Published: 31 Jul 2025

It is morning and Tate is on his way before the sun could show its happy face from out of the Coral Sea. Even before the first shopkeeper of Smithfield dampens down his dusty footpath, or the milkie arrives with his cart loaded with rattling churns, as he fills billy-cans and bottles left at the front gate. It is said the hardest part of any journey is the first step. A step Tate had taken many times but this journey was different as it had no real purpose and try as he may he could not convince that annoying inward voice he wasn’t running away from many things, possibly most of all himself but that was something that may solve itself within the solitude of travel.

The way is easy going as Tate follows the completed but short section of the Lamb Range road, reaching the base camp before noon while surprised to find little activity, with most of the workforce sitting on their arses smoking, some playing cards using seed pods as gambling tors, while others rest in quiet contemplation in the shade of what trees haven’t already been cleared.

One young navvy had set up a row of tin cans along a log and is having target practice with a fist full of stones, while two of his workmates appeared to be taking bets on his skill.

‘He has a good eye,’ Tate thinks in passing.

No sooner spoken when the young navvy missed his next two throws.

‘I’ve put him of his aim.’

Approaching one of the gangers Tate questions why the camp appeared casual during a week day.

The ganger remains seated as he shades his eyes from the strong sunlight. “Don’t I know you?” the ganger quizzically suggests disregarding Tate’s question.

“I think not.”

The workman is squinting to improve his vision.

“You’d’ be Freddie’s brother?”

“Yes I’m Tate the youngest.”

“I’d know your ugly mug anywhere. If you are looking for Freddie he has a couple of free days.”

“He is home but why the lack of activity on the road?”

“We are waiting for the timber cutters to bring trestle logs for the ravine ahead.” The ganger nods towards a gash in the landscape where the forest had been cleared to transverse a narrow but deep gully over a nasty looking washout.

“Are you looking for work kid?”

“Not at present.”

“I guess not; I reckon you’d be a little light for this kinda’ work.”

“I hear Ben Morgan is somewhere about these parts.”

“He was but some say he’s moved on. Even so if you are travelling you’d better watch yourself he’s a right mean bugger,” the ganger pauses and rises two fingers to his lips in suggestion, “got any bacca’?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t smoke.”

“Freddie does,” the ganger reports as if to imply bad habits were generic in the Edwards family. The ganger spies his supervisor approaching, “better look busy.”

Tate moves on towards pristine forest yet untouched by axe but well crossed by native songlines. Some of the lines became known to the lad during his many wanderings and association with the lowland natives but those who lived high in the mountains were solitary and wary of the approaching white man with his strange animals and need to cut long gashes into their forest for his travel before clearing the land for pasture.

Tate had also heard of the native’s stories of monsters and deep holes in the forest were devils lived, although during his travelling Tate had seen nothing more dangerous than stinging nettle trees and large scrub pythons, not forgetting the infamous Cassowary with its powerful legs and claws.

To the white man the forest was something that needed to be cleared to become useful. For the black man it was his pantry, his corner shop and building suppler, not that much was built other than an igloo structure of bark and bent sticks to keep out the tropical storms, the forest was also for simple carpentry to hone his hunting and fighting tools.

Although the highland natives often met with those of the coastal plain and those from the dryer arrears beyond the mountainous rain-shadow, they were generally shorter in statute than their neighbours, possibly from living for a thousand generations without the brilliant sunlight of the open plains, or the soothing waters of the Coral Sea. They were also more superstitious and had many stories of long ago when the mountains were alive with fire, said to be the breath of a multitude of devils that lived deep in the earth. It was a time when the very soil below their feet melted into a flow like river water and as red as blood while burning everything it touched.

There was a further story told by both the people of the mountains and the coastal plains of a time when the sea rose and drowned the low hunting grounds between the coral reef and the beach. That was long before the memory of parents and grandparents even great grandparents, being passed down through the generations along with tales of the dreamtime serpent that crossed the land to create the valleys. It was a time when many from the lowlands took shelter in the mountains where they remain to this day. That was after the fire devils of the mountain had calmed their breath and their holes had filled with crystal clear fresh water and the scares the devils created on the land became covered by forest but the telling remained strong enough to frighten the bravest native child towards good behavour.

In past travelling Tate had taken to following the high ridges using the native songlines that ran mostly north and south along the divide but this time he would follow the suggested path of the new road along the Barron River gorge, beyond the hilltop camp of Kuranda until he reached the settled area about a village called Mareeba. He had head from a friendly native boy of Din-Din the mighty falls on the Barron River that continuously roared with displeasure while gouging its way deeper into the ravine, also the stories of Dyrbal the devil’s hide that sunk more than three hundred feet down to its murky dark depths of eerie green duck weed and slime.

