Namesakes and Drop-bears

It has always astounded me to consider the mind-boggling creativity, imagination and foresight that prompted the first explorers of the New World to say "hmmm, wonder what's at the other end of that Atlantic ocean. Think I'll just go and find out." Or those who - admittedly, not always by choice - went from the gentle, hospitable climate and wildlife that would hardly ever kill or maim you on purpose of Great Britain, and settled in the unwelcoming, barely fertile and almost incredibly dangerous territory of Australia - and yet, when they got there, could not think up a new name for the place. I always picture the Scots who staggered to shore after weeks of battling the raging, towering waves and furious winds of the Atlantic saying "does this not look just like where we came from? We didn't turn around by accident did we? No? Well we'll just call it Scotland then. New Scotland - no, tell you what, we'll make it sound a wee bit posher: Nova Scotia." At least that makes some sense - the lush fertile farmlands and craggy hills and coastline of Nova Scotia (especially around the staggeringly original New Glasgow - which is actually prettier than old Glasgow, even if the nightlife doesn't quite live up) are, aesthetically at least, not unlike Scotland. But who on earth rocked up in the world's largest and most spectacular natural harbour, caught sight of scorched scrublands, golden sands, palm trees, hazy blue mountains and the odd kangaroo and went "does this remind anyone else of South Wales?" Well I know who - it was one of the greatest explorers of all time and popularly although not entirely accurately decorated discover of Australia, Captain Cook - I just can't fathom why.


When it wasn't "New Wherever-they'd-just-left", the pioneers of the Commonwealth were very keen on naming things after themselves: thus I pulled up and rested my head for the night in Port Macquarie. Lochlan Macquarie was governor of Sydney (the third if memory of my visit to the Sydney museum serves) in the mid 19th century, and could be credited for turning the fortunes of the ailing and remote outpost of the British Empire into the flourishing, affluent country we wish it was still a case of nicking a couple of cucumber plants or a book on Tobago (actual crimes of two of the prisoners on the First Fleet, according to Bill Bryson's Down Under) to get to move to today. Macquarie's big accomplishment, in addition to popularising the name "Australia" for the new colony (thanks again, Bill B) was his fair and long sighted treatment of convicts: as soon as their sentences were up, he allowed them land to farm and the right to trade; thus creating productive citizens out of sullen and, I wouldn't imagine, particularly helpful prisoners. Sadly however, Macquarie's generosity did not extend to those Australians who had inhabited the country for the staggering amount of time of approximately 60,000 years. And that is just the length of time we can be relatively sure of: there is no guarantee that it isn't longer - either way, the Australian Aborigine people are by far the oldest continuing human culture. While the Romans, the Greeks, the Celts, the Turks all civilised and ruled the known world, then one by one were defeated and died out, the Aborigines quietly and continuously inhabited their remote and famously inhospitable outpost of the globe. So remote in fact, that for a time in Europe, it was considered mythical, and stories abounded of a wild and fantastical land - Terra Australis Incognita - populated with almost unimaginable creatures of dragon-like ferocity and bizarre means of moving… a bit like, you know, crocodiles and kangaroos. This is, however, no thanks to Lochlan Macquarie (amongst, to be fair, many others - I just noticed him as I was staying in his Port). He bestowed upon his men the right to shoot any group of Aborigines greater than six: no matter that there might just be seven of them hanging about together, going for a walk maybe - greater than six and British soldiers could legitimately and lawfully murder them. It is one of the starkest examples of the treatment of native peoples by the cuckoo-like Europeans who showed up in the land they had inhabited for - in this case - tens of thousands of years and told them to bugger off.


I have so much more to say about Aborigines - from their almost inhuman feat of showing up in Australia in the first place (the continent has been an island during the entire duration of human existence) to the horrors of the Lost Generation which continued, incredibly, into the 1970s - but all of that deserves an entry to itself.


It was fairly late in the evening when I arrived at Port Macquarie. I couldn't see much of it due to the darkness at that hour, which is probably fine as it isn't meant to be especially picturesque. Indeed, it was founded, very deliberately, to be harsh - Governor Macquarie set it up as a penal settlement to house those convicts who he didn't feel deserve the rehabilitation he offered to some, and those he deemed to find Sydney life too easy. And indeed, the locals I encountered in the local pub I ventured to for dinner certainly seemed of a fairly tough sort. I got chatting to the bloke behind the bar - a slightly nervous slip of a kid from Surrey, and in due course, a crowd of guys sitting up at the bar took pleasure in indulging in that great Australian pastime: frightening the Pommie tourists. I was too quick for them though, I already knew all about drop-bears, thank you very much… but when they casually stated that I'd been lucky to avoid the famously hungry crocs at one of the places I mentioned I'd gone for a walk on my own, I hesitated before laughing nervously. Then I realized that we were talking about a city centre park - the Botanical Gardens in Brisbane, to be exact, where a few nights previously, the INXS concert had been held. "And in other news, 10,000 INXS fans were devoured whole by the crocodiles who inhabit the Riverstage park. Members of the band attempted to placate them with the remains of a chocolate cake bearing the imprint of a Canadian arse, and Kirk Pengilly, 48, of New South Wales, heroically bopped a few on the head with an empty champagne bottle…" I rolled my eyes and informed them that not all Poms were that gullible, then walked back to the motel stamping hard all they way to keep away the blood thirsty land-turtles that the area is famous for.