Broomemarathon runner Adrian Dodson-Shaw braved minus 60 temperatures and polar bears to run the North Pole Marathon
Adrian loves a challenge – and many have come his way since he joined Robert de Castella‘s Indigenous Marathon project last year.
Adrian ran the 2014 New York marathon, and in early April he added a far tougher event to his list – the North Pole marathon.
Adrian covered the 42 kilometre course in just over eight hours. It was slow going on ice and snow, in temperatures down to 60 below zero.
The course was patrolled by armed snipers just in case the local polar bears took an interest in the runners or race officials.
Adrian’s two young sons thought he was going jogging with Santa.
“I had to go and take a selfie with Santa. I didn’t mention to them that I ate some reindeer.”
It’s hard to imagine a place more unlike Adrian’s home in the Kimberley. He’d never seen snow before and doesn’t like cold weather.
This is one of the most demanding athletic events on the planet, but Adrian says he loved taking part and he’s proud to be the first indigenous Australian at the north pole.
Anyone who’s spent time in remote parts of Australia knows it’s expensive to build houses here. And that’s just the start. The rigours of tropical climates require a determined approach to maintenance & repair – none of it cheap, all of it essential. And you need a building that belongs here, not in the cold deep south. It all adds up to plenty of money.
All the research tells us we can’t afford not to afford the cost of a good home here. Poor housing takes us fairly quickly to poor health, and other equally dangerous risks. Especially in our indigenous communities – where there are many obstacles to getting affordable, appropriate housing.
A group called FISH (Foundation for Indigenous Sustainable Housing) hopes to change that – with a new approach that looks to get people, industry and governance working more effectively together to address indigenous housing issues and help create more sustainable housing in the north of Western Australia. Tomorrow, FISH invites you to the opening of their first annual sustainable home – a display house they hope to sell next year to raise funds to build more homes. It’s open tomorrow at Lot 163, 6 Magabala Road, Broome North Estate.
LISTEN to FISH directors Scott Martyn, Richard Simpson and Vic Hunter talk about the challenges, the progress and what remains to be done. And listen near the end for Vic’s hilarious story about explaining the notion of an ensuite bathroom to some-one who’s never encountered one before.
We hear so often about the importance of delivering relevant education to kids in remote indigenous communities. It’s one of the biggest challenges we face as a nation. So it was a real pleasure to visit just such a community and see a school that’s doing just that – mixing the three Rs with local language, culture and knowledge.
Jarlmadangah Burru is about a three hour drive from Broome – in the West Kimberley region of Western Australia. It’s on Mount Anderson Station, just over an hour’s drive from Derby. Nyikina Mangala Community School was established in 2000 to provide an appropriate educational service for the local kids. It’s not the most remote community I’ve been to, but it’s one of the smallest – full time population of under 100. People wanted a school established so their kids could stay in the community and learn local stories and languages, as well as reading writing and arithmetic.
If you want to run a school in a place like Jarlmadangah, you’ve got to find teachers who are prepared to live in the community and stay a while. They’ve been very fortunate to find Carmel Leahy and Emma Sookee – who love living and working here.
Well – here I am. I’ve made it to Broome and had my first look around the beautiful Kimberley region of Western Australia. It’s been a huge move from Cairns – I’m still setting up camp just off the Cable Beach road – but I’ve had a good look around and I like it a lot.
I’ve started on the breakfast show on ABC Kimberley– and I’m getting used to the 4.30am alarm after a dozen years working at the other end of the day. I’ve watched the sun set over the sea, I’ve kicked up the dust at the region’s biggest indigenous cultural event, seen a really good film at the world’s oldest outdoor cinema, seen Steve Pigram play at the Roebuck Bay pub – I’m having a great time in my new home town.
Here’s some pictures – more stories from the west soon.
