Port Douglas and Mossman Gorge

With the windows rolled down, radio pumping, and me in the driver’s seat, which is on the left side of the car (yikes!), Connor and I made our way about an hour and half north to the quaint and inviting little marina town of Port Douglas.  Immediately upon arrival we booked a scuba diving trip for the next morning to Opal Island and the Abel Tasman’s.  This is whispered among locals to be some of the best diving in the Great Barrier Reef and, at the least, better than that in Cairns.  Most people stop in Cairns for their dive trips but we figured we’d give it a chance and head north to less frequented waters.

I’m glad we gave Port Douglas our business, too, because the people there gave us so much insight and apparently their town hasn’t been doing so well.  Tourism in Australia has gone down hill in general, probably because everything is so darned expensive, but it’s the smaller towns that are really taking the brunt end of it.  Australia, like so many other nations, is like a dying pine tree, losing its farthest leaves and its deepest roots first, then failing from the base up until all that remains is the boastful green crown.  The tip fades from green to brown as, it too, can no longer maintain its false vitalic image.  Sydney, Brisbane, and the other big cities of Perth, Adelaide, and Melbourne may still appear green and growing every day, but just like in countries all over the world, it’s the little towns that affix the crowns with their life sources of food and flow of workers.  Once the little towns go, things will have to change dramatically to ensure survival.  And they will, it’s just frightening to think of what those changes might be and what they will bring.

But I’m getting side tracked.  Port Douglas showed Connor and me a wonderful day on the Great Barrier Reef.  It was Connor’s first time diving after getting certified and his first time in the ocean.  He did very well.  Most people flail around and are all over the place but he was calm and collected and got the hang of it fast.  We dove three times, saw beautiful gigantic corals, bright and vibrant sponges, numerous turtles, sharks, and even the true and rare species of clown fish, aka Nemo. 

After a great day of diving we continued north into the must see Mossman Gorge.  There we explored all of the nearby walking tracks (definitely worth it, especially the one to Warrunga Fall) and spent quite some time having an interesting interaction with a handful of aborigine boys doing some spear fishing.  I found it fascinating to both talk to and observe them.  At only fourteen years of age, John, the boy I was mainly talking to, displayed a greater knowledge of the natural environment than most local white people in the area.  He also had an aborigine accent, which, the best way I can describe it, is spoken in a tap-tap manner, like the person is speaking to the rhythm of a drum. 

I mentioned that watching them was fascinating because I love to people watch, but mostly because their spear fishing was exemplary of the type of activities that are causing intense controversy in the country.  The Australian government is granting much freedom, power, and wealth to the aboriginal community.  Their freedoms include access to all of Australia, its plants and animals.  They are able to harvest whatever they like and I’ve heard from different sources that they are only supposed to use traditional methods.  In a river where nobody else is allowed to fish, I watched aboriginal boys haul out a turtle with a spear gun.  It didn’t die immediately (it wasn’t even dead yet as we left) and they didn’t know if they were going to eat it.  There is nothing traditional about a spear gun and there is nothing traditional about waste.  I’ve heard stories of aborigines killing whole pods of critically endangered dugongs in one day for only their choicest parts and leaving the rest of the bodies to rot and fester in the sun.  The tribes are only supposed to take one dugong at a time, especially because with traditional methods it is very difficult to kill more than one animal, but when you have a motor boat and guns, taking the whole pod for the best pieces is much too easy. 

Then there is the power and the money.  All of the white Australians I spoke with on the topic were under the impression that any time an aborigine does anything wrong or illegal the government turns a blind eye.  Additionally the government gives aborigines a ton of money and they just drink it away.  After our evening in Mossman Gorge, Connor and I ventured into the town of Mossman, originally an aborigine reservation.  We followed the noises of a very good live band to a hotel bar thick with the stench of body odor.  We were only two of five white people and the other fifty or so people of all ages and who obviously knew one another were aborigines.  Of the twenty-some adults, only two or three appeared sober. 

Further on in our trip I was speaking with an aboriginal nurse about the plights of Africa and, with a sigh and a shadow of weariness and shame she explained “It makes me sad to think of people like those in Africa when my people are bathed in so much money that they just waste away.”  Of course, like this woman, not every individual in a group deserves a stereotype.  However, it seems that Australia’s aboriginals have been given a great amount of good fortune that they are squandering; the Australian government is granting them these benefits as an apology for decades of abuse that most other native peoples in the world don’t receive.  The favors shown the aborigines are causing a greater rift of anger, distrust, and hatred between whites and natives.  What results is a fierce racism.  Plain and simple.  Governments should learn to live solely in today for tomorrow and learn from yesterday without reliving it, or else there can be no chance for healing.