Dyrbal or Mount Hypipamee by another name had been accidentally discovered by a group of fossickers while searching for gold in the high mountains and as they hacked their way through the forest they almost fell. In doing so they may have met Dyrbal’s dreamtime creators as legend described two native lads who cut down some sacred candlenut trees and for their mischief were swallowed by the ground. Further legend related to a native woman who was, for some undescribed misdemeanour, thrown into Dyrbal and later, or so reported, her body reappeared in one of the close by twin volcanic lakes Barany and Winggina. Once again, like Dyrbal, they were created by the mischief of a couple of native lads.

To the white settlers Dyrbal although daunting had little mystery as it was nothing more than an extinct volcano.

It appeared that mischief was well documented in native belief and the punishment was often terminal.

Tate loved the native’s dreamtime stores, when possible he would seek out the native storytellers but often while asking how this or that had been created he would be told it was secrete woman’s business, or beyond daring even to mention, or beyond their totem and understanding without the appropriate initiation.

There was a native lad Tate had befriended who was neither mountain or coastal by his tribe as his parents had partnered without sanction, therefore he was illegitimate to both the Crocodile and Cassowary totems. When old enough to care for himself the lad named Tolga meaning where the forest ends became a wanderer and a boy of the forest.

Tate met with Tolga some year earlier when they were merely children at a lowland scenic hideaway known by the settlers as the Crystal Cascade, found a short distance south west of the Cairns Township. The Cascade was an odd place for him to meet with natives because of a legend relating to the drowning of a young woman although now nothing more than a fog of memory and superstition but strong enough to keep the bravest native away.

It appeared the couple in the legend were in love but prevented to be together because they shared similar totem, so the girl with much sorrow threw herself from the rocks drowning herself in view of her people and from that day any young man who chanced to swim at the Cascades, would be taken down into the water to satisfy her loneliness. Oddly the drowned native girl obviously didn’t have appreciation for white boys as on most holidays it was possible to find any number of the town’s youth skinny dipping in the clear cool water.

The legend was noted to be that from the lowlands and seeing Tolga’s mother was lowland and his father from the mountains most of the lad’s beliefs and superstitions related to those from his father’s people who were the Cassowary, therefore he disregarded the danger of the Crystal Cascade while finding it to be a worthwhile hunting ground, although he always remained cautious of his mother’s totem being the crocodile.

It was Tolga who taught language to Tate and the ways of his people both mountain and coastal, therefore Tate was more understanding of native’s ways and the terrain than any of his family or associates, often becoming the one to approach when there was a problem with the natives, or if a plant or forest fungus was safe to eat although most white people would rather go hungry than eat native food.

There was an oddity about Tolga, true he had a trusting nature and willingness to learn anything new and a sense of humour that could not be defined while laughing at anything he may not understand, the oddity was he preferred to remain naked at all times even during the many tropical downpours. In the later years Tate found the lad’s nakedness disturbing as Tolga being past puberty often becoming excited without displaying the slightest notion of shame. If Tate made comment, Tolga would answer in a dialect unfamiliar to Tate’s ears and refused to use his learned broken English or coastal dialect that Tate was accustomed too, while making a hand motion towards Tate’s trousers as if wishing Tate to join him in nakedness.

Tate declined even if he felt a strong tugging of interest but he retained enough moral instruction to understand what was proper even if his family was said to be agnostic, considered more so when old Meg Toomey from the bakery on Lake Street described Tate as a tear-about Calathumpian.

Tate liked the sound of the word and accepted it proudly with a laugh and whenever he and Meg Toomey chanced to meet she would say how are things going young tear-about Calathumpian? He would laugh and answer, Good morning Mrs. Toomey that is me for sure a Calathumpian and godless.

There were times while with Tolga and taking a refreshing dip at Machans Beach, or at some private bend on the river and keeping a keen eye out for marauding salty reptiles, Tate would join his friend in nakedness and possibly that little voice in all our heads said why not? Yet abstinence won the day as furthering desires may destroy a strong friendship.

It had been some time since Tate had seen his friend Tolga, believing it was possible during his travelling along the ridges following the Barron Gorge towards the Kuranda camp they may again meet, as that area was known to be favoured by the lad, being closer to his father’s territory and totem of the Cassowary Clan.

