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12th Nov 2005
A bit of Biggles and a bandicoot
Saturday, 12th November, 2005
Ian has an early golf appointment this morning and his arousal was even earlier by the need to go into town at 4am to retrieve his daughter. Anyway he had left by the time we surfaced … I went down to investigate some persistent knocking at the door downstairs which turned out to be a plasterer and a while later we heard Frances returning from her early morning walk amidst a string of Viszlas.
The house is going to be superb. Two storeys with wide verandahs all around. A very traditional feel to the place in terms of design … and in fact it’s an old property, having been shifted on the back of a lorry from its original location on to this new plot. Ian and Frances have put in a pool and divided the ground into horse paddocks and extended the house considerably, by putting on the verandahs; quite a project.
We were away by 10, en route to Townsville to pick up one or two things on the way and then to arrive at the airport to take a seaplane out to the island of Orpheus.
I didn’t have much to do with the planning of this little sojourn and writing this a couple of days later am still blissfully unaware of the damage to the credit card – though the signs are ominous! Anne was getting more and more morose about the prospect of being up here in the tropics within a boat ride of the barrier reef and not having done any snorkelling – so I said to her, why don’t you just sort something out … and then I nipped out to take some photographs and left my credit card behind and well, the rest is going to be history!
Orpheus has a couple of dwellings; a research station run by James Cook Uni and a resort complex which has been operating since the 50s in fairly grand style. It is reputed to have a fine fringe reef around the island … a convenient insight into what the reef has to offer, readily accessible from the mainland. We’re booked in to the resort and apparently we have (according to Anne) a really good deal on it.
We were met by the Seaplane pilot inside the air port terminal and our baggage taken and stowed in the back of the single prop Cessna. It has floats fitted with retractable undercarriage so it’s just outside the terminal, on the runway.
Having cleared ‘security’ … slightly odd as our bags went the short route … we waited briefly at a gate and then wandered out across the tarmac with another couple and loaded onto the plane.
Smooth take-off and out over the Queensland coast where we passed various islands on the twenty minute run up to Orpheus.
Landing on floats in a smooth, blue lagoon in front of an hotel is a very nice way to arrive. I couldn’t quite remember where my impressions of seaplanes have come but it’s gradually dawned on me that it’s probably Biggles. I can picture him in one or two of his adventures swooping over azure blue lagoons with palm trees and scurrying natives below and with exception of the scurrying natives, it’s just like that.
Anyway the Biggles moment was completed on landing. A gradual descent with the ocean getting closer and closer, a slap, slap as we made an initial touch and then a whoosh of spray to the sides and we ‘planed’ across the surface of the bay and coasted up to a pontoon moored offshore.
A small landing craft–type barge awaited us nearby and we transferred for the short trip to the beach. Here, we were met and ushered to a lounge for a fruit punch and a briefing on the set-up. There area five or six other couples some a similar vintage, but most a little older. Anyway as a result, it’s thankfully not Ibiza; it’s quiet.
We had a bit of a look around and then headed in for lunch.
Lunch was great; not speedy … which was to become a feature of the meals times here but it was fresh and appetising.
The daily programme of events is posted on a board and there’s a canoe expedition across to a mangrove swamp at 3 which we decided to take part in as a gentle introduction to the area and what the guided tours will be like.
Most of the visitors appeared on the beach to collect canoes and we were lucky enough to get one that looked slightly older than the others and had thus been rejected by most but it was in fact a sturdy and stable double canoe. During the briefing the guide (Angela) mentioned that the objective was to go across to observe the rays as they drifted in on the tide to feed under the mangroves … she then mentioned that unfortunately they were quite easily disturbed and that sometimes the first visitors in had the best views at which point it was like the start of the Iron Man contest with flailing paddles as everyone struck out for the mangroves which were about half a mile away.
We rather disdainfully hung around at the back of the melee and headed slightly further up the edge of the swamp. The rays cleared out fairly smartly, but once the dust had settled and the crowds had thinned (remarkably most of the paddlers went straight back to the resort as soon as they’d clocked a ray) we went in and although very wary, were able to see one or two large rays gliding through the shallow water and around the canoe.
Back across the bay, the tide was racing in and we id a little more exploring. At the back of the buildings is a set of steps which leads past the ‘lap pool’ (clockwise only please) and out onto a path which takes you up to a lookout on the hill above the resort. We took a stroll up there in time to watch the sun drop down below the mainland. The trees on the far side are short and wind clipped, being open fully to the winds from the Pacific. Also above is the grave of a fox terrier called ‘Mr Nicholson’ who toured the islands back in the 50s and 60s on board a yacht. He evidently had a penchant for his master’s shoes and when he was interred (and it’s a fairly monumental cairn with polished marble plaque), his owner left the last shoe that he was working on by his grave … in the intervening years, the pile of shoes grew and it became a bit of a good luck ritual to leave shoes at the grave. As there were no shoes in the vicinity when we passed and signs of scorch marks on the nearby rocks, it looks as if someone had had a bit of a clean-up.
Wandered back down, Anne went for a swim, I took some pics and then it was time to wander along for dinner.
Dinner on Orpheus is a bit of a marathon; seven courses … but lest there be any further concern as to my increasing girth, it has to be said that the portions are suitably small, beautifully cooked and presented and the whole thing is a very memorable experience.
What is noticeable about this occasion … and we now gather it’s ‘a feature’ of Queensland ‘service’ is that it takes a hell of a long time.
Dinner takes at least two hours … and the ten to fifteen minute gap after your first course (one mouthful of vol au vent) or after a scoop of sorbet half way through, is absolutely fine if you have nothing better to do (and as the view is perfect and the climate perfect and there’s nothing trying to eat you, there is nothing much better to do) but the eager anticipation of what’s coming is a bit wearing – but it certainly works up an appetite. All in all I think I prefer to get it down my neck at a reasonable, but unhurried pace and then bask in the digestive process.
Highlights of this evenings offerings would be soup and the seared clams (Anne being allergic to some shellfish) had reef trout.
Tree frogs calling, the odd raucous call which sounds suspiciously like some form of petrel and the odd flying fox overhead and around your feet at the dinner table rather timid long nosed bandicoot hoover up the crumbs.
A quick tour round the cabin with a torch soon revealed an echidna snuffling around on the grass.
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