Fire as an environmental remedy for bushland? At first look, it seems a counter-intuitive notion, especially in a land so determined, for good reasons, to prevent fire in its cities and countryside. But the idea that the right kind of fire at the right time might help rehabilitate “sick” country, get rid of weed pests and promote healthy growth of vegetation – well, it’s catching on. Traditional indigenous use of fire as a land management tool – looking after country – is increasingly informing land management practices by governments, farmers and environmentalists.
But it hasn’t been an easy journey. A decade or so ago, suggestions that indigenous Australians might be on to something were met with indifference, even open hostility. But indigenous fire practitioners were making a persuasive, some say, a compelling case. Fire, they say, is an essential ingredient in the health of the Australian bush – but that’s not a one size fits all prescription. If you’re going to burn a bit of country, you have to use the right kind of fire at the right time, and have a very clear goal in mind.
Today, the sixthIndigenous Fire Workshop gets underway on Cape York Peninsula. People have come from all over Australia to walk the country- it’s Taepithiggi country – and learn from traditional owners and fire practitioners. How to read the land, the animals, trees, the seasons, and talk about the cultural responsibility of looking after country for future generations.
Victor Steffensen is an indigenous fire practitioner based in Cairns, and a director of Mulong, the company supporting the fire workshop. Victor talks about the many ways indigenous people use fire, and how their traditional knowledge increasingly informs non-indigenous land management.
LISTEN
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I’ve just seen an advance copy of a beautiful new book about one of our far north Queensland rainforests. It’s called Jigurru – Storm Season. It takes you inside the rainforest during November and December, the build-up to the tropical wet season, when the temperature starts to climb, storms rumble across the region, and we all start to look forward to the relief and renewal the monsoon will bring.
At first glance, it’s a book for kids. But turn the pages, follow the two youngsters as they wander through a Cassowary Coast rainforest, and you’ll find yourself drawn into their journey, their story, no matter how old you are. You’ll learn about rainforest plants and creatures, pick up some indigenous language, and experience what it’s like to be in such a spectaular place in such a dramatic season – what they call the “nose of the wet season”.
Jigurru is a collaboration between local authors and artists and the Mandubarra rainforest Aboriginal people who were nurtured by these forests. One of the authors is Yvonne Cunningham, who has lived at the mouth of the Johnstone River in Innisfail for 45 years, where she runs a plant nursery
Here in far north Queensland, indeed, right across tropical Australia, we tend to count just two seasons – the wet and the dry. In the wet, the monsoon brings huge amounts of rain and the possibility of cyclones – and it’s all that water that makes this place such an attractive home to our wildlife. During the dry, the days are hot, nights are warm and the place is chockers with tourists. Of course, it can rain during the dry, but the rain comes from a different direction and in usually much smaller amounts. But within those two broad “seasons”, there are subtle changes, periods when change is on its way and signs of what’s next become more apparent. Indigenous people in tropical Australia identify several distinct seasons – in the lush wetlands of Kakadu, in the Northern Territory, the local mob recognise six distinct seasons.
COMB CRESTED JACANA
Our wildlife correspondemt Dr Martin Cohen is in Kakadu this week, working with a Japanese film crew who are documenting the region’s most famous wetland – Yellow Waters – and some of its wildlife, including Norm the comb crested jacana, who Martin reckons should get the dad of the year award. LISTEN to Martin explain the critters and the seasons of Kakadu
Dr Martin Cohen is ABC Far North wildlife correspondent. Hear him on radio Wednesday afternoons at 445 or search for him on your podcast app
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My last blog post was all about the sea journey from Cairns, through the Coral Sea to the Torres Strait islands and northern Cape York Peninsula. The MV Trinity Bay is the only working cargo ship in Australia that also carries passengers, and it takes about 40 hours from Cairns to Horn Island. After almost two very gentle days at sea, it was time to find my land legs and go wandering on Horn and Thursday islands.
Horn Island was a very active military base during World War Two. Vanessa and Liberty will show you the aircraft wrecks and tell you the stories – they know their stuff and they’re lovely people. Highly recommended! I also enjoyed our tour of Thursday Island, including the improbable military fort that sits on one of its highest points. Green Hill Fort was built in the 1890s amid fears that Russia might invade Australia, a prospect now regarded as having been very remote.
