only 4 or 5 buyers, and they are there to buy most of the 1000 odd cattle offered, so they have adapted ways to make it quick and simple. I imagine at store cattle sales where many more people who don't go to the same sale every week are buying might be a little easier to comprehend.

Once the sale had moved to another row of pens the yard staff moved individual pens down to the scales where the cattle are weighed as a group and placed in bigger yards - one allotted to each meatworks presumably. All in all it was very interesting, and man there were some big cattle there. There were a couple of horny caught bulls from the Cape that must have been as tall as me, and a couple of pens of Brahman steers who had withers almost as tall as me and must have weighed over 800 kg. At $1.60/kg that makes each beast worth about $1300!

Some of the steers on offer

Timor Leste - Alieu

We packed up our tent, had a muesli bar for breakfast and walked out to the main road to start our first full day exploring outside of Dili. We walked up the hill, and quickly came upon a shop, where we stocked up on water (the cheapest we ever bought in Timor), bought some coconut biscuits that were awesome, and sat at the bus stop opposite contemplating how to use public transport. We soon got chatting to a young bloke wearing a Barack Obama belt buckle who spoke good english, worked for the national electricity company connecting houses to the power (ie. Stringing lines from tree to tree), and whose family owned the shop opposite. He told us a bus to Aileu would be coming soon, and he hailed us the bus thankfully as it fairly sped up the hill, and we had no idea which one to catch, although there is really only one road. This one went to Suai on the far south coast. One of the guys I spoke to was going home for the first time since leaving for university. He is now a qualified engineer. Two hours of honking, twists and turns, big potholes, a guy throwing up out the window, and holding on so as not to be thrown out or push the two others I was sharing the door well with out, we arrived at Aileu.

We got off a few k's early to look at a demonstration farm I had read about on the net, and we saw the sign to on the bus. There was not much exciting to see except a rice dehulling machine, and their was no one around to talk to. So we walked into town, waving and chatting to people as we went (as with anywhere in Timor). When we arrived in the town centre it was market day, and we were the star attraction! We took a bit of a look around then attempted to buy some sweet looking bread balls/ We offered up a dollar and got given at least 20 of the things. Luckily they were good. We sat down and ditched the packs, and started giving away our bread balls, and talking to a stream of young Timorese keen to practice their english and talk to foreigners, even if it took some of them a long time to gather the courage.

We headed to lunch at a café kept afloat by UN traffic through the town, and featuring in the lonely planet. Little did we know this was the last proper meal we would have for a good little while. After lunch we walked on out of town, checking out what was around and waiting for transport to pass us by. We walked past the middle school at school finishing time, which made for a lot of 'good afternoons' in Tetum (Boa tarde) and giggling school girls. We headed back towards town to wait for a bus at the stop, when a lady we had spoken to on our way out invited us in for tea. A bit more chatting, plus awkward silences, a cup of tea, and no sooner had we finished than a yell from the other lady outside indicated transport was here. We hurried out, and jumped on the back of an Anguna. An anguna is just a small truck with an open back, a bench seat down either side, and a bit of a cage to hang onto. We had our feet up on the closer tail gate, hanging onto the steel bar. There was Roland and I with our packs on, and three other guys on the tail gate, so you can imagine how many were sitting down. When in Timor, if you are not in a hurry (and its not raining) these things are the way to travel. You get fresh air, an awesome view of the country side, it is really easy to met people from all demographics, and you see Timorese life in action.

Roper River

My night on Pandora was not quite what I expected. Two big thunderstorms full of lightening coalesced over Elsey Creek at about 10 pm. I had been watching them approach, blinded by the long forks that penetrated the sheet lightening, and deafened by the sound, so I was prepared. I had everything except the tent and my mattress packed up in case it got too wet and I had to leave - the road in to my campsite was black clay soil, and if it rained too much I was worried about getting out again. I jumped in the car in case one of the many tall palms came down on me in the strong winds, and hoped there was no rain in the storm. Turns out there was a lot of rain in it, and it didn't look like it was going to stop quickly so I packed up in the pouring rain, and slipped and slid my way down the track back to the road. I slept in the car for 2 hours until I was certain the rain had stopped, then set up my other tent in a truck rest area and got in a few hours good sleep!

