Chapter 9 Freedom
One of the best things about getting to Kuranda, is the spectacular ride up by the tourist train from Cairns. It is definitely an experience not to be missed. That time, unfortunately, I did miss it. I was arriving from the other direction, the Atherton tablelands, so the pleasure of that great ride of unbelievably fantastic panoramic views was denied me. My arrival was far more mundane. I arrived after being bussed through clouds of dust, and sand, kicked up by the wind sweeping over the desolate landscape of the interior of Queensland. Hot and dry. I had been picking tobacco on a farm just out of Mareeba, so I was flush with funds, and looking to enjoy some work-free time. There could be no better place for such an indulgence as Kuranda. The town is absolutely submerged in a tropical rainforest, with a river running through nearby. As it is situated well above sea level it doesn’t have the sticky humidity of Cairns, although it still gets really hot. A dry heat. That’s where the river comes into play. The water is delightfully cold, and crystal clear. All in all, a lovely playground when your pockets are stuffed full of cash.
After getting off the bus, I made my way past the ever present Australian pub, always situated in the very centre of every town, like a modern day place of worship. The Australian version of a church. Albeit of a religion followed much more vigorously. Drinking has always been a very serious occupation in Australia. I headed around the corner, and up the road to find the hostel. It was a big, two storied, wooden building, with lots of windows, and what appeared to be a very large garden. The garden was full of trees, and overgrown with lovely tropical plants and flowers. Vibrant colours were everywhere. What a fantastic looking place! And that was to be my temporary home, for as long as I desired. All that strenuous labour had paid off. Kuranda is one of the nicest places you will find in Australia. An oasis, hidden in the depths of a tropical forest. Along my path, almost like a mirage, I came across a beautiful blonde hippy girl. She had a friendly looking face and a welcoming smile. Her short white dress wafting around as she walked. Kuranda was looking even better.
‘Hi,’ she said, ‘are you just getting in?’
‘Yeah, I’ve been working over around Mareeba.’
‘I hear that’s pretty hard work?’
‘Oh, not bad. It’s more the stifling heat that gets to you. Not to mention the moronic locals. It’s a bloody redneck town.’
‘By your accent it sounds like you’re a Kiwi, too. Yes, the locals can definitely be a health hazard. Especially in those small country towns. It’s pretty good around here though. There are lots of open minded people. I’m Felicity, by the way.’
‘Hi Felicity, I’m Matt. So, what’s the story about checking in? Is there an office or something?’
He smile almost turned into laughter.
‘You are really going to love Mrs. Spencer! You know those open minded people I spoke about around here? Well, she’s not one of them. Be on your best behaviour with her. She’s a bit unpredictable.’
That heads up was good to know. I didn’t have a backup plan. I needed to get things right.
‘Thanks for that. Where can I find the intransigent Mrs. Spencer?’
She directed my to the office, where I was put through the third degree by the heinous scoundrel in charge of the hostel. The interrogation was long and thorough. She wanted to know everything about what I had been up to, where I had been, and what I had eaten for breakfast. I was on my best behaviour because, really, my plan relied on my staying there, the only hostel in town. I needed to pass the test. Luckily she didn’t have a lie detector, although she was probably thinking about buying one.
‘Certainly, Mrs. Spencer, I will follow all the rules. You won’t have any trouble out of me.’
I was rather proud of how diplomatic I could be, only in an emergency, of course. Had that been lying? Of course not. Let’s just call it bending the truth, almost to, but not quite at, breaking point. Still slightly suspicious of me, she directed me to my bed. It was the bottom bunk in a long narrow room along one side of the large building, up on the first floor. In the room there were a total of around ten bunk beds, and I could see another similar room through a doorway. The bunk was pretty spartan, but compared to what I had been used to, it was looking good. All around the room everything was very clean. The view out the large windows was absolutely fantastic. Green, lush growth, as far as the eye could see. I stashed my few belongings under the bunk, and headed off for a swim. I needed to wash that Mareeba dust off me. I knew my way around the town. I had been there for a short time, a couple of years earlier. Just why it had taken me so long to get back to such a wondrous place I will never know. That, however, was my first time in the hostel. That time I had money, so I could live the life of luxury, while still maintaining my usual simple lifestyle.
