John's Adventures in Australia, New Zealand and Tonga

The North West Island Episode



There is just so much to say about this episode, that I'll have to subtitle it to try and keep some semblance of organization.

Where and what is North West Island?: Located in the Great Barrier Reef, North West Island is 80km off the coast of Gladstone, Queensland. It sits almost directly on the Tropic of Capricorn. It's 2km long by 1km wide, and fringed by a coral reef. It is the second largest coral cay in the Great Barrier Reef and is very unique in many ways: it has 70% of Australia's (and a good chunk of the world's) pisonia trees, which are these trees that can grow in sand and are incredibly unstable (a giant one collapsed on a guy's tent in the middle of the night nearly killing him). There is no freshwater on the island, and it is occupied by thousands and thousands of sheerwater and mutton birds, hundreds of migrating birds of all kinds, and home to a large proportion of giant sea turtles that come on shore at night to lay their eggs from December to February. The island wasn't discovered until 1840, and in the late 1890s it was mined for guano (bird poo used for fertilizer) and was used as a turtle soup cannery - in fact the boiler from the 1890s is still on the island. There is also the grave of an infant who died on the island which is still in decent shape.

How I found out about North West Island: This was a question I was asked all the time on the trip, because it is so off the beaten path, that most Australians haven't even heard of the place. This trip took a LOT of research and planning and it was totally worth it. One late night last spring or summer, probably while procrastonating on my thesis, I started going into maps.google.com looking for an island to visit in the Great Barrier Reef. This was probably during the same period when I was watching lots of episodes of Lost. I discovered a few, and found out that there's a little-known national park in Australia that allows people to camp on a few islands. North West Island had openings and there is a small ferry company that will take people there sporadically. I read somewhere on the internet that going to the island is a huge amount of work and it's usually best to find a scuba diving group that is going and see if you can join in with them. More google-searching later and it turns out that the University of New South Wales in Sydney was planning a trip there during the exact same time I was planning to go. A few e-mails later and I was joining these random strangers on the trip!

The preparation: In Sydney I got my PADI Open Water certification so that I could take full advantage of being with a scuba club and being able to dive as many times as I wanted for 10 days. The club was actually gone for 21 days, but I had to join them on the ferry that resupplied them because I was still getting certified when they were setting sail. There is no electricity or facilities other than some basic toilets on the island, so I had to bring a tent and tons of scuba equipment, a barrel of water which the ferry company supplied me, and most of the food was taken care of by the club. They did an amazing job of having some nice amenities, including a solar-powered fridge that kept meat cool (for a little while at least).

My arrival: Because the ferries can only land on the island at high tide, I had to leave Gladstone at 3am. There were some marine warnings issued by the weather service and the seas were very rough. I downed a bunch of motion sickness pills and then grabbed a mattress and tried to sleep on the floor. Standing or sitting would never have worked because I would have been knocked around too much. I managed to sleep a good four hours, and at 9am the seas calmed as we entered the calm waters around North West Island. I couldn't believe how amazing the place looked, the water was that perfect light blue you see in postcards. I spent the first few hours in a daze by how awesome it was. It helped that it was bright and sunny as well. I met up with the dive group (who I had met quickly in Sydney on my 2nd day in Australia), and it was a very unusual sight. The trip had 3 "party nights" set up, and I arrived the morning after "pirate night". I didn't realize this at first, as everyone was filthy dirty, some of the guys had mascara on and weird tatoos, and everyone was very hungover from drinking too much the night before. A good handful of them were still drunk the next morning and it made for interesting introductions. Their cure for the hangovers was more beer, making hard liquor concoctions to try to out-gross everyone else, and to smoke some marijuana and other narcotics. I was wondering what I had just got myself into.

Settling in: Once I realized that I had arrived at the most unusual moment, I took it all in stride. Everyone was happy that I came on the ferry with new supplies, and they liked to attribute their newfound food to my arrival. Everyone started cleaning up (a bit) later in the day and I got around to talking to all 27 people on the island. I was also reading The Beach by Alex Garland at the time (made into a movie with Leo Dicaprio as well), which was very fitting since I felt like I was living what I was reading. I found a spot to pitch my tent, and then did a big walk around the island. The island walk was amazing! It took me about an hour and a half, but in that time I saw dozens of stingays just swimming near the shore, birds that were swan-like and sandpipers and others, I saw a school of black-fin baby sharks swimming near the shore and I enjoyed walking slightly towards them to see them get scared and swim away with their black fins skimming through the water. I also saw a turtle swimming by and a school of rainbow-coloured fish that I later learned were Parrot Fish. I was immediately impressed.