Today I have driven down onto the gulf lowlands, and along the side of the Roper River. It is a strange ecosystem with a mix of sea birds and riverine ones, including Sea Eagles and Terns flying down the river. But I am quite close to the coast now, only 40 or 50 km away. The floodplain has lots of billabongs along it, though not much bird life when I went past. I am camped further around the gulf next to the Limmen Bight River in sandstone country, remants of a range that once ran north through into Arnhem land.

Tomorrow I will visit the my first 'Lost City' and the most spectacular of the publicly accessible ones apparently.

Wild Buffalo near Roper Bar

A thunderstorm approaching my camp at the Limmen Bight River - I could hear the thunder while I took the picture.

Timor Leste - Dare

Our packs full of gear, food, water, and still feeling pretty light we headed to the hills. 15 minutes later we were walking along a road at the base of the hill looking for what could be a track up the mountain. We could see a set of stairs headed up the hill, and assumed that they must be the start, so we headed down an alley that looked like it would get us to the base. It didn't - but undeterred we climbed over some old razor wire atop a small stone fence after sneaking through someones backyard and started scrambling up the steep loose hillside. It didn't take us long to reach a road, where we met a girl our age, Tina, who was studying at the Institute of Business, and spoke very good english, and showed us a walking trail up the hill past her home, that she said would get us on the trail to Dare. And it did, but it also took us along the side of another Timorese house from the rear, and much to my surprise the entire family was sitting on the verandah at the other end of the house, sheltering from the rain that had just started.

The invited us to join them, and we had a good old chat (as much as was possible with our limited Tetum, and the kids much better English). Starting on our way again we made it to the concrete steps, and further up the trail before it started to rain heavily again and we took refuge under a roof covering two tombstones with a view of Dili. Once the rain stop we continued up the path, which was pretty straight forward mostly, apart from one place where it didn't look to be going in the direction we wanted, so we back tracked a little and took a small side path that looked substantial initially, but soon became just a farm access track. After a bit of bush bashing we saw what looked like a constructed road down the hill, so we bush bashed down to it and slid down a 4m cliff to join it. Soon we re-entered populated territory, and the people told us that this was Dare, though it was just a collection of 3 houses. We continued a little further, and joined a bitumen road. As fortune had it we turned left, down hill, and the right way. Soon we came upon the Australian war memorial, and were elated to see the excellent views over Dili, and that we had ended up where we had wanted to. Finding some where to camp proved a little more difficult, though eventually we settled on an abandoned hut up a quiet road. We were unsure why it was unoccupied as it was quite sound and water proof if a little outdated (being built of bamboo and palm fronds for the roof), so we kept a low profile, turning off our torches whenever we heard traffic on the road.

The next day - Alieu and Maubisse

Elsey Creek - 28th September 2010

Tonight I am camped at Elsey Creek, just out of Mataranka towards the Roper River. It may be the Northern Territory but it feels more like Pandora than Earth. The creek is no deeper than a foot, and is spread at least 50m wide (I can't see the other side). The creek is dense with palm trees and paperbarks, the water is crystal clear and flows gently, and the air is rippled every now and again by the call of a strange bird. Then a large bird takes off flying quickly through the trees with long heavy wing beats. The closeness of the trees makes the cormorants, and much larger bush turkeys foraging around the creek edge seem like teratactyls swooping above a primal soup which house strange life. There are cute little kingfishers and rainbow bee eaters darting around, and majestic Torresian Imperial Pidgeons flying low over the palms. These large pidgeons are a beautiful crisp white, with black trim along the bottom of their wings and tail, and small black eyes.

As dusk settles the bird calls change, and the air is suddenly full of silent, darting shapes. The bats have come out to play, and their feast on the evenings insects makes no sound.

Magic, incredible, strange, this place is unlike any other I have been.