The best spot for swimming was further down, along the train tracks, to where the river opened up into more or less a small lake. The lake was surrounded by large boulders, some flattened out, which were good for sunbathing on. I could see a few people already down there, no doubt mostly from the hostel as well. I took my clothes off and jumped in. The cool water was refreshingly welcome. Instant relief, and an immediate sense of well-being. I was where I wanted to be. Everyone else was also swimming, and sunbathing, naked. It was 1979, the hippy era was still in full swing, and clothes were out. The water was a bit cold, but it was incredibly revitalizing after having been baked by the burning constant Australian sun beating down relentlessly.
That was when I met Jesus.
He had a long beard, long black hair, actually really long hair, parted in the middle. He had very pronounced, rosy cheeks, and a permanent smile on his face. Like the rest of us he was naked, but I was fairly sure that he had a loincloth stashed somewhere handy, just to complete his divine image.
‘Hi there, you new here? You staying at the hostel?’
Jesus was American.
‘Yeah, just checked in. Shit, it’s brilliant down here, the water is so clean.’
‘It’s the rocky bottom, filters out all the dirt. Most Aussie rivers have mud bottoms, that’s why their water is so dirty looking.’
His face emanated friendliness, and kindness. Jesus, whose name was really Carl, had a stocky, muscular body, and actually used a long staff as a walking aid. I guess he loved playing up to the role of the saviour of mankind. He certainly did it well. It was so pleasant down there by the river. Good swimming, good people. Everything was falling into place, I was loving it all. Especially considering the place I had just come from. I had money in my pocket, but I had earned it. Every last penny. I couldn’t help but reflect on where I had just recently been.
Mareeba could best be described as a part of Australia that no tourist should ever go to. Actually, probably no one should ever go there. It’s a hot, dry area, populated by hard people, living in an unfriendly environment, not designed for them, and doing it with a form of permanent anger burning inside of them. That anger seemed pretty apparent, especially whenever they saw someone a bit different from them. Like me. Maybe among themselves there was just a more subdued form of hostility. A less friendly populace, I have never met. If anyone fit the bill as being completely different to them, it was Stevie and myself. Two long haired, pot smoking, music playing hippies. But I am getting ahead of myself, let me tell you about Stevie.
The instant I had met Stevie I realised that he was intelligent and funny. I had been in some town, somewhere along the coast of Queensland, bumming around, fairly aimlessly, and completely out of money. Broke. No food. Nothing. Any money I could scrape together, I spent on roll-up tobacco, both to feed my habit, and to stave off hunger pangs. I had gone looking for the nearest St. Vincent De Paul’s, looking for a free hand out. Maybe I could get some food, or a bit of cash, anything they could spare me. They were good people, always ready to help out those in need. Anyway, that particular branch, I soon discovered, would make you do a bit of work to earn your food. Really a rather fair trade off, all in all. As I walked up to their place, I saw a long haired lout outside, hammer in hand, fixing up a wooden frame of some sort. He looked up at me and said;
‘Hi there, I’m Joseph.’
No further explanation was given, or needed.
‘Jesus would, indeed, be happy to have had you as his father. He was, as is well known, a carpenter by trade.’
I laughed. He laughed.
There began a friendship that has never ended, and never will. His opening line assured me of his intelligence, and wit. I would soon discover his many other talents. He had long frizzy hair, and an unshaven face. Together with his round metal framed glasses, he looked like a cross between a hippy, and a college professor. A college professor on sabbatical. Stevie was tall, and lean, but quite muscular looking. Soon I had also been put to the task of some such similar work, after which we had our well earned lunch. Then we found some shade, to rest from the hot afternoon sun. Stevie had a plan.
‘I’m heading up to Mareeba, to do the tobacco season. You want to come along? I’ve got an old Holden, which might just get us there, if we are lucky.’
‘I’d love to, but I can’t help out with gas money. I’m totally broke.’
‘That’s OK, I’m going up anyway, a bit of company would be nice.’
‘If we get some work I will pay you back.’ I promised.
He pointed to the guitar I had with me.
‘You any good on that?’
‘Not really, I just play a bit of rhythm. What about you? You play a bit?’
Quick as a flash he whipped out his harmonica, and blew a few blues notes. I was starting to really like that guy.
‘Good one, man, I can play a bit of background guitar to your harp. I know the basic blues chords. Sorry, but I can’t sing for shit.’
I started playing some pretty simple blues chords, and Stevie broke into a fierce solo on the harp. He was incredibly good. A real bluesman, with an endless multitude of fantastic riffs. We jammed, nonstop for at least half an hour. Then he finished on a high note, and looked at me smiling.
