At about 3pm there was a knock on the door. The sight that greeted me when I opened the door is imprinted on my mind. A young man stood before me with a pack on his back. He was saturated, pale, covered in mud and obviously very, very cold. He had what soldiers refer to as the thousand-yard stare, a look that indicates someone has endured the unendurable and has retreated into themselves.
writer and photographer CRAIG SEARLE
December 25, 2006 would have to count as my most memorable Christmas Day.
First of all there was the location – Melaleuca, in the heart of the Southwest National Park. My wife Debbie and I, along with our eldest daughter Lisa, were volunteer orange-bellied parrot wardens for two weeks over the Christmas-New Year period. We were staying in the Parks and Wildlife hut and conducting daily monitoring of the parrot numbers.
We had flown into Melaleuca in a single engine Cessna 206 with only 20kg of luggage each, so careful thought had to be given to what we brought in. In particular, we decided that, apart from a few very small items, we would not bring our main Christmas presents for each other – rather, we had taken photographs of the gifts to show the recipient. Our plan for Christmas Day was to climb to the top of a local high point, Pandora Hill, enjoy the sunshine and peace, have a low-key lunch of crackers, cheese and instant soup, exchange our little gifts, and generally have a quiet day away from the usual madness of the Christmas festivities.
There were no scheduled flights on Christmas Day which meant no tourists and no bushwalkers in or out. The weather would have precluded any flights anyway – it was freezing with heavy rain and hail showers – mid-winter weather in mid-summer, and typical of south-west Tasmania.
There were four walkers from South Australia who had hiked in on Christmas Eve so, as the weather had scuttled our initial plan, we invited them to join us in the Parks hut for lunch. As the time approached and we were getting the meal organised, there was a tap at the window and we looked out to see Santa Claus! One of the bushwalkers had carried in a Santa hat, beard and sack and so we all got to sit on Santa’s knee and receive a present. Santa certainly outdid himself as each of us received a can of beer – beer found in the bushwalkers’ hut, left behind by a previous group.
A lovely lunch was followed by a game of cards and, all the while, the rain and wind lashed the hut. We were thankful to be inside and if not particularly warm then at least dry. This was a day, if you were a bushwalker somewhere on the track, for staying in your tent, snuggled down in the sleeping bag and riding out the weather. This was not a day to be walking in the south-west.
Well, so we concluded. But at about 3pm there was a knock on the door. The sight that greeted me when I opened the door is imprinted on my mind.
A young man stood before me with a pack on his back. He was saturated, pale, covered in mud and obviously very, very cold. He had what soldiers refer to as the thousand-yard stare, a look that indicates someone has endured the unendurable and has retreated into themselves. He was hypothermic and quite emotional.
We ushered him inside and started to carefully strip off his wet clothing. Apart from telling us his name, Jacques, he said very little except when he was offered a chair and a cup of tea. “A chair! Cup of tea!” he muttered in an amazed French accent.
Our hut had no heater so we turned on the gas oven, opened its door and positioned him a safe distance away. Slowly, as he thawed and dried, and as countless leeches dropped off various parts of his body, his story emerged.
Jacques, a French Canadian, and his three companions were on the Port Davey Track and, rather than sit out the weather, had decided to try for Melaleuca. “Where are the others?” we asked. “They are back there somewhere,” was his vague and rather unsettling reply. He explained that he had lost track of his friends and time, become confused and disorientated, and eventually stumbled into Melaleuca and found our hut.
“People at home said to me, ‘Jacques! Do not walk the Port Davey Track! It will end in tears!’ and my friends, when I saw your hut, there were tears!”
Later in the afternoon, with Jacques warmed, fed, dried and ensconced in one of our spare sleeping bags in the walkers’ hut, his companions struggled into Melaleuca. They were also cold and worse for wear but overjoyed to be reunited with Jacques. They retrieved a food parcel that they had had flown into Melaleuca for their arrival and looked forward to a dry hut and some Christmas cheer.
After our new South Australian friends had headed back to their hut and the Canadian walkers were settled, we sat back anticipating an early night – when there was another knock on the door. This time it was an invitation from Janet Fenton to Christmas dinner at Peter and Barbara Willson’s.
. . .
Janet is the daughter of the legendary Deny King. Deny lived much of his life at Melaleuca, mining for tin and raising his family. Janet retains that very strong connection to the south-west and, along with her husband Geoff Fenton, is a frequent resident at her original home in Melaleuca.
Peter and Barbara Willson came to Melaleuca in 1974 and mined alongside Deny for many years. When Deny died in 1991, Peter Wilson continued to operate his own mine. Both the King and Willson families built homes and lived in this rugged and remote part of Tasmania.
And so it was that we were transported in a trailer, towed by Geoff Fenton in his tractor, across the airstrip built by Deny, along a gravel track through the button grass and tin mines, to the Willsons’ home. There we found ourselves guests of the Willson and King families at a truly memorable Christmas dinner, complete with all the trimmings and some of Peter and Barbara’s famous home-brewed beer.
Many hours later we said our goodnights and climbed into our carriage for the return journey behind the tractor. Walking, slightly unsteadily, the last 500 metres back to our hut, we reflected on the day and that old saying about the best laid plans …
Our quiet lunch in the sunshine on a hill had been replaced with a visit from Santa and a fantastic fun lunch with four complete strangers while a storm raged outside. The arrival of Jacques and his companions added a note of urgency and drama to the afternoon. And finally, dinner with the Melaleuca locals. Here, in one of the most remote settlements in the world, it had been a Christmas Day to remember.
