ShipwrAyrcked …

Day 32: Tuesday 24 April (11pm, Ayr)

Today was another day of working through business plans and planning for the next couple of days. Not much to tell you, as I spent most of the morning taking Eddie through all the documents I’ve been working on and adding in some of his additional feedback. However, he’s given me a copy of a booklet to read, about a seaman, James Morrill, who was shipwrecked at Cape Cleveland, between here and Townsville in 1846.

The interesting thing is that this man ended up living with the Aborigines for 17 years before being found by settlers. Shelley, Steve and I learnt about him while driving around over Easter as our curiosity about how the towns around here were named led us to discover him. I missed an opportunity to buy a book about him, but now Eddie has given me a copy of his story, so I thought I would read the first page to see what it was like. I was immediately hooked – it’s fascinating! James made it to land after 42 days on a raft with three others. The story of how the aborigines found him and treated the four of them is just full of the fear and nervousness you might expect. The aborigines could see that the white people were ill and so they fed them and talked in signs to let them know they would take them back to their camp. When they got close to camp and began to fear they would be eaten alive, the aborigines warmed their own hands and placed them on the survivors to stop them shaking in fear and reassure John and his colleagues that they were OK.

The three others ended up dying in the first couple of years as they’d been through a lot, but John made it through and learnt quite a lot of their language, living as an aborigine, tracking wallabies for food, scrounging for roots, honey and breadfruit and even became a better trapper of birds than the aborigines, as he applied some skill to their ideas. He explains towards the end of the story about how the aborigines lived and he really shares a vivid picture of what life was like for them back then. Now that I know these are likely to be the ancestors of my colleagues, it feels almost a little personal now. Especially as Eddie explained to me only today how his Dad was born on the banks of the river that passes through Plantation Park. And having seen quite a bit of the bush around the region myself, I can almost imagine wandering through these lands, looking out for tracks, or stopping at a river to set a fish trap, or being rightly afraid of crocs and snakes! Though, I might have become a vegetarian! 

James eventually came across a sheep property, so after washing himself as clean as possible so they would see he wasn’t black, he revealed himself to a couple of station hands, telling them not to shoot because he was a British ‘object’. I love that he admits in the story “Of course I meant subject, but in the excitement of the moment I did not know what I said.” – just priceless for a man that had barely spoken English for 17 years! So, returned to civilisation, James asked on behalf of the aborigines that they be allowed to keep the land north of the Burdekin as it was no good to the white men anyway. Seems that no-one else thought this was a good idea, as the land was settled soon thereafter and he died only a couple of years later at the young age of 41.

I really haven’t done James’ story an ounce of justice here, because the way he tells it is so full and rich and vivid, so if you are interested, let me know as I’ve made a copy to take home. You won’t be able to put it down so lucky it’s only brief!