Stories from The Land Down Under

There we were, two sisters in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. With whales. And dolphins.

In truth, we weren’t alone. We were with about 10 others in a boat called The Noosa Thriller.

The captain, Brent Milne, a handsome sun-weathered Aussie with a wonderful accent to match, clearly loved the thrill of the ride. We realized this when our boat was suddenly diving headfirst into monster waves.

The boat rode the surf so high and then came down so hard I thought our bodies would explode from the shock and adrenaline. Up! Bam. Up! Bam. It only went on for maybe five or six minutes, but it felt as though it would never end.

Photo courtesy Noosa Thriller Ocean Adventures

My sister looked at me as we both held on for dear life.

“You okay?” she asked.

“Sure,” I said. “You okay?”

“Sure,” she said.

We lied. In those moments we couldn’t have cared less about looking for whales. We wondered what we had signed up for. (In retrospect, we realized the name of the boat should have been our first clue.)

But then suddenly there we were: beyond the surf in quiet waters. All we could see was the horizon of ocean and sky.

We waited. And we watched. Finally, there in front of us, beside us, behind us, was the magnificent dance of Baleen whales. It was as if they were putting on a show just for us. They rocked and they rolled and they leapt out of the water, sometimes straight up as if reaching for the sun.

Photo courtesy Noosa Thriller Ocean Adventures

They made the oddest whale noises. I wish I could describe the sound. It was a kind of music from another world, a tone and a key I have never heard.

We were out there for about two hours. On the way back, Brent took us closer to shore, away from the earlier thrill of the surf, and we saw graceful dolphins. They looked as though they were made out of silk. They arched their bodies out of the water with movements gentle and rhythmic. I wanted to touch them, and I think if we had been just a bit closer they would have let me.

Photo courtesy Noosa Thriller Ocean Adventures

This adventure was part of our own story, one of many we will tell our children and our grandchildren.

The Australians are incredibly friendly and open. Everywhere we went we’d end up chatting with people, and once again we realized everyone has a story to tell, even when they don’t think they do.

We talked to Gwynneth, who manages a sweet little shop on the Sunshine Coast. She told us she was approaching a milestone birthday and as a way of memorializing it (and her life), she was reaching out to friends and family to ask them to write her a letter about how they know her and some of the memories they have with her. We thought that sounded like a perfect way to create a book for generations.

Marty is an artist and a gallery owner in Killarney. He thought he recognized our Canadian accent, but he checked to make sure we weren’t actually Americans before he talked about American politics. He had views mirroring our own. It was a lively discussion and a testament to the power of worldwide stories that spread around the world.

Garry is a retired man of many skills who was visiting his granddaughter and great-grandchildren when we spoke to him. He told us he had worked as a plasterer (one project was the Crocodile Hotel in Jabiru near Darwin ‒ it’s actually the shape of a Crocodile). He was also a butcher by trade who started his full-time working life at age 14.

When he was raising his family he hunted kangaroos for meat and skins that ended up as dog food or leather goods.

Currently diagnosed with cancer, Garry enjoys life every day. He lives with his cockatoo, Millie (renamed from Willie after the bird laid eggs) and holds a party once a year with family and friends to celebrate the fact that he’s still ticking.

The theme of his next party, planned for January, is “Still Above Ground and Loving It”.

His daughter, Leanne, told us what it was like to grow up from the time she was eight years old with her sister and cousins on a station [like a North American ranch, only bigger] away from civilization when her dad and uncle were out hunting kangaroos.

The two families lived together in big tents. There were tents for living and sleeping and preparing meals. Food and water were heated over fire. Clothes were washed in a big copper boiler and a washboard, wrung out with a hand wringer, and hung to dry.

There was a makeshift shower with water from an artesian well that would get scorching hot at certain times of the day, so everyone had to time their shower to get the right temperature.

If there was an emergency, they could go to the home of the station owner and call by two-way radio. It was their only means of communication with the outside world.

The children were homeschooled. Homework came by air when the plane delivered the mail once a week. Children sat at a table to do their schoolwork from 9 to 12 each day and were then allowed to go and play with all the freedom in the world. There was no supervision ‒ the kids even had guns, real guns with real ammunition, but no one ever got hurt.

Every six weeks Leanne’s mother drove five hours each way on dirt roads to a town to get groceries. At the last stop on their way home the children were allowed to buy a bag of lollies (sweets) for $1. Leanne recalls it was a lot of candy. They were told they could eat it all at once or save it and eat it slowly over the next six weeks. Leanne laughs when she says she’d eat all hers at once and then pilfer her sister’s stash.

When there was flooding, the grocery trip would have to be put off, so it could be an even longer time between store-bought groceries. But they grew their own vegetables as much as possible and always stocked up on canned goods and powdered milk; when shopping day was delayed, they still had food. The kids learned how to shoot rabbits and pigeons for meat.

When Leanne was 12, she and her family moved back to civilization in Warwick near Killarney. We asked her if she had told this story to her grandchildren. She didn’t think she had. She figured it was unremarkable. We disagreed. We thought it sounded like a whole book and we offered our services. She’s going to look for old photos from those days. When and as she can, she’ll start recording the events from her life so we can transcribe them into text.

People so often tell us this ‒ that they have been quiet about their own stories because they think children and grandchildren will be bored with them. They ask, what’s the point in revisiting the past? But when they start talking and the stories begin to tumble out one bit at a time, they realize their lives are, in fact, unique, remarkable and memorable.

The thing is, they have to tell them or no one will ever know.

It took us a long time to come home to Canada from Australia, just as it took us a long time to get there.

On the last day we stayed at a hotel near the airport that you could only enter through a rather sketchy-looking bar. It smelled like cigarette smoke, and in a dark corner with the gambling machines a lone drunken woman sang very bad karaoke. We had to drag our suitcases up three flights of stairs.

But then, like a little miracle, when we got to the top step, everything changed. There was natural light and fresh paint. Our room was immaculate ‒ old fashioned but lovely and comfortable.

It reminded us of a sign we saw on a curving Australian road in the mountains. It said: “Do you know what’s around the corner? Always expect the unexpected.”

We thought it sounded a lot like life, a lot like all our stories – once we start telling them.