Timor Leste - Dili

So I have written a bit about Dili before, but here is what we did in Timor:

Day 1: We arrived in Dili early in the morning, and caught a taxi into the back packers. After dumping our stuff and choosing from the plethora of empty beds we hit the town. We wandered along the waterfront, and a Timorese guy came along for the walk. He asked several times if we wanted to go to his house for food, and after an hour or so of walking with us decided that he wanted a couple dollar for his efforts. That was our first, and one of only four or five instances, of people asking for money. I don't know what else to say really. It was like most of the small cities I have seen in south-east asia: lots of young people with carts selling water, snacks, warm soft drinks and phone credit; warm and humid; a bit smelly, dirty and wet; but bustling with life and smiles.

That afternoon we headed to Hotel Dili for drinks with a bunch of Australian yachtsmen who had just arrived in Dili after competing in the first Darwin - Dili yacht race since the Indonesian invasion. My cousin Ethers partners families big boat was anchored off Dili, and were coming to the party, so we went to met the family, and the sailors. Turns out it was a great arvo. We met a whole bunch of interesting sailors and ex-pats running big businesses in Dili. We met 5 of the family, and had a good chat to Alice and Angus who are from my our sort of hood, having been to Mazenod and St Brigits. Alice was working in Dili in Events Management with a government department, helping to organise an adventure race, and the Tour de Timor (a MTB tour - the roads are not road bike friendly).

Day two in Dili started with fried rice for breakfast at the Dili Beach Hotel, followed by some more wandering around, in between looking for stuff we needed to take on our adventure out of town. We saw a bunch more UN, and met an Australian Naval Officer (several times over the course of the day - such is Dili) who is advising the Timorese navy - it consists of 3 boats at present.

Our Timorese rural adventure was going to start by walking from the back packers to the hills fringing the south of the city, and finding the base of a path that has been trod by many a Timorese foot. Alice had indicated to us that there was an old trail that many refugees used to travel to and from Dili at various times of turmoil in the countries history. We had checked this with other people, and it seemed such a trail did exist, so we were going to give it a shot, and walk to the Australian War Memorial at Dare, a town 5 or 6km up the mountain, overlooking Dili. And that is what we did.

Charnley River Station

After my Mornington visit I stopped in at Charnley River Station.

Charnley is owned and run by the Camp family, who also run Kalyeeda on the Fitzroy floodplain. I spent a bit of time hanging out with their eldest daughter Hannah in Kununurra (she is a physio at the hospital), and met the middle daughter Camille at a couple of parties. So I rocked up to Charnley to have a look, and see what was going on. When I arrived Camille was sitting outside the kitchen with her mum Sheryl, and the camp cook, and I explained that I knew Hannah etc. Sheryl invited me up to the house for dinner with everybody, station crew, plus the 2 muster chopper pilots and one of the workmens family out from England.

That arvo I checked out Donkey Hole and Junction Pool. Junction pool is a nice little swimming hole surrounded by pandanus at the junction of 2 creeks. The wet season here was pretty dry this year, as it was for most of the Kimberley, so this is the only decent waterhole left. Despite that it doesn't appear to see too much tourist traffic.

Junction Pool

Sunset at Charnley

Some big Brahman boys

I had breakfast at 5 am with everybody, the plan for the day was to shoe the remaining horses needed for the coming 4 days of mustering, and pack up to head out to the stock camp for the start of mustering that afternoon. I went with James (their 21 year old only son) in the bull catcher to check a fence line, which took us a couple of hours, some good little bits of 4wding, a broken brake line, loose tail shaft bolts, and some other funny noises. Then we joined up with the two choppers mustering cattle in an unfenced area along the eastern boundary, after pushing a mob of Brahmans through into the fenced area ourselves. All up we put 339 cattle into the fenced area. Mostly Kimberley Shorthorn cattle that will all get sold, and replaced with Brahmans. Any Shorthorn that doesn't co-operate in the muster gets a bullet rather than being left in the paddock, as they dilute the Brahman genetics. These unfenced areas are the last place on the station for the shorthorns to be replaced.

James' Bull catcher (James is driving, Joe had a broken leg from the steer ride at the Fitzroy Rodeo)

That afternoon we packed up a circus, and eventually headed to Potts Camp, arriving a bit after dark. We set up camp which involved making a horse yard, unloading 12 horses from the truck, feeding and hobbling them all, whilst the cook and Sheryl got dinner going.

