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Non-town that killed and is now being killed

6/30/2014

The sign seemed amusing even if the name of Wyatt Earp's shotgunning offsider was mis-spelt - until we realised the black humour of one of the few buildings still standing in Wittenoom. Doc Holliday died of lung disease.

Take a photo but let's not get out of the car.

Every day deserves a celebratory drink when you are roaming around Australia in a 4WD motor home such as Isabel but some days have sobering aspects.

The non-town on its death bed reminded us that some people have more than a flat tyre or dicky solar panel to conquer.

Wittenoom, nestled against some of the most wondrous scenery in Australia, is a death town that has killed and been killed itself.

Through the middle of last century, dust from its blue asbestos mine filtered deadly fibres into the lungs of the 6000 people who lived and worked there.

Within six years 700 – more than one in 10 – cases of asbestos-related lung disease are expected to have been diagnosed in the cohort of people who worked in Wittenoom between 1943 and 1966.

Ten years ago the West Australian Government removed Wittenoom’s status as a town and ordered that the name be removed from maps and signs but it was still there on our map just north of Karajini National Park , a dot on the dirt road from the Rio Tinto Gorge to the Auski Roadhouse on the Port Hedland-Newman Road. A notation on the map warned against visiting Wittenoom because of the danger from asbestos dust.

A sign warning “Danger. Asbestos in this Area. Cancer and Lung Disease Hazard ….” was the first inkling we were near the non-town. An unidentified smattering of houses appeared on our right. We were amused to see “Doc Holiday’s (sic) Café” painted in large letters on a dilapidated cream building. Then the bitter irony sunk in as we realised Wyatt Earp’s offsider with the shotgun had died from lung disease. We were looking at what is left of Wittenoom.

Lang Hancock found blue asbestos crocidolite in the nearby gorge in 1937 His mate Izzy Walters found more in Yampire Gorge. Their reports of the size of the deposits had an incredulous reaction in asbestos-hungry war-fearing England (think gas masks). The UK response was that someone needed to take a holiday but soon mining was in full swing. CSR developed the mine project and Wittenoom rapidly became the largest town in the Pilbara.

With no alarms raised CSR developed the mine project. Asbestos dust layered everything: early photos show children playing in it, caking themselves in the blue-grey powder.

By 1944 warnings were sounded about the dust levels at Wittenoom. The first case of asbestosis was detected in 1946 but not confirmed for two years,

Government medical officers warned that Wittenoom was developing the “greatest crop of asbestosis the world has ever seen” and said workers could contract fatal lung conditions after only six months. They did not have the power to order CSR to shut down.

Wittenoom mining stopped in 1966 amid unprofitability and growing health concerns but strange twists developed in the story. Not everyone believed every bad word about asbestos and Wittenoom. People kept living there.

In 1978 the State Government voted to phase out the town because of the dust, encouraging and assisting people to relocate. Some did but the sprawling Shire of Ashburton and the remaining residents said “Bugger that”. Curiously, they proposed that Wittenoom should be cleaned up and developed as a tourist resort.

In Perth parliamentarians shook their heads and in 1981 they reaffirmed that Wittenoom would be phased out. By 1986 almost 100 houses had been demolished and the school, police station and nursing post closed down.

In 1993 the airport was closed. Still people stayed on. The risk was rated as mild for visitors but extreme for residents. OK, said the Government, you can stay but new residents are not allowed.

Eight years ago a handful of residents were still claiming the town was OK to live in as the power was switched off, Wittenoom’s status as a town was removed and the name was ordered to be removed from all signs and maps. Demolishment of houses continued.

The State Government also voted to limit access to Wittenoom and raise awareness of the danger. Now the big blue signs warn of asbestos risk a couple of kilometres either side of the town that doesn’t exist – except for a few houses leaning towards shanty-style and Doc Holliday’s Café.

Apparently no one is plugging for a tourist resort anymore.

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Tales of drama (TV, trains and testy wives) at happy hour

6/13/2014

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The rock pools at the base of Red Rock, Indee's little Uluru.

Pebble mice, a mini Ayers Rock and people with tales to tell of television dramas, a young Irish couple stuck in front of a train, station life characters and drilling adventures: that’s Indee Station.

Itinerant work crews, campers and station hands are welcomed around the 10m long table in the homestead each night for happy hour. If you are not staying for a meal you need to clear out at 7.15pm so workers can eat heartily and sleep well before getting back into the Pilbara dust and dirt at daylight.

