Beauty and the Beasties

Stanley’s postmistress Sue and her husband Mick had invited us over for bon voyage drinks, and after a short walk along a lane filled with mid 1800s cottages, we found ourselves at their modernized bungalow, just a stone’s throw from the town’s scenically situated cemetery. Comfy in full sun, in an area out the breeze, our view overlooked North Beach with its row of Norfolk Pines making it even more scenic.

We first met Sue when posting a letter and somehow got discussing Tasmanian Aborigines. Maybe my mentioning our visit to Wybalenna and interest in Aboriginal history sparked her telling us she was a teacher and taught this subject at high school two days a week. Facts flew thick and fast, as she replayed history in her quaint post office. She kept coming around her counter to first show us a poster filled with Aboriginal artefacts then a painting of Truganini, the last pure blood. We learnt she had travelled not only to Wybalenna on remote Flinders Island, enduring a scary single engine air flight, but had also been to Oyster Bay, the black folk’s final place on the island they’d inhabited for thirty-five thousand years.

A few tough days ~ January 18, 2010

I felt like a mouse trapped in a corner with a big shoe coming down. The weather dons said it would blow for a day or two, and being exposed at Wybalenna, we high tailed it for Lady Barron, the only sea port on Flinders Island. The other time it had blown strongly, we’d had a horror night dragging anchor across a weedy bottom, and unsuccessfully trying to reset it in the middle of night, at great expense of sleep. Windy, cold, roaring like a lion, malevolent forces had pushed us about. Terrible for me at the front of our ship; in just a flimsy nightshirt, torch in hand, looking for a clear sandy patch amongst dark weed with Jude yelling above the engine noise asking where to go? How would I know, everything was black.