Tate was missing his friend’s impulsive attitude being far from that of his sister Elsie and that of the girls, even his brothers were somewhat lacking in imagination. True Wilson was more in tune with Tate’s attitude towards life but even Wilson had limitations, often siding with the others especially when it came to Tate’s passion to go-bush. Another of Wilson’s trends was well in tune with Tate but that could not be spoken and kept to quiet times in secluded places.

Tate recalls Elsie’s concern as he packed away previsions in his knapsack, his trusted hunting knife, some fishing gear an extra set of durable clothing and more.

“Those trousers are for the bin.” Elsie had declared as she stood over his packing.

“They will do for where I am going; besides Winnie has done well with her needle work.”

There was a rubbing below the trouser crotch turning into a fair size hole and if he knelt to the ground would most likely display more than decency permitted.

Elsie had taken the trousers from his pack and poking a finger suggestively through the hole she made comment, “do you want this to happen in public?”

“They will be fine besides there is no one to see me in the mountains.”

Elsie made a huffing sound as it wasn’t the trousers that concerned or any chanced displaying of his manhood but he was the youngest in her care and would be alone in the wilderness, even if of all the boys Tate was the most pragmatic, “how long will you be gone?” she had asks.

“Dunno’, I may look for work up on the tableland, I believe there is plenty offering with the opening of farming land, or in the tin mining about the village of Herberton.”

“You a tin miner!” Elsie had almost shrieked.

“You never know.”

“You will write?”

“That is if I can afford the twopenny postage.”

As Tate passed the last of the road gang’s workings he released a smile, “yes Elsie you never know,” he whispered into the tall forest trees, they whispered back giving Tate an inner feeling of serenity.

The light was fading and Tate had only travelled a short distance into the craggy hilltops. To his right side is the Barron Gorge with the river a silver ribbon far below snaking its course among the dark shapes of naked basalt. Even at some distance he could hear the sound of Din-Din as the water cascaded five hundred feet into the deep misty gorge. Realising he wouldn’t reach the upper camp at Kuranda before dark and it was dangerous to travel in such terrain at night he found a clearing to make his first camp.

Darkness was never issue for Tate as he had long realised that the only fear in the northern scrub was fear itself, or where to rest a weary head being cautious of stinging nettles, spiders and scorpions. True most of the bush spiders in these parts were harmless enough but scorpion stings burned like fire and could make you sick for quite some time. The two main spider groups were the Mouse Spider that mostly preferred open scrubland and the Redback although it was a well known fact the Redback preferred dark places like the rim of your toilet seat, with many a joke being made of Elsie setting alight old news print and running the fire about the toilet seat before squatting.

Tate smiles as he remembers his words to Elsie.

“I kangaroo the toilet seat.”

“What does that mean?”

“You squat with your feet on the rim of the seat.”

“I don’t fancy that, besides what if a spider bites you on the foot?”

“Keep your boots on sis’.”

Ants?

There were many and mostly out of site, not like the termite mounds in the open grass lands that build their mounds with the flat side facing east to west to control the extreme temperature changes.

If during a dark night you were to walk into a green ant nest hanging from tree branches you would soon realise your mistake, or sit to enjoy your lunch only to discover you are sharing the turf with a bull ant nest, whose residents have become quite recalcitrant with your intrusion.

Night brings out sounds that sunlight chases.

Tate loved darkness as it took away distraction, allowing free and deep thought. Imagination is a great natural gift that unfortunately most lack, while those blessed are often thought to be touched by an effeminate hand or considered time wasters avoiding a good and honest day’s work.

This night the tropical forest is alive with night calls, some as soft as a cricket chirping for love or the spinechilling sound of the Barking Owl whose call is often related to a woman in distress, or worse.

There are other sounds undescribed that Tate would hold in his memory to enquire of Tolga when they next chanced to meet.

“What is that sound?” Tate would ask his native friend.

“It is the Storm Bird.”

“And what is its purpose?”

“It brings the rain and if you hear two then it means flooding and time to head for higher ground. If you hear more than two you are really in trouble.”

“What if there happens to be two and it doesn’t rain?” Tate had asked.

A shoulder shrug, as contradiction of belief, like with the white man’s religion, did not allow free thinking or challenge.

It is, therefore it is and nothing more.

‘Tomorrow,’ Tate thinks as he nestles into his bedding chosen from the foliage of forest trees being cautious to avoid the Gympie-Gympie stinging tree, even with its large and beckoning leaves.

It is a warm night without need for the single blanket he carried in his knapsack.

‘Tomorrow I will seek out Tolga as I am close to a favoured spot of his.’

“Tolga,” he softly says and smiles.

The last time they met was further west where the forest meets the undulating country leading to the tableland.