It is also a place where retirees drift back from around Australia to spend a few months helping out in return for food and accommodation and where backpackers lob in for a crusty and sometime scary taste of station life.

Alison Coop from Forrestville in Melbourne is one of the former. She’s a can-do Australian woman who worked as a cook on outback tours for eight years.

Before she retired she worked for 13 years on field locations for crews shooting movies and television series in regional Australia.

“We would supply the vehicles fitted out for whatever they needed – a makeup trailer and a wardrobe trailer, stuff like that. They would bring the makeup and clothes but we would supply the on-site rooms they needed.”

She worked on shoots for the Ben Elton Stark movie at Coober Pedy, the All The Rivers Run television series with John Waters and Sigrid Thornton and the Neighbours location shoots from its early days until 2009.

“We did a lot with the Australian Children’s Television Foundation. A lot in Queensland. It was fun but hard work. We did 14 to 16-hour days. You do get over it.”

She explored the Gulf Country after she retired and lobbed into Indee when she roamed around Western Australia in 2011, sleeping in the back of her car.

Indee was short-staffed so she stayed a month, upgrading to a room and looking after the visiting travellers and camp facilities. The next year she returned for the March to August tourist season. She skipped last year for other commitments but is back again this year.

“It’s a good team here, a good atmosphere,” she says. Alison has a gentle charm and friendliness that makes her very much part of the welcoming package.

She tells visitors how to get to Red Rock – a kind of mini Ayers Rock overlooking the Turner River – with its rock pools and rare Aboriginal etchings. Colonies of rare pebble mice are also on the station: they are nocturnal so unless you want to sit in the dark to watch them gather all the rocks for their complex housing units you have to be content with viewing the little rock volcanoes they build.

Ore trains rumble in the background. BHP and Fortescue have built rail lines through Indee to the Newman area; Gina Rhinehart is building another to the new Roy Hill mine. One could surmise that they disturb the bucolic mood of cattle station life but a sense of industry is everywhere in the Pilbara and Indee has an energy created by work crews and travellers accommodated in converted containers and campers in an assortment of caravans, motor homes, tents and sleeper utes and vans. (Hot showers, washing machines, camp kitchen for $20 a night for two people.)

Indee’s massive lounge room is filled with memorabilia. Tea, coffee and biscuits are waiting during the day; at night camaraderie grows as a changing line-up does the BYO thing – nibbles provided – at the long table.

Craig, one of the young blokes on the drilling crew was having matrimonial problems. His wife had expected him to be home with the kids for the long weekend but a drilling project took priority.

Drilling life doesn’t always suit married life, Craig’s father-in-law Dave cheerily confided. He and Mrs Dave parted company 12 years ago.

“And the last 10 years have been the happiest in my life,” he said. “I go where I want when I want. I drink as much as I want to and don’t have to worry about suiting anyone else.”

Driller Doug said he was not in a position to give advice to Craig. His marriage and a long-term relationship both fell apart, mainly because the demands of drilling mean little time at home.

At the top of the table is Big John Spencer, a semi-retired former farmer from the east who came travelling through the Pilbara with his wife Julie last year. Their son was working at nearby Wodgina mine, where 76-year-old station boss Colin Brierly still puts in two days a week. One thing led to another and they stayed on at Indee, returning this year. John does mechanical stuff and Julie cooks.

“You don’t get paid but it costs nothing to stay and it’s interesting,” John mused. “I’m not ready to do nothing yet.”

That was lucky for a young Irish couple travelling Australia last year. They put in a few weeks working at Indee and were driving an old open Cruiser converted to a bull ute. They approached the gravelled crossing of the double BHP line in the wrong gear and the wrong revs. Stuck. And of course a 2.6km ore train soon materialised in the distance.

When John and Julie came around the corner, the Irishman was still trying to push the ute off the rails and his partner was running down the line in a futile attempt to stop the engines and 248 wagons.

Big John summed up the situation quickly and put his foot down. “I didn’t really stop to think. I just put my foot down.”

As the train bore down, John crashed his ute into the back of the jammed Cruiser, shunting it out of the way with a few seconds to spare. It took a while for the full impact of what had happened – and the disaster that could have happened – to dawn on all players.

“Julie was OK but she cried all the next day.” BHP concreted over the crossing. The ute, with the radiator stoved in, was parked in one of the station’s spare parts bays. And of all the people who leave Indee with stories to tell, the Irish couple have one of the best.