‘This partnership is going to work out well, Matt. Come on, let’s get this show on the road.’
We got into the most beat up old Holden I had ever seen, said our prayers, and headed off on the long drive towards the tobbacco fields of Mareeba.
The only good thing about Mareeba was the ease with which we found work. The tobacco harvesting season was in full swing, and labour was needed everywhere. These days, there is absolutely no tobacco grown at all in the area. But back then, in the late 70’s, it was the main crop. We found a farm, run by Italian immigrants, which also had accommodation for us. To say the housing was basic would be overstating it. It was rough, rough as guts. One part of the fibro cladded structure had a bedroom with two bunks, and an adjacent sitting room. The furniture was old and broken. The kitchen was next door, but you had to go outside, and then back in the kitchen door, to get to it. The shower was in the kitchen part, and the toilet was of the long-drop style, situated out the back of the house, or, probably for a better term, the shack. To the constant annoyance of the owners, we would walk out from one door, and into the other, usually in a state of partial, or total, undress. How else would you go to have a shower? Our reasoning was that If they didn’t like it they could always put in an internal door. Conditions were rough.
‘There was a fucking rat in the kitchen this morning.’
‘Did you leave the door open?’ Stevie asked me.
‘No, I think there must be a hole somewhere, where they can get in.’
‘Yeah, probably up around the drain from the bathroom, it hasn’t been made very well.’
‘Maybe it’s best to bang on the door a bit before entering, to scare them off.’
‘At least there’s none on this side, anyway. I don’t want to sleep with those bastards crawling all over me.’
I certainly agreed with him there. Australian country rats can be pretty frightening. They are big, and afraid of nothing.
Aside from the basic housing facilities, and occasional rat for company, the work itself was pretty easy. We would be sitting on seats dangling down from a tall structure, that drove along the lines of tobacco. The position of the seats, and the wheels on both sides of the enormous beast, were in exact proportion to the pathways in between the rows of tobacco. The motor was placed right up the top. As we would slowly drive through the rows you would pick off the ripe leaves, and put them in a basket down in front of you. At the end of the day the owners would hang bundles of those leaves, bound together, to dry out in one of the drying barns. Each day new leaves would be ripe for picking. Endlessly we would drive through the rows of tobacco plants. Up one row, and down the next. It was monotonous, with long hours, but not particularly physically demanding. Our free time was spent mainly reading, and playing music.
‘Matt, have you ever heard of Robert Johnson? The King of the Delta Blues, man.’
Stevie lived for his blues, it was in his blood. I loved the blues as well, but didn’t know all the artist’s names, like Stevie did. For him it was a passion.
‘No, and I doubt I would be able to play any of his stuff to your harp.’
‘Let me show you. If you pick up his basic three chord changes, you will be halfway there.’
Stevie picked up my guitar, and showed me the chords to play.
‘It’s really more about the timing of the switch. You see? Like this.’
He showed me how to do the necessary chord changes. The chords themselves weren’t difficult, it was really all in the timing. He was right, almost. After much of his patient tutelage, I became fairly apt, if not competent, at providing him with some reasonable background guitar, while he could wail off with the most fantastic blues harp I had ever heard.
‘Hey, that’s good, Matt. We will be giving concerts before you know it.’
I laughed, but wasn’t completely convinced.
‘Thanks for the words of encouragement, but I think I have scared off even the rats.’
‘Here, let me show you how to bring in another chord riff.’
Stevie was a patient teacher, but, unfortunately, I wasn’t a particularly gifted student. I never really broached more than a basic level. Mind you, with Stevie’s harp wailing along over my guitar, that was probably good enough. I gave him a platform to play on. He could play for hours, he had such a passion for it. Stevie had a cassette player, and lots of tapes of old bluesmen. Stuff from the Mississippi delta, the home of the blues. He turned me on to a lot of classic old time blues legends. The musicians I discovered there, in that shanty, through Stevie, would also become my favourites for years to come. He knew them all, and he could play their music just as well as them. He was really incredible. Unfortunately, even under the guidance of such a gifted master, my guitar skills never really blossomed.
‘Hey, look,’ I said, ‘there’s a pool table in the back bar.’
‘I’m in. I’m gonna thrash you, my old son. Matt, you are a goner.’
‘Good luck with that. Saturday arvo we would always hit the pool halls in Auckland. I, dear sir, am what is know in the business as a pool shark.’
I was kidding, of course, although I could play a mean game, if my eye was in, and I had consumed enough beer.