As they walked the lad had proudly pointed towards a large tree, its base broad and hollowed from many years of termite attacks.

“That is where I was born,” Tolga proudly accounted.

“In a tree?”

“No you silly white boy, under the tree; it is where my mother lay down and gave me life, if I make my own clan it would be of that tree.”

“What is the tree called?”

“Kurrajong.”

“Will Tolga make his own clan?”

The native lad had laughed while pointed towards Tate, “no clan,” he said, “Tolga is like Tate – no clan.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tate make’ no clan,” the lad repeated.

Tate well understood the lad’s insinuation giving wonder how Tolga knew his inner thoughts as he had never made suggestion, even as far as avoiding anything that may relate to Tolga’s obvious sexuality. From their first meeting it was obvious Tolga was inclined towards his own and equally obvious Tate would not compromise his principles. What was annoying the lad lacked even an ounce of decorum and would make his wayward remarks even when Tate was with his brother Wilson, who would encourage Tolga, forcing Tate to protect his preference of the fairer sex.

The hour is late.

Well past that time of night when the day becomes another.

A time when it is said native spirits roam the forest.

Tate’s rest is at the edge of a rare clearing in the forest, where a large fig tree had succumb to age, falling heavily and with its descent bringing down its neighbours.

It had been a strangler fig that sprung to life from a tiny sticky seed deposited by a bird crapping on a branch high in the canopy of the host tree, from where it sucked the very life out of the host, while slowly dropping aerial roots to the ground far below.

Eventually the fig and host became one then in time the host died but not even a strangler fig tree will last forever, even after five hundred years of stormy weather it eventually becomes top-heavy and it’s mass of twisted roots no longer offer support.

Above the clearing the sky is clear and alive with stars, ‘the milkmaid has spilt her pail,’ Tate thinks, remembering stories told by the old women of the town they being the custodians of myths and legends, some of their stories were religious other akin to being pagan to which the Reverend Marsden of the Presbyterian persuasion in Smithfield would frown deeply, saying they were the devil’s words.

Come Sunday evening and there would be fire and brimstone, with much finger pointing at the male section of the congregation, especially towards any pubescent lad who may have taken advantage of a quiet space to explore his developing sexuality.

“Sinners!” Marsden would shout.

“Oh sinner thou will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.”

“Repent in the name of the lord.”

Marsden’s scorn towards the farer sex was equally condemning with his ranting loudly issued across the stuffy humidity of the small church hall in a shower of spittle and whisky fumes.

“Huh!”

‘Enough of that;’

‘What was Tola’s interpretation of the stars?’

‘He would say it is the Emu with his chicks.’

With that memory Tate gently frowns, he could not see an Emu or any other bird, nor could he see the goat, twins or any of the named constellations of the calendar year. True the Southern Crux did appear to be a cross, besides it was the choice to adorn the coming federation’s flag, being already displayed on the flag of the Victorian colony.

Again Tate discredits the native belief.

‘If so there appears to be a lot of chicks up there for a single bird to look after.’

‘What did Tolga say?’

‘You also need to consider the dark spaces between the stars as well.’

‘Although I must admit it makes as much sense as a clumsy milkmaid.’

‘And it is as strange how the male Emu is left to hatch her eggs.’

‘Stories.’

“Huh.”

‘It is strange how the native stories are in many ways similar to our own.’

A Curlew sounds its mournful cry.

It is uncommon to hear the bird so deep in the forest although Tate had heard it often along the mud flats of the Cairn’s waterfront and humoured at the way they chassed each other about while calling their mournful song.

Tate turns his ear towards the call.

Another bird answers and Tate softly laughs.

‘If the Barking Owl is chilling then more so the Curlew,’ he thinks.

‘What did Tolga say of the Curlew?’

‘I remember, he said it is the call of ancestral spirits and a messenger that often brings warning of death.’

‘Tolga said he heard its call the very day his father died.’

Tate yawns deeply; too much thinking is wearing him out.

‘Needless to say Tolga would have heard the bird’s cry on most days.’

‘It is strange how he chose that single bird to be the narrator of tragic news.’

‘Oddly in native belief many things bring bad news and most of all it was the white man in his tall canoes.’

‘At first the natives thought they were the ghosts of ancestors.’

‘Or that is what Tolga said.’

‘Tomorrow.’

‘Tomorrow I will search for Tolga.’

Gary’s stories are about life for gay men in Australia’s past and present. Your emails to him are the only payment he receives. Email Gary to let him know you are reading: Conder 333 at Hotmail dot Com

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