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Drawing the lines through Indee: BHP, Twiggy and now Gina

6/12/2014

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Colin Brierly’s friendliness fades when the conversation turns to city folk.

“They have no idea. Jesus, they drive me insane. Bloody peanuts. We’re being run by idiots.”

The burly boss of Indee Station turns 76 this year. Dubbed The Iron Man of the Pilbara in the media, he’s run the 420,000 acre cattle station an hour south Port Hedland for 52 years. For the last 17 years he has also worked at the Wodgina mine to the south. He still puts in two long shifts a week.

Since the century turned he has wrought and fought new changes that have sliced through the station. Conflicting onslaughts of industrial ventures and environmental regulations have ripped into the domain Colin steered through gut-wrenching car and plane crashes, crashing wool prices, high interest rates, the live cattle export ban and the agricultural constants of drought and flood.

About 4000 head of cattle roam Indee but not as freely as they once did. Three privately owned rail lines have pierced the station. Some of the longest and heaviest trains in the world rumble 24/7 in the background, taking iron ore to Port Hedland from around the Hamersley Ranges.

“BHP was worst of the lot to deal with but it was a great teacher,” Colin said wryly.

He had been dozing in front of Landline when we met in the cool sprawl of the Indee lounge and dining room, dominated by a 10m long table that is home to happy hour each night for the campers and work crews who drift in and out of the station.

Indee is hospitable, welcoming and casual for campers. “Old Farts Haven” says a sign on the gate, presumably targeted at Grey Nomads. Glorious piles of machinery and building material – in use, recycling and decaying – are scattered between the homestead, sheds, containers and campground.

An old Massey 65 rusting under a tree came with Colin from Muckinbudin, down in the sheep and wheat belt, when he took up the Indee pastoral lease as a 23-year-old. He set out in 1962 with the tractor on the back of a tray-back truck which broke down not far out on the 1200km journey. The Massey was backed off and used to tow the truck for the rest of the slow journey north.

Six years after Colin started sheep raising at Indee a Vickers Viscount 700 crashed into Indee, killing all 26 on board in one of Australia’s worst civilian air disasters. Colin and some of his station hands saw the crash and raced to get there within half an hour, finding only scattered charred wreckage and body parts. More than 50 body bags were used by the retrieval crew working grimly in 45 degree heat.

An engine fire on the plane had caused the crash. The Viscount 700 was withdrawn from service after an inquiry revealed the plane’s defects.

In 1992 Colin’s first wife was killed in a station vehicle crash. Wool prices fell amid rocketing interest rates.

Stoically Colin took stock and began the first of Indee’s changes to meet the challenges. He subleased the land, worked at the Wodgina tantalum mine down the track, opened the station for campers, provided accommodation for transient work crews – mainly drillers – and eased Indee from sheep to cattle.

He asked a friend Betty to set up and run the camping and accommodation sector. She and her husband had moved north from Dongara a few years earlier to work on a station. Her husband had been killed and Betty seriously injured in a road crash.

“I had been coping by becoming a workaholic,” she says.

Indee’s accommodation and camping venture was a success and so was Colin and Betty’s partnership. They married seven years ago – Colin with three children and two stepchildren and Betty with two children – amid the bitter-sweet experiences of rail lines carving up Indee.

BHP was the first and the worst to deal with but Colin says philosophically he learned a lot about negotiating with big companies. “I didn’t get bugger all,” he said of the double line BHP built near the station’s eastern boundary, hauling ore from the Yandi-Marilana mine areas north of Newman. “I was determined it wouldn’t happen again.”

(On June 21, 2001, the longest and heaviest train in the world ran from Yandi to Port Hedland. With a total weight of 99,734 tonnes, the 7.3km train pulled 682 wagons carrying 82,000 tonnes of ore on the 275km trip.)

When “Twiggy” Forrest’s Fortescue men arrived at Indee to negotiate north-south access for a rail line to its Cloudbreak mine, Colin stood firm. He struck a better deal after a legal battle but says much of the compensation is soaked up by fencing, trying to stop cattle from being run over by giant engines pulling 248 wagons of ore.

He is also angry that FMG chose a different route, 2km from the BHP lines, splitting Indee up more instead of using the same corridor.

Gina Rinehardt is now building another line through Indee to the giant mine she is opening up at Roy Hill station. Negotiations for that land were a little easier. The FMG terms were a precedent and the Roy Hill line is on the same corridor as FMG, although a few hundred metres of no-man’s-land lies between the rail lines and both companies have put in their own service roads.

