"(THEME MUSIC)" "You may not believe this, but these things here, which are called trepang or sea slug or bêche-de-mer, call it what you like, formed the basis of Australia's very first export industry." "And it all happened about 100 years before Captain Cook even found the place." "What used to happen was the Macassan traders would come over from the Celebes, or we call it Indonesia today, get these things, collect them up, hook them up, dry them out and then take them back." "And they'd eventually trade them through to China where they were sort of regarded as a bit of an exotic food." "I've heard somewhere that they were regarded as an aphrodisiac, I think." "I was gonna say something about that, but I think I'd better not." "In the north-west corner of Arnhem Land is the Cobourg Peninsula." "And it's one of the most remote places in Australia." "Geographically, the Peninsula is close to the ancient trade route between Indonesia and China." "And because of that, in 1838, the British decided to establish a garrison here, to defend and manage the north." "They're cockleshells." "These things here I reckon just about typify the history of this part of the world." "They'd start off down in the ocean." "You can pick them up and boil them up and eat them." "They're a bush tucker." "The Aboriginal people dumped them all around here." "That's why we've got this midden here." "Well, you might have thought that that'd be the end of it but it's not." "Because years and years later, the British arrived and they found a use for them, as well as bits of coral like this." "Tucked away behind the woodland forest of Port Essington are the remains of the British garrison." "With very little knowledge of tropical Australia the settlers were poorly prepared." "They were equipped only with their traditional skills which they'd learnt way back in England." "All those cockleshells down on the beach and from the Aboriginal middens were all dragged up here and heated up in this thing here." "And because... this is a lime kiln." "They had to build this to get the cement that they needed to build the buildings up in the settlement there." "These round Cornish chimneys are all that's left of the original married quarters." "The walls and the gardens have all disappeared." "And that's because of the cyclones and of course the white ants." "That lime and that cement was what they required up here to put the bricks together like this and the stonework." "You gotta ask yourself the question..." "up here in northern Australia, do you really need a fireplace in the middle of your living room?" "And that I think typifies some of the errors that the British made around here." "I reckon you need them like a hole in the head myself." "Amongst the scattered remains is the most important building in the whole place... the hospital." "Everyone, at some time or other, spent time here as a patient." "Their biggest mistake of the whole lot was basically selecting this country around here as a site for Victoria Settlement." "The poor old Poms, they had it wrong right from the word go." "Right from the very beginning." "Because they did a survey here and they looked around this country and they found that there was tons of water." "The trouble was it was the middle of the wet season." "They come back a couple of months later, all dried out, nothing left." "And that's exactly what happened..." "no water." "These stones are all that's left of the hospital wards." "The lack of water and a poor diet meant that they got a whole bunch of diseases, things like dysentery and malaria and of course the dreaded scurvy." "After 11 years of extreme hardship 56 men, women and children were dead." "The survivors were recalled and the place was abandoned." "Well, there's no doubt about it, the turkeys have taken over the quartermaster's store." "This building here used to be, way back in Victoria Settlement's day, the main quartermaster distributing area for the whole of the settlement." "So they got all their rations out of here." "Well, they ran pretty short at times, but since then the scrub turkeys have moved in." "You can see round here all the holes where they've been digging down because if you were to dig down into there, you'd find a whole bunch of eggs that you can cook up and eat." "Turkeys build mounds like this generation after generation." "That's why it's so big here." "It's been going on for years, I reckon." "Holes all over the place." "Just across the bay from Victoria Settlement is Record Point, where the British ships used to anchor." "The flat, sandy coastline is lined with casuarinas, which was really quite significant for their survival." "So often it is when you get sand dunes like this and casuarina trees like these ones here growing together round the same area, if you dig down, you can find yourself a whole bunch of fresh water." "And this well here, this has been here for a couple of hundred years." "Obviously back in those days when the British used it, it was a lot bigger and deeper than it is at the moment." "Because it's all caved in." "They used to come here, get their fresh water and cart it about three mile across the ocean there to Victoria Settlement." "Occasionally you might dig down like this and not get any fresh water." "When that happens, there's a little trick you can do." "These casuarina trees, or she-oaks as a lot of people call them, they grow all around the coastline up the north here." "And they produce these little apples here." "They call them oak apples." "Well, if you're getting a bit dry, a bit thirsty, you can get one of these things here, just cut it up a