Part of the circus - this is the water truck for washing up, drinking etc. The engine has no cover on it and is 30cm away from your leg.

In the morning the horses got fed, and saddled, and the riders headed off, following the tracks of Peters bull catcher into the scrub. Peter was driving, aided by the chopper pilots, an obstacle free course to bring the cattle back on. James and I tried to get the other 6 horses (they get ridden alternate days) to stop and drink at the creek, and then back in the yard which was quite an adventure. I had to head back to the homestead with Sheryl so I could head up to Kununurra, but on the way back, we drove in a different route to the spot where the choppers were bringing the cattle for the riders and bull catchers to drove back to the yards. We sat and watched the choppers pushing the cattle up onto the top of the plateau for a couple of hours, then headed off once they had all settled down and everybody had had lunch.

The spare horses safely hobbled after half an hour chasing them around the camp.

The riders heading off in the morning

Waiting at the top of the jump up for the choppers to bring some cattle up.

Camille

The antics of the 2 chopper pilots Grant and PJ were incredible dropping right down into the trees, and throwing their machines around, unfortunately none of the photos or videos really do it justice.

The two Bull catchers, and Grants chopper in the distance along the cut line.

There were two short horn bullocks that had clearly bred with wooly mammoths out in the wild. Check out the horn. Garath in the background.

Grant Wellington with his R22

Australian Wildlife Conservation (AWC) and the Camps are in the process of negotiations over selling the station. I get the feeling it is the AWC structure that slowing things down, but by the note in the directors voices at the Mornington party with Tim Flannery, it sounds like it will happen.

This video is of Peter running over a bull that broke out of the mob. The bull bar on the front of the ctcher is sloped underneath so that you can pin the bull on the ground whilst you strap either front or back legs together with a belt or two. These cattle then get picked up at the end of the day. They are tied because they are a serious risk to the safety of those on horseback, and make droving the cattle more difficult. One of the girls was just touched by the horn of a bull on the hip 10 minutes after this video. Luckily it wasn't a fraction closer or it would have gutted her horse and stabbed her.

Mornington

On my trip up the Gibb I spent 4 days at Mornington station. It is owned by Australian Wildlife Conservancy and has been managed as native animal habitat ever since they bought it in 2000.

The highlights of the trip include:

• Canoeing in Dimond Gorge (usually the most favoured site for proposals to dam the Fitzroy River) with a random backpacker - The backpacker came courtesy of the American volunteers dad. His dad was visiting, before doing a roadtrip to Darwin with him and his girlfriend, and then flying home with his son. He rocked up in the middle of nowhere with a nice 26 year old female backpacker in tow his son didn't know about until he got there. Random.
  


• Climbing Mt Leak with Claire and camping on the top, on a semi-flat rock with an angle slightly less than 30 degrees in a howling breeze rushing over the summit. We slept well! It is an excellent vantage point. You can see hills to the south out on the edge of the sandy desert, west to the King Leopold Range, and north to Mt House.
  



Mt Leak from near Sir John Gorge - 10kms away




• Meeting Tim Flannery (Australian of the Year in 2007, and famous scientist, with a reputation that allows him to express an opinion on scientific matters of public significance and be noticed). He is a director of Australian Wildlife Conservancy, and was at Mornington with 2 other directors after a tour checking out Charnley River Station. AWC is in negotiations to buy the station to add to their current list of 21 sanctuaries Australia wide.
  



The Fitzroy glistening in the afternoon sun, just down stream of Dimond Gorge




• Releasing a Northern Quoll the team had trapped at Mornington to show a journo and photographer from the West Australian. They arrived at the station a day late, but I discovered on my drive out that the photographer was Nic Ellis for those that know him. I didn't get a photo of the quoll. They run pretty fast! I got a great shot of blurred rock instead.

Sunset from the summit of Mt Leak

Derby

This is from a couple of weeks ago now:

Yesterday I spent a few hours poking around Derby

First impressions: It is an outwardly nicer town than popular opinion would have me believe, with an excellent boulevard of trees lining the road into town.