‘You set them up Stevie, and I’ll get some beers in.’
‘Make sure they are cold.’
I went over to the small bar area of the back bar. It was so small it was almost like an open cupboard door.
‘Hi, can I get a couple of schooners, please.’
‘You won’t get served in this room.’ replied snottily the obnoxious looking barmaid.
‘What? Why not?’
‘This room is just for the abbos. If you want some beer you have to go around to the front bar.’
It was only then that I noticed that all the customers in that back room were Aborigines.
‘Jesus, I just want a couple of beers, man.’
‘Well you won’t be getting them here!’
Now she was really pissed.
Stevie had followed the interchange with a disgusted expression on his face.
‘Now I am so proud to be Australian.’ he quipped derisively.
Dutifully I went around to the front bar, and ordered a couple of beers, from the same arsehole who wouldn’t serve me in the back bar, just two metres away. In fact she only had to move across barely a metre from where I had been, to where I then was. On the other hand, I had to exit the back bar, and return into the front bar. What a rigmarole just to get a couple of beers. In Mareeba back in those days, they really took their segregation seriously. In the front bar, seated a little further along, were a couple of cowboys, dressed in typical redneck attire, complete with their cowboy hats on. As usual. I think they even showered with their hats on. They were glaring at me, just waiting for any excuse to beat the living crap out of me. I avoided eye contact with them, and scurried back to the pool table with the beers.
‘Fuck this place man, there are some dudes in the other bar just waiting to smack the shit out of us.’
‘Some fun in this town.’ replied Stevie. ‘Although with their great stupidity they have actually placed the only pool table of the pub in the bar for the Aborigines.’
We both laughed at the irony.
‘Yeah, what a laugh. Anyway, fuck them rednecks, let’s drink some beer, and I will show you how to play pool, my friend.’
The beers flowed, we took turns at going to the front bar to buy them, and face everybodies seething wrath. The pool balls clattered, and rolled around the table. Truth be told, neither of us was particularly good at playing pool, but we certainly gave it our best shot, and enjoyed losing ourselves in the relaxing afternoon. We were just happy to have some time off work to unwind, and have a few laughs. With our bellies full of beer, and laughter on our lips, we soon forgot about the hostile menace giving us the dirty eye from the ‘Whites only’ bar. That slight touch of forgetfulness proved to be somewhat of a mistake. We had forgotten about them, but they hadn’t forgotten about us, and our reprehensible break from the unwritten racial guidelines laid down in redneck town. Out of the blue, two cowboys came into the back bar. They were the two who had been giving me the evil eye from the front bar, and they were looking for us. Something about their demeanour screamed to us that they weren’t there to challenge us to a game of pool, or to chat about football. Without a word spoken both Stevie and myself ran into the toilet, and locked the door behind us. Both of us pushed on the door to keep it shut, while the two rednecks tried to push, and kick it in. Now, something very odd happened at that stage. There we were, in serious danger of being beaten senseless, but neither of us could stop laughing, as we thought of the total absurdity of the whole situation. We were both pushed up against the door, trying to keep it closed, under the fearsome attack the innocent door suffered, laughing our heads off. It was an absolutely surreal experience. After a while the hammering on the door ceased, but we were afraid that maybe that was just a ploy to get us to go out.
‘What do you reckon, Matt? Is it safe to head out?’
‘I think it might be best to give it a while. Those two pricks might be still waiting for us. They looked pretty angry. Mind you, simmering anger seems to be the norm around here.’
We stayed in that bathroom for quite some time, until we were relatively sure that things had quietened down. And then we got the hell out of there. That was called having a few beers, and playing pool, in Mareeba in the 70’s. You couldn’t have asked for more fun.
‘Hey Matt, get out here, man. You’ve gotta see this.’
I had been lying on my bed reading when Stevie had called out. I rushed outside. From outside our hut, we witnessed the most amazing lightning storm I have ever experienced. There was no rain, just a web of lightning strikes going all over the place. It wasn’t the normal lightning that I was used to, where it generally comes from the sky down to the ground. It was like a meshwork of interlacing lightning, going in all directions. Even though the sun had long set and it was dark, when the strikes occurred, for a brief moment, it was as clear as daytime.
‘Did you see that, Stevie? For a second I could see the tobacco fields as clear as day.’
‘I’ve never seen anything like it.’
We were both so amazed we didn’t even think to be scared, and just stood outside watching, and marveling at it all. The power of nature. The unharnessed forces. Then the funniest thing happened.