The eerie first night: I am so glad that I was never marooned all by myself on North West Island, because I would have freaked out. At night there are these birds called muttonbirds that arrive on the island. They scream EXACTLY like crying babies who are being tortured. Seriously, it is the freakiest sound you will ever hear. It being dark all around you makes it worse. To freak you out all the more, these birds are idiots on land. They don't know how to land or take off properly, and they are attracted by lights. As a result they tend to fly right towards your head or tent or the nearest tree at full speed and then bash right into you. They are pretty big birds too, we're not talking about sparrows here. As someone with an irrational fear of animals, being in a situation where the Hitchcock movie The Birds is re-enacted every night, it was not the ideal situation. Every morning as the sun gets up (around 5am), they head toward the sun and go and fly over the ocean for the whole day catching fish. I made the very big mistake of pitching my tent right on the muttonbird runway, so every morning at 5am about 200-300 muttonbirds would crash into my tent (sometimes flapping incessantly at the tent waiting for it to give way) before making their way to the ocean. I had a nightmare wakeup call every single morning.

The people: The people were all so interesting. Everyone seemed to be roughly my age, if not older. There were also two other Canadians on the trip (one from Ancaster, Ontario where my extended family is from). There were also a few German and Polish people on the trip, everyone had a friend in Sydney that had referred them to the trip. It was all strange because I arrived half way through the trip and everyone had already figured out who their friends would be. There was the cool frat-house party people who were friendly at first, but after realizing I wasn't joining them in their excessive drinking and smoking it became clear I didn't really fit in. There were also a few very strong personalities - people who had to have things their way and created all kinds of trouble. They also liked to lecture the group and freak out all the time. I ended up hanging out with people who were also in my position, the foreigners. It was strange to be the "foreigner", I've never truly been in that social position before. I was hanging out with the Germans, Poles, a turk (who looks exactly like Jay from Montreal), and a Burmese girl. There were a few Australians who weren't into the partying that also hung out with us as well. I think the people and dealing with such extreme and different personalities was a real eye-opener.


The diving: This was what I came here for. The water was very clear, light blue, and the coral was glorious. Even more glorious was the tropical fish. On my very first dive I saw a Lionfish, which is cool for a few reasons. 1 - they look very beautiful 2 - they are poisonous 3 - they are uncommon; and 4 - Captain Picard had one on the USS Enterprise. I also saw some sort of reef shark that just sits in a hole and stays quiet. I also saw a manta ray, which was less common than the stingrays (Steve Irwin of Crocodile Hunter fame died of the common stingray which is shocking, because I came so close to dozens of them!). My skills improved on each dive and I came to really enjoy my experience of breathing underwater. It's surprisingly non-athletic and calm.

Giant Sea Turtles: One of the coolest things about the island was the fact that giant seat turtles (larger than a kitchen table) come on shore at this time of year at night to lay their eggs. They walk up the beach, leaving these tractor-like tracks behind them, they dig a big hole for about an hour and then lay their eggs before going back in the ocean. They actually don't mind people watching, so you can get quite close to the sea turtles during the entire process so long as you don't make too much noice and save the flashlight for the eggs at the end. This was one of the coolest things about the trip. On the last night we even saw some baby sea turtles walking along the beach.

The Weather: I had very bad luck. Actually, all of my weather in Australia generally sucked. I generally hit a bunch of rainy days on the island. I never saw a single sunset on the 10 days I spent on the island. But, every single day there were a few hours of sunshine, and it never rained continuously for more than a half a day. The temperature was always around 32 degrees during the day and 25 degrees at night. I saw a few amazing nights of bright stars shining in the sky, which was awesome. Also, that feeling that you're on an island and literally away from the rest of the world is one of the most beautiful, but also frightening experiences.



The sick: OH yes, and everyone got ultra sick for 2 days. Massive vomiting and wanting to die. Then it all went away.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008