The main attraction would have to be the wharf; which operates solely to export Nickel and Lead from two mines near Fitzroy crossing. There is a nice little café/resturant down there too. The tides in Derby are impressive. They rise and fall by as much as 11 vertical metres and over kilometres of mud flats and mangroves. Tides are generally high in the Kimberley, but derbys are higher due to the funnelling effect of King Sound. As all the water rushes towards the Fitzroy mouth the sound gets narrower and narrower, and the momentum of the water pushes the tide up higher as it is squeezed in.

The Derby jail is another highlight. Not the current one, the old one. Built in 1906, it received several minor modifications from then until it closed in 1975! It was built to contain 30 people in 2 large cells, but frequently held 60 aboriginal prisoners. They were restrained by neck chains fixed through handcuffs to large metal rings that can still be seem in the floor. The amentities - a bucket walled off by a blanket, or an adjoining dunny that looks like a very modern addition.

The prison tree and Myalls Bore is another interesting attraction. The large prison tree boab is reputed to have been used for holding prisoners overnight, and was known to be used as a storage area for stockman camped nearby at times. The tree is said to be roughly 1,500 years old, but everyone is guessing as boabs don't have tree rings.


Myalls bore is right next to the tree. It was sunk to provide water for cattle brought in from stations that camped here for a few days before being loaded onto boats. Initially it provided artesian water at an incredible rate such that there was a 1.5 km long billabong. Later it had to be pumped; into a 120m long concrete trough that could water 500 bullocks, and is thought to be the longest cattle trough in the southern hemisphere (you have to make some claim to fame!).

During WW2 soldiers were stationed here, and one smart bloke built a concrete pool for everyones enjoyment. More like a bath, it is called Frosty's pool.

Mt fucking Barnett

After a fantastic trip up the Gibb, I am camped at Manning Gorge in the sand with every other travelling geriatric and their dog. The reason - the most crucial roadhouse on the Gibb (ie the only one that sells unleaded petrol) has none. And as you can tell that is a little frustrating.

As I write I ought to be arriving in Kununurra, and partying it up at a very nice young ladies farewell party. I am here instead. The truck is meant to be arriving tonight, but judging by stories from the past few weeks, there is a 50:50 chance of that happening.

Not only does the roadhouse not sell fuel, but the pay phone outside (and the one in the aboriginal community across the road) does not take coins. I presume this is so that they don't have to be emptied, or to stop the locals trying to break into them. Not only do they not take coins, they don't take credit card either. The sole means of using one is a Telstra phone card, which is no doubt purchased for an exorbitant sum at the roadhouse that just shut for the night. So all those expecting me in Kununurra, I hope you are telepathic - I will talk to you tomorrow.

So apart from Barnett the trip has been great. The highlights include:

• Hanging out with Birdwood Downs station staff at their cute little homestead and organic vege garden. I got dinner, and breakfast, and a 5 min theatrical performance (part of their preparation for a charity gig), and I volunteered myself for 2 hours work walking around a small paddock chatting to this very interesting 50 year old South African guy - he builds and plays unique African instruments such as the thumb piano (don't ask me what it is!) and a few others. This is not your normal station! To start with it is only 5000 acres, and just 15 k from Derby. It runs on tourism and small conferences.
  
• Hanging out at Mornington Research Camp for 4 days with Claire (a friend from Uni and a bunch of other scientists
  
• Joining in the fun, mustering on Charnley River Station

Timor Leste

For those of you not in the loop, Roland and I decided to have a weeks holiday in Timor Leste (East Timor) during these past school holidays. The first question just about everyone asks is 'why east timor?'. The answer, because people ask that question.

Popular Australia seems to know little or nothing about this tiny country. It has a population of only 1.1 million people at last count (but rapidly growing), and the largest city, Dili, has a population of 200,000. East Timor to most Australians is a place of violence, UN missions, shootings, and recently, a potential spot for Gillards unwanted asylum seekers.