little bit, get the rough stuff off the outside." "Smooth it up a bit." "Make it look a bit flash." "There we go." "Give it a bit of a chew, bit of a suck." "It's very, very acidic and dry." "And what it does is it activates your saliva glands." "And suddenly, instead of having a dry throat, it's all wet again." "Just a little bit of a trick." "Of course, if you've got a dry throat too long, you end up having a voice like the gravel truck." "You wouldn't want one of them, would you?" "Livestock left behind, after several attempts to colonise the north, included deer and these banteng cattle, which were originally brought over from Indonesia." "These days, they still roam round the place in small numbers right throughout the Cobourg area." "These old tamarind trees don't really belong here in Australia." "They were brought here by the Macassans." "But these days, they've been pretty well naturalised." "They're all around the place." "You find them all around the coastline everywhere." "Just trying to get some..." "Ah." "Here we go." "That's the fruit." "Seeds." "And you can eat them." "That's why the Macassans brought them out in the first place because they're a food item they brought down from Indonesia." "Just crack him open there." "It's that pulp inside that you can eat." "It's got a very sweet and sour sort of taste to it." "They're not bad tucker." "(SPITS)" "That seed will probably germinate one day and grow up to a tree like this." "I had to climb the tree to find it because down below, there's none hanging down there at all." "That's probably because of the banteng cattle that were released from Victoria Settlement." "The Macassans always planted these trees near water." "And from way out at sea, they could see the green foliage and they'd steer into one of their old campsites year after year, generation after generation." "That's how long they were coming here for." "One of the major health problems they had over there at Victoria Settlement was scurvy." "And that was because of the diet they had there." "Food was pretty crook." "Eventually the penny dropped with the Brits." "I mean, seven or eight years down the track, and they woke up to the fact that they could trade with the Aboriginals." "And the Aboriginals actually had a cure for that." "It's this thing over here." "It's called a kingia palm." "And the British eventually started trading goods with the Aboriginals who brought in the palm heart." "The palm heart is contained in this area here." "Right up the centre." "Botanists call it the terminal bud." "But right in the middle there, we get a long, thin cabbage which you can break up and eat raw." "Well, the only drawback with that is that when you do that, you kill the tree." "So we're not gonna be doing that." "We'll let it grow up nice and tall like all these other ones." "You know, one of the really great things about the Top End country up here is the fishing." "I'm not just talking about barramundi either." "You can get all sorts of things out there." "Mangrove jack and trevally and queen fish and salmon, all sorts." "These lures work pretty well on most of them too, particularly barramundi." "Lots of people have got lots of different theories on what lure works best and what time of the day, et cetera, et cetera." "But as far as I'm concerned, I reckon barramundi lures are designed to catch fishermen just as much as they're designed to catch barra." "I'm just trying to think just how long it's been since I've seen so many of these mud whelks round the place." "There's literally hundreds and hundreds of them here and you don't get to see them like that too often." "What happens is that the tide runs out, and at low tide like this, they get stranded on the creek lines and the mud banks and things like that." "And you can just pick them up, take them back, put them on hot coals or boil them up and they're terrific." "Aboriginal people up in the Top End here, they've got a name for them." "They call them long bums." "The scientific name is telescopeum telescopium." "And that's because of the shape of them." "Might take a few back later on." "You know, barra fishing up here in the Top End is one of the best recreational sports you can get, when you can get them." "It's a real case though of being in the right place at the right time." "So far this afternoon, I haven't managed to do that." "Just as well I've got those long bums sitting back there." "Never mind." "One day." "Gotcha." "It just goes to show with barra, never give up." "Barra can be a pretty good fighting fish, but sometimes they can be a little bit tricky." "They'll leave the fight right to the very last, just when you're about to land them." "It's one of the things you've got to be careful about with barra because what they can do is flip and they've got a little gill system, which I'll show you here." "Which is serrated." "And that's what cuts your line." "Which is what that fellow did just there on the water's edge." "And that's it there." "It's very, very sharp in there." "Cut your finger and everything there." "You're well and truly hooked." "But what he's done is tangle the line round there and cut it." "Bit lucky to get him aboard, I reckon." "Interesting thing about barras." "When they're about that size there, they're all males." "Later on, a few years down the track, they get a bit bigger, they change over and turn into females." "Funny sort of arrangement." "Never mind." "Mostly, the Arnhem Land coastline is all mangrove country." "But occasionally, here to the east of Cobourg, there are a few surprises." "The main vehicle track, however, is much further