‘Look, Stevie. It must be someone’s mum.’
The bosses were in the packing sheds sorting out the tobacco, having left someone’s elderly mother up in their house, about two hundred metres away. She was obviously terrified of the fierce lightning strikes, and ran screaming from the house down to the packing shed, waving her hands in the air.
‘And the winner of the two hundred metre sprint is….’ said Stevie.
We tried, and failed, to not laugh. In fact her obvious terror cracked us up totally. Probably, if we had had any sense we would have been terrified as well, but we were young, brave, and bullet proof. Then, incredibly, just as she reached the packing shed, it got struck by lightning! There was the sound of a monster explosion, and the power blew out on the whole farm. By then Stevie and I were just doubled up laughing at the whole scene. The thought of the surrounding danger just flew right over our heads. Along with the lightening.
There was one aspect that terrified us both, probably me more so. The farm was absolutely full of snakes. I mean, I had already seen plenty of snakes in Australia, but that place was the mother lode. One time, as we were driving through the rows, picking tobacco, I came across a small black and white coloured snake, curled up on a leaf having a sleep! I called out in fright to the others. The driver immediately stopped our metal monster, and everyone came to look at my source of such chagrin. All they did was to just laugh at me.
‘That fella won’t do you any harm.’
‘Are you just gonna leave him there?’
‘Why not? He’s harmless. What should we do with him? He’s just a baby.’
Of course harmless by Aussie standards meant that he wouldn’t kill you. Anything less than a three week stay in hospital was considered innocuous. Even Stevie, a city boy from Sydney, who I doubt had ever even seen a snake prior to then, got in on the act. He laughed at my state of fear.
‘Hey Matt, you are in Aussie now son, get with the program.’
‘Yeah, yeah, the big expert. Alright.’ I was not amused.
However, no one was laughing at my next encounter with a snake while we were on our picking runs. One day, around the middle of the afternoon, as the picking machine was slowly turning around, and getting lined up to head along another series of rows of tobacco, I was, purely by chance, on the seat furthest to the left. Suddenly the guy seated right at the other end came running across and… Boom! He had fired a shotgun blast at something to the left of me. I was taken completely by surprise, roused from my endless daydreaming, the only escape from the tedium of the relentless rows of tobacco. It turned out to have been a King Brown snake, very poisonous, which had been charging towards me! He killed it with that blast, and we all went over to have a look at it. It was only about eight metres from where I had been sitting. My legs were shaking. My voice, too.
‘I thought snakes were scared off by loud noise. This one looks like he was attacking me, or, I suppose, us.’
One of the more experienced people of the land had an explanation.
‘This time of year they have their babies to protect. Quite often they get very aggressive, and attack anyone who comes near them.’
This time Stevie didn’t have any of his amusing quips on hand. He was looking on in quiet contemplation. The city boy, like me, was a bit shaken. He, too, was out of his comfort zone. I turned to the guy with the shotgun.
‘I hadn’t even seen him coming at me. Shit man, thanks!’
His response was brief, but illuminating.
‘Best to keep your eyes open around here.’
Even better still to get the hell out of there, I thought to myself.
I don’t remember if we actually saw out the season, or had just had enough of snakes, rednecks, and shit. Anyway, not long after that episode, after promising to meet up again soon, a promise that would be kept, we packed up our meagre belongings. Stevie headed off towards Darwin in his trusty Holden, on a wing and a prayer, and I got the bus to Kuranda. It was with great relief that I left behind the burnt dryness of the Atherton Tablelands, and headed towards the lush, tropical growth nearer the coast. Kuranda.
‘You’ll never guess what I heard!’
Bilbo sounded pretty excited. We were sitting at our usual table, near the door, in the restaurant below the hostel. I don’t remember his real name, everyone always called him Bilbo, Bilbo Baggins. He was short, with long blonde hair, and a slightly lopsided smile. For that reason it had been decided that he looked like a Hobbit.
‘What’s up, man?’
‘Jesus is screwing Wendy!’
‘Tom’s wife, Wendy?’
‘Yeah. I just heard from that American guy.’
‘From Wayne?’
‘Yeah, he saw them sneaking off into the bushes, down by the river. He thought they were going for a secret joint, without sharing it around, so he followed them. He came across them screwing!’
I laughed.
‘Bloody hell, I wonder if Tom has any suspicions?’
‘Best not to say anything I reckon.’
‘So much for the Jesus act. Looks like he’s just another arsehole.’