I hope you enjoy the pictures.
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HISTORICAL SIGN AT IRON RANGE TELLS STORY OF OPERATION BLOWDOWN
A significant anniversary passed quietly back in July this year – it was 50 years since the Australian Government blew up a significant chunk of far north Queensland. July 18, 1963 was the day a very big bomb brought the Cold War to a very hot part part of the world. It was called Operation Blowdown.
The Government of Prime Minister Robert Menzies had been moved to wonder what the effect of a nuclear explosion would be on a tropical rainforest. Defence scientists from Australia, the UK, US & Canada were engaged to find the answer. This was at the height of the Cold War, and you didn’t need the gift of prophecy to see conflict looming in South-East Asia. Our Government fully expected Australia would be involved and imagined nuclear weapons might be used. What would be the effect on a tropical environment?
The scientists gathered at Iron Range, near the modern day indigenous community of Lockhart River, on eastern Cape York Peninsula. In a highly classified operation, they set up over one thousand instruments to measure an explosion, and dozens of film and stills cameras to capture it. Thankfully, the Government was “reluctant” to use a real nuclear bomb, and instead decided to simulate the destructive power by using what was later reported as a device made with 50 tons of TNT, perched atop a 140 foot tower.
About 17,000 trees had been catalogued, with individual species tested to establish mechanical strength. Four lanes of instrumentation were placed at right angles, intersecting at the site of the tower. A 60 metre wide lane was cleared of all vegetation except for a few large trees at varying distances from ground zero. Military structures, equipment and dummies to simulate troops were placed to replicate operational conditions.
The data and images yielded what Defence sources said was valuable information about how such a huge blast would affect military material, field fortifications, supply points and foot and vehicle access. The Cold War warriors were no doubt well pleased with the results. But Operation Blowdown had at least one unintended consequence. It became something of a rallying point for environmentalists, this in an age before the very vocal and well organised Green groups that began to form later in the 60s. When news of the explosion got out late in 1963, Alec Chisholm wondered in the Sydney Morning Herald how much damage had been done to flora and fauna in an area renowned for a diversity of plant and bird life.
And there was another chapter in this story just a few years ago. It seems there may have been a secret US military plan to use much the same area to test deadly Sarin gas during the 60s.Details emerged in declassified Australian Defence Department files of a plan to bomb and spray Australian servicemen with the nerve gas. It’s understood that plan never went ahead. Read that story here
It’s an improbable creature that seems to be built of spare parts from other species. The platypus is a semi-aquatic mammal, but it lays eggs. That makes it one of only five monotremes – mammals that lay eggs instead of giving birth. Early Europeans in Australia didn’t know what to make of it – a duck bill, beaver tail, feet like an otter and a spur on the hind leg that delivers a potent venom. So improbable was this creature that British scientists in the late 1700s thought it was a hoax.
But we know otherwise. This unique creature is very real, and up close, very cute. But watch out for that spur. They’re a common site in some far north Queensland waterways. I often see them at the creek near the Chinese temple at Atherton. They’re a fairly small creature, but that wasn’t always the case.
A giant platypus with powerful teeth once roamed the rivers of northern Australia. It was at least twice the size of the modern platypus, had very powerful teeth and seems to have been a very effective predator. The scientists who’ve discovered evidence of its existence say it’s like a modern platypus on steroids – a platypus Godzilla.
Professor Mike Archer of the University of New South Wales is co-author of a report on the creature in the Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology. Mike says a tooth found at the famous Riversleigh world heritage area in north-west Queensland gives us an idea of how big this ancient platypus was. It’s been called Obdurodon tharalkooschild. Tharalkoo refers to a female duck in an indigenous dreamtime story who is ravished by a water rat named Bigoon, resulting in a child that was a cross between a duck and a rodent – the first platypus.
LISTEN to Mike Archer here
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The Mojowire 