inland, down to the south towards the stone country near Arunbilli." "It's interesting to see how this countryside changes as you move through the top part of Arnhem Land here." "All this stone country is gonna give way very shortly and later on we get the big open woodland country." "Lots and lots of it." "But 10, 20 years ago, you wouldn't have been able to drive through here because all these roads have only been put in the last decade or so." "Some of them are OK, but others are not real bright, I can tell you, particularly during the wet season." "Hang on." "I won't be going anywhere unless I put some fuel in this thing." "That's the trouble with diesels." "If you run out of fuel, it takes you half an hour to pump it back up again into the engine." "Mind you, diesel has got a few points going for it." "For a start, you've got no electrics in a diesel engine." "And what that means is that during the wet season time when there's lots of water lying round the place, you have no electrical problems." "The other thing you get is long legs." "Plenty of range." "I reckon with those jerry cans in that trailer there," "I can get round about 1,000 k out of them, which is pretty good." "Take me everywhere I want to go." "Just have a look at that over there." "That's what you call a magnetic anthill." "There you go." "Spot on." "Due north and south." "There's a whole bunch of theories as to exactly why they build these things like this." "But I guess the most commonly accepted one is the fact that by doing it this way, they get sunlight on the broad side in the morning when the sun rises from the east and in the afternoon over on the western side." "Well, if that's north up there, that's where I'm headed." "Up to Maningrida." "This is Maningrida, an Aboriginal community, and the people here have asked me to drop in and have a bit of a talk at the local school." "(APPLAUSE)" "Should I talk about bush tucker?" "ALL:" "Yes!" "Alright." "How about you tell me what bush tucker you've got growing here?" "Over the years," "I've learned a lot about bush tucker from Aboriginal people and sometimes I get the chance to contribute something back, particularly to the kids." "What else... what else have we got here?" "Got the yams, got the goanna." "GIRL:" "Kangaroo." "Kangaroo." "Buffalo." "No, not buffalo." "BO Y:" "File snake!" "File snake." "Why is he called file snake?" "Something like a file on his back." "He's got very rough skin with..." "the scales are just like a file." "Where would you find that file snake?" "In a billabong." "Billabong?" "Swamp country?" "Down in that swamp country?" "ALL:" "Yes." "I might have a look for that file snake." "What do you reckon?" "There's no shortage of volunteers." "This is gonna be interesting." "Where are you looking, buddy?" "(WOMAN SPEAKS IN ABORIGINAL LANGUAGE)" "Round here?" "(ALL TALK EXCITEDLY)" "Ah, look at that, look at that." "All we're doing here is chasing that file snake because this is really the home of file snake round the Arafura swamp area." "We're getting quite a few out of this one tiny little patch." "And you find them just by putting your hands down underneath the grass here." "There's quite a few here." "They're obviously very popular." "That is..." "Eh?" "You got it?" "Here." "There." "Look at that." "Hey?" "There you go, Michael, you can have that." "Alright." "It's a feed and a half, that one." "Although these snakes are pretty big, they are in fact extremely docile and timid." "And I've never yet heard of anyone being bitten by one." "Might be all gone." "You've got that one there, Molly?" "Pull him up." "Pull him up." "(ALL SHOUT)" "When I get the luxury of time, I put up a long wire antenna like that one there because that long wire will give me a lot better reception than the whip antenna will." "Radio out here is particularly important from a safety point of view as well as communication." "But if you're operating in these areas by yourself, it can be your lifeline." "VJY Darwin, VJY Darwin." "This is Three Quebec Whiskey Papa." "Over." "RADIO:" "Good morning, Les." "Go ahead." "Over." "Good morning, VJY." "Could I have a GO telephone number, please?" "I'd like GO 872445." "I'll say it again..." "GO 872445." "Over." "Roger." "Copy that." "Stand by." "Over." "Standing by." "VJY is the outpost radio system out of Darwin up here." "And all the people that live round the bush who haven't got a telephone work off one of these HF radio sets like this." "It's their only means of communicating round the place." "Hang on a minute." "G'day." "Could I talk to Jim, please?" "Over." "JIM:" "Speaking." "Uh, Jim, it's Les Hiddins here, mate." "I'm calling you from about 40 k outside of Gove." "I wonder if you know anything about that track between Lake Evella and Numbawarra, over?" "Yeah, Roger, Les." "I was up there a couple of weeks ago, mate, over." "Oh, right." "How did you find it?" "Over." "Yeah, no problem, mate." "A couple of bushfires..." "Whether it be road conditions or medical help or just for a bit of a chat," "I reckon things would be a bit hard without a radio." "It's something we've all come to rely on." "Way back in the days when the British were over there at Port Victoria Settlement, they used to send a letter off to England that might take 12 months to get there, take another 12 months for the letter to come back, the reply." "Well, I guess a lot of people imagine that Arnhem Land is still isolated and remote, and to a certain extent, that's true." "But these days, what with motor cars and HF radios and aeroplanes and boats and roads and things, things are not quite as isolated as you might imagine."