FMG and Roy Hill have built single lines but their sidings are 3km long to allow the trains – usually 2.6km – to pass.

“You do your best and make the most of it,” said Colin. “They would have beaten you sooner or later. The State backs them, as long as you get fair and equitable compensation.”

Railway money came in handy, however, when Julia Gillard slapped a ban on live cattle exports to Indonesia and crippled cattle stations across Australia’s north.

“A lot of stations went broke because of that. We would have too if it was not for the railway.”

ABC’s Four Corners triggered the ban when it screened a film of staggering cattle being flailed to death in an Indonesian slaughterhouse. Questions have been raised about whether scenes were staged for the years-old film. Some have drawn links to the ensuing industry collapses that led to Indonesian interests buying large tracts of Australia at bargain prices.

And cattlemen have been left with a sense of betrayal at the ABC, creator of Landline and other rural-servicing programs and the only broadcaster to reach into the remote regions of Australia. The publicly funded broadcaster draws protection for its rural reach but scepticism grows in the bush as all but a few select programs cater to left-wing and environmental academic audiences in the wealthy and/or green metropolitan suburbs.

“Greenies!” Colin flares again. “Nuts. No idea.” He is riled by the tight rules governing burning off and dealings with the local shire. “You need to burn the spinifex. If you don’t want big fires wiping out everything you need to burn off in a mosaic pattern when the conditions are right.

“I tried to apply for a permit once but they said I had to supply a satellite picture and give a date. How the hell would you know what date is going to be right to burn? What sort of brains have they got? You have to work with the right conditions but these city folk coming out here and running our lives wouldn’t have a clue. They should leave us alone to do what we are doing.

“The greenies should all go back to Tasmania and do what they want to do there. Then when the big fire comes there they can all jump into the sea.”

Colin relaxed and smiled hugely. He’s been battling for three-quarters of a centre and has plenty of fire left in him yet.

PICTURE SHOWS: Colin and Betty in the comfortable lounge they share with campers and work crews.

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Joe Hockey, you need a hamburger with the boys at Nowra

6/6/2014

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“Maybe your signature dish should be a superb sushi roll,” I said over wine and cheese that drifted pleasantly into being a substitute for dinner.

Mathew shuddered and let out a squawk. “Not rice! I still can’t do the rice thing. Maggots! It’s a long story.”

Terry Magill and Mathew Consiglio (above) were heading back to the east with a Nowra venture in mind when we were exploring the south of Western Australia.

We bumped into them first at Munglinup and a couple of days later backed Isabel up beside them at postcard-pretty Lucky Bay. We liked their company and we liked their style on two counts: first they had a bit of get-up-and-go – combining a solid work ethic and entrepreneurial ideas – and second they served a salubrious spread to pick at with wine as the sun set.

Joe Hockey would be proud of these two Australians. No age of entitlement nonsense here. Terry had begun work as trolley boy at Woolworths and worked his way through the ranks to third in charge of a supermarket. Most of his time was spent managing bottle shops at various stores,

Mat was also at Woolies for four years, two as customer service manager and two in the office doing public liability.

“We got sick of the same routine every week,” said Terry. So they hopped on a plane to Perth, bought a vehicle and drove 1000km north to Minilya, a roadhouse managed by Terry’s sister Danielle.

At Minilya they learned the takeaway ropes and much more: remote roadhouses are little communities with fuel, accommodation, camping, modest restaurants and shops with basic supplies and the ubitiquous over-priced T-shirts.

For 18 months the couple (they’re engaged) worked, explored nearby Ningaloo Reef, helped ill-equipped or troubled travellers and saved enough for a grubstake for their own business.

“We loved it up there,” said Terry, “but we had other things we wanted do.”

They bought a van and took a leisurely long road back to NSW, exploring Oz in company with the Grey Nomads and young foreign backpackers they had served at Minilya. They were fishing along the way with a spectacular lack of success and collecting elements as souvenirs – white sand here, red soil there, a rock here.

We joined them for sundowners each night. I plonked down a rudimentary plate of brie and biscuits; they presented stylishly displayed hors d’oeuvres and details of their plans to buy the Hillview Corner Store at Nowra.

Takeaways are a big part of the Four Square business and the boys had been giving it a lot of thought.

“We want a signature dish,” said Mat. “Probably something healthy to balance the fish and chips. Any ideas?”

I remembered the delectable sushi made by the French Hot Bread bakery in Maryborough. Morsels of crumbed chicken, avocado and tomato were stuffed in the centre of the rolls.