Timor Leste was a Portugese colony until 1975. When the Portugese withdrawal finished, power was handed over to an independent Timorese government. But the government did not last long. After only months in power Indonesian troops took control of the country.

There are many who believe that Australia was the best placed nation to intervene, or put pressure on the Indonesians not to invade Timor, but against a powerful and populous Suharto Indonesia, I expect Australia was practically voiceless.

Australias record has been better since. We provided peacekeeping troops during the 1999 independence election, and the turmoil that followed, and for multiple uprisings since. The presence of Australian troops in the country is still obvious in Dili where they are mostly based.

Timor is a very poor nation, with a GDP per capita of only US $542 ($2,500 ppp for those of you who know what that means). Despite that, Australia is still trying to screw them out of oil royalties for the vast reserves in the Timor sea.


In 2006 Lonely Planets estimate was that 3 or 4 travellers were arriving in the country each day. Things were a bit more rocky in 2006 than 2010, but judging by the occupancy rate of the only real backpackers in town (no more than 13 whilst we were there) not much has changed. There is no beaten path in Timor!

So why Timor?
Nobody knows much about it
Nobody much goes there
Nobody much of those that do go there (mostly UN) actually see the 'real' country
And Australia has many important connections to the place

And our adventures prove all of the above!

ELQ - 10 April 2010

We had Easter Sunday off and it was well spent touring the sights of El Questro station (ELQ they brand themselves). We headed to ELQ after work on Saturday, it is about an hour and a half from Kununurra, but it took a bit longer as we drove most of the Gibb river road section in the dark, and half of that having a wild blind drive in a dust cloud behind people who would not let us past. The boys suggested we should turn it into a show ride. It is an unusual feeling when the first warning there is a corner coming up is a floodway sign apparently in the middle of the road, and when turning high beam on decreases rather than adds visibility.

The main reason we headed to ELQ was that it was the first of their Saturday night shows that run throughout the dry season. They put on buffet dinner if you want it, plus one of the employees, Chris Mathews busts out some good numbers on the guitar and banjo, and an old Afghan stockman called Buddy Tyson shows off his lasso-ing and whip cracking skills. The place was packed with Kununurra and Wyndham people, and the Swinging Arm Bar was doing a roaring trade!

The party was still going at 6 am in the morning, people yelling, carrying on, and playing music. Needless to say there were a few sore heads being soothed at the warm Zebeedee springs that morning.

I went with Phil, Torsten, and Christian. Phil is one of the workers up here, he is a farm boy from Morree NSW, and arrived early in the week. They have an irrigated farm with cotton when they have enough water plus chickpeas, mungbeans, soybeans, wheat and assorted other crops. Torsten is from an average sized 30ha farm in northern Germany, and is here for the season before he goes home to finish is agricultural machinery apprenticeship. I went to uni with Christian, and he is in the proccess of taking over the farm from his dad.

We checked out Chamberlain and Emma Gorge also, but the boys were not keen to do the 8K walk in to Amalia gorge for some reason.

Emma gorge waterfall.

Arrived in Kununurra - 8 April 2010

Well here I am in Kununurra. I am working on a 1000 ha irrigated farm growing rock melons, honey dews, butter nut pumpkins, chickpeas, borlotti beans, and chia.

The first plantings of melons will be harvested in a months time, and I am sure there will be plenty of seconds to eat especially if the birds get stuck into the paddocks!

At the moment we are flat out cultivating - to kill weeds and help reform flat topped beds that have been rounded, and the furrows in-filled, by wet season rain; fertilising - with an initial hit of a compound fertiliser that is placed in two bands within each bed; power harrowing - to break up large clots of dirt and form a fine seed bed; and bed shaping - to form neat, flat topped, level beds that are ready for planting into.

Yesterday we go hit by a thunderstorm at 3:30 in the afternoon. It was very isolated, drenching one side of the farm but barely touching the other, and it was enough to put us back a bit. The farming systems up here are based on a dry dry season, any rain is detrimental, and the black clay very quickly turns to a deep bog after a little rain, keeping tractors out of the paddocks.

But despite the inconvenience rain makes everybody smile!

Mud and an African Mahogany out the front of our house.