Mat’s rejection of the suggestion verged on paranoia. “Not rice!” He was coaxed to explain, with groans and shudders, his scarring experience in his younger days when he had to clean maggots from a large container. Revolted, he summoned his courage and still reeling walking back to the house when his mischievous sister threw a container of rice – maggots! – over him.

I suggested he might need counselling for his rice phobia but he said he’s working on it.

The boys headed across the Nullarbor and we headed back up north, calling into Minilya to meet Danielle and discuss briefly Mat’s rice problem. He had a bit of therapy handling some rice at Minilya, she smiled, and was much better by the time the boys left.

Terry and Mat are now working furiously at the Hillview Corner Store venture, revamping the store and upgrading the menu.

They just had their busiest day, had to rush out for more supplies and are compromising on the signature dish because it looks like it is sorting itself out: hamburgers filled with superb salad.

“Customers are telling us our hamburgers are like the old traditional ones and taste really fresh,” says Terry. “Apparently our plain burger is like a burger-with-the-lot at other places.”

Anyone knowing anyone travelling near Nowra might want to check in with the Hillview Corner Store in St Ann's Street and try the burgers. We’re going in the wrong direction right now but we will get there one day.

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On top of old Sheila with 360 degrees and a flat

6/5/2014

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Well worth the 2km climb on a bitumen track ascending at a cable car angle.

If we had known what grandeur awaited us, we would have planned to spend the night on top of Sheila. But then we might have missed out on crème brulee coffee delivered by a couple of tired but happy miners the next morning (right).

We had coasted on the unsealed road around the western side of Karajini National Park after exploring its splendid gorges. Hamersley Gorge was still beckoning and then I spied Mt Sheila lookout on the map. I had never heard of it, lying almost on a direct line west of Hamersley Gorge, along the Hamersley Road.

A nice little diversion, I suggested to Tony. It was more than a diversion but an experience we would not have missed. We drove past the front entrance to the giant Solomon mine complex opened up in the last few years by Fortescue. Daughter Amber and her fiancé Dean were asleep in there after working night shift.

After a jolting 30km ride we crossed the Tom Price-Dampier iron ore rail line and rattled another 12km towards Mt Sheila. White paint daubed on a green drum helpfully pointed the way at a Y junction.

Pilbara scenery of growing grandeur rose on each side until we came to the only sign we have ever seen that said 4WD vehicles only were allowed to travel on on the bitumen, as against usual warnings saying 4WDs only were allowed off the bitumen.

We were at the base of Mt Sheila, a former Telecom tower site. We looked ahead and had a bit of an OMG moment. The 2km narrow bitumen track ran up the mountain at an angle of about 30 degrees. Isabel climbed like she had never climbed before, mastering a couple of high-grade potholes before we reached the top and had a succession of OMG moments.

We felt as if we were on top of the Pilbara. Around 360 degrees magnificent landscapes fell away to the horizon. A few tiny dust clouds and a scraped mountain side showed where mines were being worked. Again I had that ethereal sense of something about the Pilbara that laces tendrils into your soul, a timeless raw grandeur both forbidding and fascinating.

My spiritual flirtation was punctured by the last OMG moment (not counting all those on the downward trip). Isabel had her first puncture. It transpired that a tiny sliver of something sharp had slipped through the treads in a million to one chance but it put paid to further musings about spending the evening on Mt Sheila so we could watch the lights of the mines dotted below.

Hamersley Gorge awaited and, despite a ho-hum report on-line, we found it to be the gem of the Karajini gorges. Waterfalls splashed into tranquil pools – perfect for swimming and one forming a spa pool – and flowed down many-hued flat rocks into a larger pool and then slipped through a canyon.

Hamersley Gorge is small compared with others but more easily accessible. It is entrancing and exceptional for its cliffs, sliced through layers of multi-coloured rock forced into wave formations by some molten upheaval a few billion years ago.

We camped nearby and in the morning took up the offer to have coffee at Solomon. Weary but still cheery after a 12-hour night shift, Amber and Dean delivered coffee – including a hitherto-untasted crème brulee coffee side order that was a bit of an OMG moment in itself. The rising sun slapped extra tonings of brilliance into the reds of the landscape.

We surveyed the resort-style two-tier accommodation at Kanji camp. It’s a far cry from the dongas and converted containers where miners often bunk down but with more than 1100 workers on site it is already overflowing. The former camp is being opened up as the operational crews continue to expand.

Fortescue’s Solomon complex has four discrete mines and is destined to become one of the biggest mining operations in Western Australia. Fortescue’s Chichester Hub of Cloudbreak and Christmas Creek already rails out 90 million tonnes of ore a year to waiting ships.

Gina Rinehart’s new Roy Hill venture has identified prospects of 2.4 billion tonnes and will funnel 55 million tonnes a year into Port Hedland over 20 years from next September.

In comparison, Solomon is ramping up with 2.8 billion tonnes right to go and a total of 5 billion tonnes as identified prospects – twice that of Gina’s Roy Hill.

The boom of opening up mines might be easing but in the operational phase mining in Australia is stabilising at levels that are still almost incomprehensible.

Regretfully we said our goodbyes. We would have liked more time to camp up on Sheila and tour the Solomon workings but we had to join dozens of trains more than 2km long and head back to Port Hedland.

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Kim defies decades and gravity on Karajini high spot

6/1/2014

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From the Joffre lookout: That wee dot on the top of the rock pillar (top right corner) is Kim, after clambering down into the gorge and up the other side.

Being thin, young and nimble is a big advantage when you explore the gorges of Karajini, the national park at the heart of the Hamersley Range and the Pilbara.

Meeting none of the three criteria above, I gazed enviously from the Joffre Gorge lookout to where a white-hatted young woman had scrambled across the gorge floor river and climbed up the flat-cracked, stacked red rocks to a lofty perch.

Her husband (I assumed – he looked older but he was not much more than a speck) wandered along the river at the base of Joffre, which was a worthy gorge to inspect, we decided.

We had been to Karajini three years ago but just ducked into Dales Gorge, a majestic red gash in the Pilbara tastefully decorated around the rim with snappy gums, stark white sculptures topped with green bunches of leaves. Dales Gorge has a mildly challenging track down to the canyon floor to tranquil Fern Pool, Fortescue Falls and Circular Pool. It is easily reached by a sealed road.

This time we wanted to inspect the less accessible gouging in Karajini. The unsealed road through the park is not too bad but it’s a rattling ride to the gorges on the north.

We inspected Kalamina and at sunset the more spectacular steep narrow ravine of Knox, where we chatted into the dusk with four young people from Perth – three guys and a girl – who had chucked their jobs and headed north. They were hoping to land jobs for the tourist season in Perth, refreshingly optimistic in being young, adventurous and eager to accept whatever came their way in their travels to … who knows where?

After admiring the young, adventurous, eager explorer of gorges at Joffre the next morning we rattled Isabel up to the Oxer lookout over four gorges, rated as one of the most vertigo-inducing lookouts in Australia.

Above the four gorges we encountered Kim from the depths of Joffre. With astonishment I realised the nimble canyon-climber was only a few years younger than me. No wonder they are putting up the pension age.

Kim, 58, and John Allison, it transpired, were from Moreton Bay, semi-retired and roaming Australia for a few months with their caravan, focusing on Western Australia. He’s an electrician; she’s a store merchandiser.

I apologised for taking her photo without permission but promised to email her some copies. She apologised because she and John had been taking photos of Isabel without our permission. That’s OK. Isabel has been photographed only slightly less than Kate Middleton.

The Allisons grew up in the tiny NSW town of Oak Flats and moved to Moreton Bay 21 years ago. John has dabbled in boats, running a charter business in Moreton Bay (“We didn’t make much money but had a lot of fun”) and working in the Whitsundays for a few years. Salubrious memories of that gig include living as caretakers aboard a luxury yacht and then being offered a caretaker job in a mansion atop Hamilton Island, with 360 degree panoramic views of the ocean.

They headed into the challenging Weano Gorge; we tramped down into the daunting Hancock Gorge, where some sections were negotiated by swimming. As we staggered out the Allisons breezed in, a fortunate occurrence as it proved we were not stalking them when we bumped into them two days later at Auski Roadhouse and two days after that at Indee Station.

After we climbed out of Hancock and down into Weano, wading and scaling along to the Handrail pool, where the handrail turned out to be a 6m vertical pole.

Inevitably troops of young French travellers arrived. Les Jeunes Francaise are everywhere on the WA tourist trails and have some turning up their noses (they travel in vans and little motorhomes with minimal equipment and leave a trail of merde et toilette papier in the scrub).

We have enjoyed meeting them, particularly the Handrail pool; Tony because the girls all stripped to tiny bikinis beside him and me because the bikinis showed that French woman do get chubby.